Elly Extravangaza, Hamakua Coast

After our adventures in Volcano, Elly and I continued around the island to the east shore and came to Hilo. Years ago it was a fishing town, but that is now a distant memory and it has become one of the most beautiful cities on the island. Unlike the Kona side, there aren't many sandy beaches so the tourism here hasn't taken off and it's much more lived-in by the locals. It's also home to the most gorgeous bay I have ever seen. Big and very sheltered from the ocean, the whole town forms a ring around the bay. Elly and I stopped by the farmer's market for some lunch snacks and sat at the Lili'uokalani Park enjoying our lau lau and tasty fruits.

Of course we had to make our foodie stops along the way. On the road we found the Hilo Brewing Company where we got a tour of the roasting room and a little education in the various stages of roasting and flavoring coffee. And we got to try a bunch of different samples of that gorgeous Kona coffee. Then we came across the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Factory and it was heavenly. The driveway is a few miles of macnut orchards and at the end is a tasting room with all sorts of nutty delights: chocolate covered, Maui onion and sour cream, wasabi, garlic. Hmm, hmm! They had a little automated factory tour hosted by a dancing, singing macnut with buttons where you could pick the language...Japanese was the best.

We also had some supplies to fetch. Specifically, Elly needed a machete for the bounty of tropical fruits perpetually begging to picked on the roadside. Now, in case you haven't picked up on it yet, dear reader, Hawaii is an unusual place. Where do you suppose that we went for this deadly implement? WalMart of course. Not only did they have a machete, they had multiple varieties, and we found one for only $5. Seems its a common garden tool around here, not a weapon for Rambo wannabes. Elly was delighted and took to chopping just about anything she could get her hands on, including her first banana tree, a sugar cane. and any random snack foods that needed cutting. And that was just the first day.

We spent the better part of our first afternoon in Hilo trying to find lodgings. We did not plan ahead, and so ended up driving around looking at many an incarnation of the "shitty-and-overpriced-hostel." We even found this creepy old bed and breakfast that was clearly haunted by Miss America 1941 whose pictures were everywhere about the house; the Victorian furniture, lack of lodgers and way-too-quiet aura made us realize that, though fascinating, we definitely did not want to sleep there. But all the searching was well worth it when we found The Inn at Kulaniapia Falls. We got a screaming deal and it was by far the loveliest place we had found so far. And, get this, we had our own private waterfall just steps from our room. The hosts were super gracious, the breakfast was phenomenal and we began our morning there with quick walk down to the 150 foot waterfall and a leisurely swim in the gorgeous pond. It was surrounded by vines, big tall trees and the mist of the falling water. I wanted to live there forever.

The drive from Hilo back to Hawi on the north end of the island was along the Hamakua coast. We had heard that this was the most beautiful drive on the island and we were not disappointed. We drove past deep gulches and tall waterfalls, through gorgeous old banyan groves and eventually wound our way back up through Waimea. On the north side of the island, Waimea is cattle country with soft grassy hills and big wide views of the sun setting over the ocean. We could even see Maui in the distance across the smooth water. The diversity of the island is amazing, from the rocky lavascapes of Kona, to active volcano on the south end, over to the green, lush Hilo side and back up to the pastureland on the north end. We did a tour of the whole coastline in a few days and it was spectacular.

Elly Extravaganza, Volcano

After our drive down the Kona coast and around the south point, Elly and I kept going east around the island and came to Volcano. (They aren't real creative with their town around these parts.) On this end of the island is a real, live, active volcano--Kilauea has been erupting regularly for 26 years. It flows all the way down into the ocean, continually adding to the mass of the Big Island. Lucky Hawaiians...they're the only Americans for whom ocean front property is a renewable resource.

We happened to find the most darling lodgings at a little place called the Inn at Volcano (not to be confused with the Volcano Inn at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park). Here's what we loved about the place:

• The sweet communal kitchen and living area with a cozy fireplace (a big plus since it was rainy and cold)
  
• A killer hot tub overlooking a beautiful garden and koi pond (the best spot for morning coffee and perusing the National Enquirer)
• Funky little lodgings from the 1800's with ceilings so low that Elly was literally inches from hitting her head at every moment
  
• An amazing VHS collection, complete with every horrible film made between the years 1989 and 1996 (I know you were wondering where you could find such hits as Two Much and Dr. Giggles...look no further)
  

We got to the hotel just in time for cocktail hour, which we celebrated with our new fancy cups and a game of cards on the lanai overlooking the advertised "virgin rain forest" (really just some jungly looking trees, but still very lovely and tranquil).

The next morning we set to exploring the Puna side of the island. It's gets a lot more rainfall over here so everything grows like crazy and its muggy and soupy as hell. It must be something in the air that makes folks a little nutty. I heard lots of warnings from folks on the north end of the island about staying away from the Punatics--the crazy hippies who live on trust funds or dope money, and who occasionally get a little overly enthusiastic about their property boundaries by wielding their firepower. Elly and I made a point not to jump any fences.

Our foodie stop of the day was the Volcano Winery. I thought myself quite the swanky hostess to be able to take my wine aficionado friend to taste some grapes while on a tropical island. I quickly realized that this was the worst place for me to make a good impression of my taste and distinction as a wine lover. I didn't have a clue how many ways you could make wine completely unpalatable until we encountered this establishment. They served our tasting in tiny little shot glasses with stems (wine glasses for very tiny people) and even this modest amount was too much. We found ourselves pouring out the sample when the nice lady's back was turned. The real piece of resistance of the tasting was the sweet dessert wine that they blended with black tea. It tasted like really bitter cough syrup mixed with over-steeped cold English Breakfast. Horrid. But Elly did get some great socks at the gift shop.

In addition to its crazy hippie population, Puna is known for its beautiful coral reefs and warm ponds heated by the volcano, or so we'd been told. Elly and I went searching for one warm pond in particular, lured by the romantic name--the Champagne Ponds. The locals told us that we had to park at the end of a long dirt road, make sure to leave our windows down so that they didn't get broken when our car was inevitably ransacked by hooligans, and to walk across a mile of lava rock to find our way to the beautiful heated pools. So we trekked across the hot black rock only to find some rather disappointing brackish (and not at all warm) little bay, only to discover that the shore was adjacent to a small suburban neighborhood, completely accessible by road.

Do you see my angry finger pointing out the long stretch of black, hot and unforgiving lava which we had to walk back over after our disillusioning visit to these supposedly glorious "champagne" ponds?

Do you see the ridiculous footwear and inadequate sun cover that my companion was so foolishly wearing for this long, hot and arduous walk back to our stranded rental car?

We were a little burnt, our shoes pretty mangled and pretty disappointed by the time we walked all the way back again. Luckily, at least, our vehicle was not ransacked by Punatics. Which was truly fortunate, because we were desperately in need of some refreshments. We pulled into the nearest town, Pahoa, which was just as charming as all the other small towns of this island. It had a tiny little main street with clapboard facades and a savior of a Mexican restaurant where we chowed down on nachos and lilikoi margaritas.

We actually came to the lava flow by accident, after having gotten turned around on the way back to our darling hotel. After the morning debacle to the warm ponds, we were planning to don proper footwear, dig out some headlamps and grab some marshmallows to roast over the steaming magma. Imagine our surprise when we happened upon the entrance to the lava flow at sunset and found that we did not need any of those supplies. It was like Disneyland, complete with everything a girl could need or want for a quick jaunt down to the ocean to view the lava. There were folks selling flashlights, a roach coach with plates of steaming Hawaiian food and vendore with big photos of the lava and volcano all matted, framed and ready to hang back at home. It felt like a Friday night football or a U2 concert with the crazy-bright lights and the parking attendants. Super touristy.

It really was a short walk down to the ocean, exaggeratedly well marked with what seemed to be median markers set out by a blind person. We really didn't need sensible footwear or headlights or anything. There was a crowd of Japanese tourists with orange reflector vests that single-handedly led our way in the dimming light. And it wasn't that far. We especially didn't need those marshmallows because the lava flow was at least a half mile from where we were. It was clogged with tourists and the lava was hard to see from our vantage point, so eventually Elly and I took to photographing and observing our fellow tourists...much more interesting.

On the dark way out, Elly and I followed these nice little old ladies with flashlights back to the parking lot and bought a spoon coconut from a dread locked young man who chopped it open for us to sip on our drive home (another score for the straw-spoons). We were pretty beat by the time we got back to our hotel to watch our VHS video and drink fruit juice and rum cocktails from our coconut.

Elly Extravaganza, Kona Coast

Elly finally arrived last week and we had a whirlwind trip of adventuring around the island. I tried to be diligent and post while on the road, but finally had to admit that my iPhone cannot do everything and just enjoy the trip. It was so action-packed that I decided to post installments. This island is so beautiful and we were able to see so much of it, I don't want to leave anything out.

As soon as Elly touched down we raced over to a hula competition to see a spectacle that I can only describe as once-in-a-lifetime. I'd been looking forward to it all week and Elly's plane finally arrived just in time for us to make it to the performance. The cultural mish-mash that I am about to describe is truly mind-bending. Imagine the following three things all on one stage:

1. Hula
2. Old people
3. Thriller

Strange as is might sound, Elly's introduction to the Big Island was a tribute performance of Michael Jackson's Thriller performed by troop of senior citizen hula dancers at Hawaii's annual Kapuna Hula competition. These peeps went all out, with lights, a fog machine and an MJ song medley. If only some of the pictures had turned out...

The next morning we formed the loosest of plans and decided to do a round-island tour and just stop where ever we felt the urge. So we hit the open highway in our shiny red rental car and drove south from Kona. Our first road stop was for supplies, and as you can see, we really got the essentials. A label maker, wine-opener, road sodas and a copy of the National Enquirer. (Did you know that Brad and Angelina almost split up over his hash addiction?!? Shocking!) By far the real star power of that shopping trip went to the traveling sippy cups with a freezable outer shells. They even came with straw-spoons, perfect for eating all the delicious tropical fruits we encountered along the way. With this supply-kit, we were ready to do some serious exploring.

We really wandered that first day. I think it took us about six hours to make it down an hour and half of coastline. We stopped to taste some fruit from a coffee bush (vaguely sweet), frequented some roadside produce stands, found a beautiful old cemetery, taking lots of pictures of the elaborately engraved headstones, and stopped to chat with an old man named Bones about his pony rides (sadly you need an appointment).

Our foodie destination of the day was a little town at the southernmost part of the island (and the southernmost part of the United States) called Na'alehu. We stopped into a little place called the Shaka Bar (complete with a picture of the Pres giving a shaka to the camera), had some Hawaiian beer on tap and tasted the most delicious bar food I think I've ever had. The house special is a smoked ahi dip that the owner caught and smoked himself, served with piping hot tortilla chips. It was heavenly and I pressed him for the recipe, but it was like pulling teeth.
"What's in this?" I ask.
"Just ahi..."
"Really," I say. "What about bacon...it tastes like there's bacon."
"No bacon. Just ahi. And dill."
"Huh...what about sour cream. It tastes creamy."
"No, just mayonaise."
On and on it went until I extracted all the ingredients. It made me think of that scene with Steve Martin from The Jerk where he's getting kicked out of his mansion and keeps picking up lamps and dogs and telephones as he's leaving, all the while claiming that he doesn't need any of it.

Just a stone's throw away from Shaka Bar is Hona Hou, a diner which I had heard has the best macnut pie in the world. Elly and I wandered over there and both of their varieities with some kona coffee. The traditional pie is really similar to pecan pie and it was outstanding. I love me some pie, and this was definitely in the top ten. The other variety was banana cream with a layer of macnut on the bottom. Not as great, but still worth the stop.

Our last road stop of the day was the black sand beach. Elly and I jumped in the surf and swam around in the big soft waves. Our feet got all black from walking on the beach, and we stopped to pose with a gigantic sea turtle sunning himself on the beach. He was so docile and lovely. It was a great first day.

Elly Extravaganza

I'm sitting here in a shitty beach condo in Kona waiting for my girlfriend Elly to fly in for our vacation from my vacation around the Big Island. Lovely Elly is the gal who took me on the best wine tasting of my life in Oregon and has become a dear friend in the past few months. We were both dealing with monumental breakups, bonded over too many dirty martinis (with amazing Gorgonzola stuffed olives) and have been tight ever since.

There must be some cosmic force with a healthy sense of humor who really doesn't want Elly to show up here, because I have been getting the most comical travel updates from her. Most of my conversations with Elly start with "wait til you here this..." and end with both of us relaying the latest crazy life events and lamenting that both of our worlds seem to be imploding in on themselves like collapsing black holes; they're the best kind of heart-to-hearts...you start out blue and end up laughing in that snarffly, embarrassing sort of way. The travel updates have been no different.

A week ago, Elly forwards me her flight itinerary so that I know when to pick her up at the airport. I notice that her return flight is a week later than what we had talked about on the phone, so I point it out thinking that she must have just accidentally picked the wrong return date. She contacts the airline and they want 150% more than she paid for the original ticket to change it. So we laugh and decide that she should just stay longer...win-win in my book. Then yesterday I get a voice mail from Elly as I'm on my way to pick up both her and the rental car: "Wait til you here this...there was a riot at the ticket counter and I'm on my way back to San Luis." I think that I must have heard wrong, so I call her back. Sure enough, the ticketing agents in San Francisco were taking forever to check folks in, there was line of customers all waiting to catch their international flights and things started to get agitated. Eventually someone in line chucked something or other across the ticketing counter, all hell broke loose and 200 people missed their flights, including Elly.

So she drives the 4 hours back to San Luis on the promise that she'll get on the first flight out this morning and be on the island before noon, and first class at that. Only this morning, I get another update saying that she got bumped and won't be in until tonight. Oh, and her return flight keeps mysteriously changing dates in the airline's computer system. It's doing this little pirouette...the 20th...the 27th...the 20th...the 27th. So I have no idea when she's getting here and no idea when she's leaving. All I know is that when she does arrive, we'll drink some awesome wine, tell lots of stories that start with "wait till you hear this..." and drive around the island in my shiny red rental car with the music blaring. I'll make sure to post some pictures of our adventures this week. Until then, at least I get to catch up on my blogging...

Mauna Kea Adventure

This past weekend I got a radical reminder of the fact that I live on a giant volcano in the middle of the ocean. I went with some friends to the top of Mauna Kea, the tallest mountain in the world (13,796 feet from sea level). I know, you thought it was Mount Everest, but Mauna Kea is only the highest if you start measuring from the sea floor (33,476 feet), which I guess is kind of cheating since no one will actually start climbing from the sea floor, but it's still pretty cool. Mauna Kea is one of five volcanoes that form the Hawaiian island archipelago. It's no longer active, though there are still active peaks on the south side of the Big Island; both Mauna Loa and Kilauea still erupt regularly.

On our drive there I was picturing a more mountainy mountain, but it was really just a big pile of red dust. Not that is wasn't amazing. The peak sits above the cloud line, making it a totally surreal experience, like being in an airplane. And it is a major astronomical observatory, so there were lots of spherical telescopes on the mountain top. It felt like being on Mars, with all the red earth and sci-fi architecture. And it was really cold. It was about 50 degrees on the mountain top and about 90 at the ocean. Since it's still summer there was no snow, but the mountain regularly has a white layer. (The mountain is named for its regular snow cap--kea is Hawaiian for white.) Sometimes I forget that I live on an active volcano 2000 miles from the nearest continent where you can snowboard and sit on a black sand beach all in the same day. Shit howdy, this place is awesome!

As we found our way back down the mountain, listening to some horrible Hawaiian radio, we all felt a little euphoric from the gorgeousness of the mountain top. It was getting late so we stayed at a friend's beach house in Puoko, a tiny beach community in South Kohala. It was a cute little bungalow on the water and we played Scrabble, listened to the waves and woke up to sea turtles sunning on the rocky shore.

Tasty Tropical Treats

By popular request here are some of my favorite island recipes, many born out of an over-abundance of tropical fruits from the retreat's orchard. They are all pretty easy and quick, plus super tasty...

Avocado Papaya Ice Cream:

• 4 medium avocados
• 1 extra large papaya or two regular papayas
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 2 cups half & half
• 2 tablespoons honey

Take all of these and ingredients and swirl them around in a blender for a bit. It will be pretty viscous (don't you love that word?) and then throw it all in an ice cream freezer for a while. It's really that easy.

Mango Coconut Ice Cream:

• 4 large mangoes (I prefer red mangoes)
• 2 cans of coconut milk
• 1 tablespoon honey

Same deal: blend it all together and throw it in the ice cream maker. You also can just put it in the freezer and whip it every couple of hours to keep the ice crystals from forming.

Avocado Chocolate Chip Cookies:
I know this sounds weird, but seriously, you don't even taste the avo. I recently did some avocado harvesting from the orchard and came back with 10 gallons. This of course led to the question, "What the hell do you do with 100 avocados?" I got some really interesting suggestions on Facebook including "edible Playdoh," and "a bathtub body mask." But this is by far the best one. And I totally love the food porn pictures on this awesome food blog, London Foodie in NY. Click here for the recipe.

Heart of Gold

On Sunday I finally had the day that I'd crossed the ocean for. My fellow WWOOFers and I hit the road to find an adventure and ended up at a beach that seriously made my heart jump up into my throat it was so gorgeous. I wanted to give this beach a standing ovation...it bloody went to 11...I have no words for how stinking amazing it was. Beach 69 is mainly a local hangout, on the South Kohala coast at the 69 mile marker on the highway. It's has pure white sand beach, lots of pretty, gnarled old trees for shade, beautiful aqua water, and a long protected cove for tranquil swimming. My new friends and I scribbled in our Hawaiian coloring book, drank some delicious beers, chatted, swam and enjoyed the sunshine.

Oh and here's the final magic touch: Neil Young's house is on this beach! See that tree on the left hand side of the picture? Right there is good ole Neil's modest residence. I swam out there with a friend, peeked around a little and sat on the rocky point, playing with Neil's super friendly and very vocal cat. As I was swimming back (doing a little backstroke for Patty), I was feeling so happy and free, I started to sing a little...keep me searching for a heart of gold...and I'm getting old....

Back on the beach, we played with a gigantic sea turtle who swam right up to shore and I climbed a tree to watch the sunset. I know this will sound so pathetic coming from a gal who's not even thirty, but life has made me feel a little haggard lately, like some old bitter spinster. I've had a romance hangover, and who doesn't feel old and depleted the morning after a little too much partying? Sitting up on that tree, being truly in the moment for the first time in a long time, it all just lifted. Goddamn, life is sweet sometimes. Keeps me searching, keeps me mining. Then, true to form, I ungracefully fell out of the tree and bloodied my arm.

Weird Hawaiian Foods

I've gotten on this kick recently of trying out all the strange foods I can find at the grocery store, cause what the hell, I'm in Hawaii so I might as well eat all the weird shit I can find while I'm here. The canned juice is of course wonderful, my favorite so far being strawberry guava, which is kind of like a smoothie in a can. I'm also kind of obsessed with all the little strange candied things they have here. So far my favorite is the lemon strips, which are actually dried lemon rind with aspartame. I can't explain it, but they're really good and really bitter. I shared some with my fellow WWOOFers and they thought I was trying to poison them. I guess it's an acquired taste. Maybe my life has conditioned me to have an appreciation for bitterness lately.

By far my favorite find so far has been the above snack combination. Seaweed salad (available in every deli section of every grocery store) and shrimp poke. Poke is kind of like the Hawaiian version of ceviche, my favorite (above) is kim chee flavored. Put all of that on a Maui onion potato chip and you've got the most heavenly little snack on the planet. Sounds weird I know, but it is a great combination of salty, sweet, crunchy and vinegary all in the same mouthful. It's a great little post-gardening snack.