I have been having a hard time getting the internet to work here. If you sit in a certain location, you usually have one bar but it doesn’t always work. I even had to spend $30 to get the internet. Nice. Anyways, Monday was a great day. We left at about 8:30, grabbed breakfast, & drove about 100 miles to Volcano National Park. We went & saw the steam vents & then headed to a glass blowing studio that was nearby. We were able to watch the artist working on some glass, which was great. He had two big dogs & they were adorable! They were massive, but so sweet. We bought some stuff, & then headed back to the park.
We parked, & then set off on the Kilauea Iki Trail. It was a four mile hike that went along the side of the crater, dropped down into it, went across, & on the other end zigzagged back out of the crater. It was beautiful. On the rim of the crater there were tons of trees & plants, but as soon as you got to the bottom, it was like a barren wasteland. It was the site of the 1959 eruption & was a lake of lava. One interesting thing is that the crater is still sinking. Apparently it sinks about an inch a year, which is pretty crazy! The hike took us about two hours & then we headed back to our resort. We were all pretty wiped out! We got back pretty late, grabbed some dinner, & then watched True Grit. It was really good, but I wasn’t a huge fan of the ending. It was a bit depressing.
Yesterday, we go up, ate breakfast, & headed to “Aloha Kayak”. We got outfitted with snorkel gear, met our two tour guides, & then followed them down to Honaunau Bay. I never did catch the name of one of the tour guides, but the other guy was named John. They were both super nice, funny guys. Anyways, they unloaded three kayaks & got everything ready to go. Ang & I were in one kayak, John was alone, and then my mom & the other guy were in the last one. We took off into the open ocean & traveled about two miles down the coast. Ang & I sort of sucked at first, but we got better after a while. We couldn’t go in a straight line for very long. Anyways, we were going along & all of the sudden there were a ton of dolphins in front of us! It was so amazing! There was even a little baby one! Adorable!
After the dolphins left, we continued on until we arrived at some cliffs. John hopped out of his kayak, climbed up the cliff, and jumped into the water. Ang went next. She didn’t quite go all the way to the top, but she did great. I really wanted to go, but wasn’t sure I could make it up the cliff! Plus I was a bit worried about getting back into the kayak. Anyways, next we headed to a lava cave. We backed our kayaks into it & floated in the cave for a little bit. It was really cool. Then we took off back along our route to the bay. We were about halfway there when John pointed out a turtle. It was so adorable! He was just hanging out in the middle of the ocean. At first you could only see his shell (which was massive) but then his little head popped up! It was so awesome! John said it was pretty rare to see a turtle in open waters, normally you see them closer to the shore. After the turtle disappeared, we continued on our way.
Once we got back to the bay, we ate lunch, & then got ready to do some snorkeling. It was so much fun! It took a while to get used to breathing through the tube thing, but it was definitely worth it! I saw so many fish! My favorite fish was this long, thin, silver one. It was so strange looking! I’m honestly not sure how long we snorkeled for, but we got out of the water, chatted with the tour guides for a bit, & then hit the road. It was a ton of fun. Unfortunately, I got sunburned! Apparently I didn’t do the greatest job putting on my sunscreen. I can’t remember the last time I was burned like this. It totally sucks! Anyways, we headed back to our resort, showered, grabbed dinner, & a couple of movies. We watched Your Highness (worst movie ever) & Bridesmaids (hilarious). Well, we are about to set off on our adventure today! I’ll try & update later… If the internet works! So far I have been unable to get any pictures up.
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