Friday, December 2, 2011

Arrival: Hawaii, the Big Island




Picture of flying Greyhound! Disgusting terminal in LAX.

Flight went smoothly although I almost missed my flight from LA due to not paying attention to details. Landed at 1:30 am in my body - 8:30 local time. And the airport is all open. What i mean is no full walls. Open-air airport Loving this island:). Heike was there to meet me.

No issue with time change because I slept on the plane and then got 12 hours last night. Feeling great now.

Hilo is a very real town. Not pretentious. Not yuppified. And oh the fruits!


Eating lillikoi, a passion fruit here.

Great hostel. Met nice folks. Hawaiians are very, VERY friendly. The language is very confusing and the street names often look the same: 10 letters long and all start with k.

Rained all afternoon. Poured tonight. We're at a campground on the ocean. This is the rainy side of the island. The side the has deep gulches formed by all the rain. And jungles of plants growing thick and tall. We have a camping permit to stay at a valley that's an 11 mile backpack across the most ridged area of the coast on the northeast section of the island. We explored it on google earth last night. It's going to be quite challenging. And now with this storm all day long I'm concerned that the hike is too dangerous. And there's not anyone to ask about it. We'll see what the weather is doing and then make our decision. If it's raining tomorrow we'll bag the hike and head to the west and sunny side and give the Hilo side a rest for now.

We have decided to stay on this island the whole time. Too much to see and do!

Off to sleep!