Things I Love About the Big Island

• Hitchhiking! It's easy, fast and safer than at home. Free as well!
  
• Coconuts and many wonderful fruits grow in abundance everywhere. Lilikoi! Avocado! Also free!
  
• Rainbows and moonbows make my day or night!
• Domestic animals gone wild! Hawaii features feral pigs, goats, horses, turkeys, and even donkeys! (Sadly, also cats and dogs who are less able to fend for themselves.)
• The Hawaiian language is beautiful and fun to get the hang of as it is written phonetically. Humuhumunukunukuapua'a! Also, the locals speak Pidgin which is a lot of fun to listen to and incorporate into your speaking. Shoots Brah! Mo Bettah!
  
• Big dudes playing ukulele. It is just the tiniest guitar being played by a giant man and I love it! I also enjoy when anyone plays uke on the bus or in public.
• Honu (turtles), dolphins, manta rays, sharks and whales and all the beautiful creatures of the sea.
• Mauna Kea Observatory and the clear nights for star viewing.
• Black sand, white sand, and green sand!? Kick ass beaches!
  
• Fresh seafood! Poke, mahi mahi, ahi, it's all tasty.
• Pakalolo! The green grows here like back at home except outdoor, year-round. Comparable prices too.
  
• The bus is free even if it is infrequent.
• Shaka it to me! The shaka or "hang loose" hand signal is good fun to give and receive.
  
• Aloha Spirit. The people here are giving, friendly and generally helpful. Aloha is in the air.

Makalawena, Pololu Valley and Hawi

This has been a great week for us, filled with radventure and new sights!

We left Hilo on Monday to go to our new farm and found it to be more than adequate. Our hosts are a lovely couple, Norm and Lisa. Norm is a direct descendant on Kamehameha, the first Hawaiian Chief to unite the Hawaiian Islands. She is a feisty little powerhouse of a woman! Lisa is a sweet, intuitive lady and a great cook (chocolate coconut creme pie!) originally from Tennessee.

They have 20 acres of land outside of the town Na'alehu in the southern part of the island. It is considerably drier here than back up in Hilo/Puna area. The farm is in the early stages of growing pineapples, tomatoes and many other tasty things. We have to be careful to not wander off of the paths because there is a lava tube running through the land and if you are not careful you can fall into a puka (hole) 50 ft deep! There is also a beautiful Ohia forest and many native plants.

We worked two long days weeding and cleaning house and then we were set free to wander the island again. Our hosts gave us a ride up to Kekaha Kai State park north of the Kona airport where we hiked to the beach over a field of chunky a'a lava. We took a break by the abandoned Magoon house and kept on north over more lava to the hidden treasure of Makalawena Beach. We swam and watched the sunset and camped in the trees. In the morning we were woken up by the wild goats that wander around that area. It's private land and the caretaker nicely told us that we wouldn't get away with camping there another night.

So we hiked back out to the highway, scoring five young coconuts on the way! Jay got a wasp sting through his shirt but I think he would say it was worth it. Coconut water is full of electrolytes and it super thirst quenching.

I was watching the planes fly overhead while we tried to hitchhike northwards and feeling homesick for Canada knowing that we are flying out of that airport in two months. We were told it is more difficult to hitchhike on Kona side due to most of the traffic being tourists but we only waited about fifteen minutes and a white Mustang convertible pulled over! The most obvious of tourist rental cars!

I knew the driver, Kevin, was a Canadian within five minutes of chatting with him. Mostly because his sentences were punctuated with the f-word. We blasted some classic rock tunes including Loverboy and he drove us to Hapuna Beach, a beach often judged the best in the country. And it was so nice! After a swim and some sun we all went to get food farther up the coast.

After local grass-fed beef burgers (yum!) Kevin graciously drove us to our next camping destination, Pololu Valley. What a great guy! I got my taste of Canada after all. At the Pololu Lookout we ran into some cool kids including a girl from Salt Spring Island and then we ventured down into the valley.

This was a perfect spot for camping! I'll post photos soon! Black sand beach, sand dunes covered in tall trees and a lake in behind. There are no facilities, you have to bring all of your own water but it is not crowded at all and is entirely mystical!

When we hiked out the next day we got a ride back into Hawi with yet another Canadian from Vancouver Island. We had planned to hitchhike to Hilo but after two and a half hours we gave up and went back to Hawi to get a hotel room. Nothing beats a bed and a hot shower after a week of working hard, hiking hard and sleeping in hammocks. Hawi is a pretty little town in North Kohala. We plan on coming back up here to whale watch (they mate and calve between here and Maui) and do some more camping before we leave.

We have almost made it around the whole island! Three sleeps until star mountain!

Southwards to Ka Lae

Tomorrow we will take a two hour bus ride to check out a new farm located near the southern tip of the Big Island, actually the southernmost point in the USA. The people there have gone to great lengths to preserve the native trees on their property which is admirable as many residents on the island choose to flatten their acres completely. The trees create a wind break in this particularly windy area known for wind farms and the freshest air in the world. I'm really looking forward to seeing a different part of the island and we'll be riding the bus through Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Pretty cool.

This weekend was a welcome respite from our travel schedule, allowing me to catch up on correspondence (skype!) and giving us a chance to plan our next move. We've both felt pretty overwhelmed by the fact that we've been here on Hawaii for a month and have only seen a tiny portion of the island. It will be really good for us to move on to a completely different scenery.

I've been spending a lot of time this weekend following the news on the shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Having spent much of the past two years traveling around and living in America, I have become much more interested in news here and abroad. There is something about the heated political atmosphere of this country that is way more engaging than that of Canada's stuffy parliamentary system. That being said, most of my Canadian friends are well-informed and unbiased thinkers who seek out many sources before forming opinions.

I, like many Americans, react emotionally to everything so it is a great resource to me to have friends like these who I can take a cue from and see the bigger picture represented by many perspectives and cultural influences. As a highly effusive, emotional person, I give thanks to the rational!

I reflect often on the subtle differences between the US and Canada. I've met many intelligent young Americans who are university educated and still react to the word "socialism" as if it's an attack on their essential liberty. Yet, we are often asked by Americans what it is like to have universal health care. My reply is always, "Awesome!"

I don't feel pride in my nationality, rather I feel fortunate for it. We recently acquired a wonderful friend with type 1 diabetes. He is so busy worrying about where the money for his insulin is going to come from that he doesn't have time to chat about politics. He is also one of the most open-minded people I've met in America. Sweet and unassuming and resilient, he is an example of what is most important; the value of human life.

A New Opportunity

We found a new farm to try out! It's in the Puna district, close to some interesting sights including Lava Trees State Park, hot spring pools and tidepools. We went to check it out today and we were both impressed by the existing infrastructure and orchards.

The cabin we will be staying in is spacious and features a real bed! As a couple, it is fairly important to us to have space to be together and also not feel too crowded. I am generally happier and more productive when I have ample space to inhabit.

There are tons of mango trees, avocados, tangerines, pineapples and the list goes on. Lots of weeding and cane grass clearing to catch up on. The property recently changed hands so not much has gone on in the past little while. We will most likely get to do some carpentry projects while we're there such as building a chicken coop.

I'm looking forward to getting into the garden routine and exploring the area. Lots of calm nights reading by candlelight and playing ukelele.

Every Day is an Adventure!

We're back in Hilo again! I've adopted Bob (our couchsurfing host here) as my uncle because then I won't feel so bad showing up at his door and crashing on his futon when things don't work out elsewhere. He doesn't seem to mind at all. In fact, I think he likes us!

The place we went to check out today was outside of Pahoa Town in the Puna district, the eastern most point of the island. This is what they call the "Wild West" of Hawaii, which seems counter-intuitive because it is to the east but it makes sense because it is the newest part of the islands. An undeveloped final frontier made up of intermittent lava flow over the last few hundred years. This area is world famous for black sand beaches and proximity to the volcanoes but is locally famous for the amount of hippies, squatters and organic farms! Whoda thunk it?

We were picked up in Pahoa by the proprietor and he seemed like a nice enough guy but when we pulled into "the farm" it became very apparent that this was a worse situation than the one we had just left. On the ride there he mentioned just having gotten rid of a bunch of losers and scabies. That really should have been the tip off. We should have gotten out of the car and saved the next hour of our lives.

The "farm hostel" was a bunch of open air, thrown-together, shacks with tin roofs. Basically a garbage dump with a sort of kitchen. There was a lady there covered in what they call "haole rot" and scabs from a sun burn. (Haole is the local word for white person or mainlander.) Hoooooo eeeee! Our accommodation was a platform 6 inches off the ground with no walls and a futon frame covered in moldy pillows and foam. Did I mention that we were expected to pay $20 a night for three nights before our work trade would start?

As soon as we were left alone, I started to cry. I am not expecting a hotel here but this is squalor, this is an absolute sham of a hostel or farm. I can't even believe that this place is in the WWOOF book. I was appalled and totally grossed out. Jay was trying to get me to pull it together and I was really trying but after a good look around we both gave up, put our packs on and said goodbye. We hitched rides back to Pahoa and waited for the bus while a local crack head regaled us with tales of drunk-driving and a loveless childhood.

The bright side is that after seeing this place, the gulch looks like a four star hotel! We will continue to look for more opportunities but in the meantime it is nice to know that we have a place to stay that only expects 10 hours of us weekly.

Big Island

We're on the Big Island in the city of Hilo currently. Shortly we will depart our couchsurfing host and head up the road to a homestead we found on the internet and have been in contact with since September or something. We're hoping to help them in their farming endeavors and to get a nice place to camp in return. Sounds good to me!

We've spent the last two nights drinking beer and watching documentaries with our host, Bob. He's got a wide selection and knowledge of music so we've got an overlap of taste going on. We chatted about X, an early LA punk band and last night we watched two docs, one on New York Doll turned Morman, Arthur Kane and another on seminal Canadian metalheads, Anvil.

I'm looking forward to being out of civilization for a while, getting my hands in some rich, volcanic soil. Once we're settled, we shall go adventuring the island looking for rainforest and volcanoes and undersea realms.