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We slept in a little bit, but were still up around 7. We decided since it's possible we won't be in this area much longer, we should get anything done up here that we want to do. We headed down the road towards the Olivine Pools which a local at the house mentioned.
The road was super windy with a lot of blind corners, but there was little traffic. We found the spot, got out and climbed down the rocks. Olivine is apparently a semi-precious mineral. It was all over in the rocks. Pretty neat. Some of the pools were super muddy. I'm assuming it was just because of the massive rain storm a few days ago. The pools farther from the rock wall were really clear though. There were even some fish in there! Very fun to watch them.
Once we left there, we decided to stop by some of the sights along the way back. One was the "Blow Hole", which a hole that water comes shooting out of when a wave comes up. It was pretty neat.
From there we couldn't really decide what to do. We were both super worn out. We've been basically running around since we got here. We decided to go snorkeling in Kaanapali Bay, which is in the area. It wasn't as clear as Makena, but there was coral all over. The currents pushed us around a bit more also, but we finally remembered to bring the underwater camera with to test out. It did pretty well. We saw a lot more fish varieties I think, but it was not a place I would expect to see turtles, and we didn't.
We were both pretty tired, so we headed back to the house after that and have basically just been getting some work done and resting. A nice, relaxing, fun day.
-Miranda
The view from our room.
Joe found a heart hole in the rock and there just happened to be someplace I could set the camera up.
Neat fish in the clear pool.
I liked this fish. I only saw one in this pool and he was hard to get a decent photo of.
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We woke up pretty early today. Joe went out to get cereal (we went to a grocery store the previous evening). He tried to be as quiet as possible and still apparently managed to wake everyone else up... Which, people keep appearing out of nowhere. This place is huge!
Today, we decided to head out snorkeling. There was a place just north of where we are that was supposed to be decent snorkeling. All we had were goggles, but we figured that was a good starter. It was a bit freaky getting in, but once we got comfortable, we realized the water was super clear! As we got a little farther out from the sandy beach, we spotted coral and a lot of different kinds of fish. They were everywhere! At one point we even spotted a Green Sea Turtle! It surprised Joe. :D It was a little tough with just goggles, but it was still tons of fun.
We headed to Kihei after that, which is supposed to have some great snorkeling areas. We had lunch and headed farther south to the end of the road. On the map it showed snorkeling, but it looked like you had to go for a bit of a hike. It was through an old lava flow from 1790. The area was very neat, but all the little alcoves weren't quite protected enough and it was really rocky to actually get into the water. So we just hiked in, looked around some and hiked back out.
Since the sun was still in a great position for snorkeling, we stopped at Makena Landing. Notes on that said it was a great post so long as the waves weren't up. It looked really calm, so off we went. It was great! We saw a ton of fish and about 5 sea turtles. The first one we saw was pretty small. The second one came out a cave heading straight for me! When I swam a bit off to get out of its way. Totally freaked me out. This turtle had to be at least 4 feet long. It was huge!
After that adventure, we found some dinner and headed back to the house. Now we're just getting some work done and heading to bed. One problem with this place is there are windows everywhere. In the bathroom, in the bedroom, etc. No blinds or shades at all. So, we have to shower in the dark and people can see in the bedroom, which is kind of weird. The owner said he's going to get some shades at least for the bedroom in the next couple days, which would be nice if we're still here then. One pretty cool thing is two of the windows/doors are actually disappearing doors. We haven't been around during the day yet to really utilize them though.
-Miranda
The lava flow.
A section of the beach on our walk. I believe the white stuff on the rocks is old coral.
The disappearing door.
The bedroom.
The bathroom. Crazy shower! Nice windows, huh?
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This is going to be a long one... Sorry.
Unfortunately, we did not get much sleep... That night, it poured. Hard. And it was really windy. We went to bed before 10. There were some people talking and were a little noisy, but it wasn't terrible. Then Joe thought he felt something hit the bed next to him. Thinking he had been falling asleep and imagining it(plus not having a light or flashlight) he lay back down to go to sleep. Well, not long later, he gets a stinging pain in his arm.
A centipede bit him!! It dropped down from a hole in the ceiling above his head and bit him! He and a guy that happened to be staying there that's a bug expert, went back to the room and looked for it. They ended up bagging it up with alcohol to kill it. Joe read up online and found out that you are supposed to ice it and put papaya on it (the enzymes in papaya neutralize the venom). There just happened to be half a frozen papaya in the freezer. That ended up taking all the pain away and he hasn't had a problem since. Without that, the pain can apparently last 2-3 days.
We didn't end up getting to sleep until well after midnight. When we woke in the morning, it was still raining. The foot of my bed was soaked because of the rain coming in the window. The street outside the hostel was a river. Not far farther down the road, the water was apparently knee deep. Turns out that, that was the worst flooding in Paia in 20 years. Joe took some video, but I don't know if we'll figure out how to post it in a timely manner.
We had to return the rental car that afternoon. We headed into the airport, returned the car and then walked back into town since we had missed the bus by merely seconds. We looked around at the hotels in the area since we weren't getting any answers about places to stay, but they were all pretty pricey for getting only a bed to sleep on. There was a different hostel in the main town, Wailuku. We started hoofing it for there, which was over a 2 mile walk. A nice girl yelled out the window of her car asking if we wanted a ride. So, we were lazy and hopped in.
The North Shore Hostel was great. Very professional. Very clean. Definitely less 'community' feeling than the previous one, but we did have a private room this time. It was definitely very quiet by 10pm.
Friday we spent the morning trying to figure out a rental situation. There was a guy that posted an ad about staying in a master bedroom with an adjacent room and a 'backdoor' to the beach. It was an all right price, so we jumped on it since it was available even though it wasn't really in an area we wanted.
Our original plan was to try and get away without a rental car, but that just wasn't working, especially since this place was at least 2 miles away from the closest bus stop. We headed back to the airport and rented another car. We got a Jeep this time, which is not great gas mileage, but it's pretty nice for the slightly rougher roads.
The place was not at all what we expected... It's behind a security gate, near a golf course, a 10 minute drive up a crazy road. It's in a $7 million dollar home that the guy is working on, so it's not done, which isn't a big deal, but the main living room/kitchen area really doesn't have any furniture in it yet and since the whole place is stone tile, everything echos like crazy! You can't do anything in the kitchen without making a huge racket.
We had already paid and signed paper work, but were feeling pretty awful about the place, so Joe talked to him to see if we could get out of it. We realized we could stay at the hostel for cheaper, and with the rental car, we could easily get to places, especially when Laura is here, since it's more centrally located. Where we are now takes an hour to start getting to where we want to be. The guy said that if he finds someone else, then we can, go, which makes total sense.
-Miranda
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This morning didn't start out so great, but we didn't have to be out of the hotel until noon. So, we stayed and did a lot of research on places we could stay. Joe emailed a number of places and made notes for ones that had phone numbers to call later. Once we felt we had done all the research we could, we headed out to Kihei to find some lunch.
We went to Joy's Place, which is a super cute, small natural restaurant. They had all organic foods and some 'raw' items on the menu as well. I ended up getting an Indo Crunch Wrap that was amazing. It was basically a giant fresh roll. Instead of a tortilla, it was wrapped in rice paper.
After leaving there we went for a walk along the water. It was super windy today. Joe really wanted to play in the water, so we went to a different beach park that looked more like it was all sand. When we were looking around, there was another couple that had just been in the water. Joe went to talk to them and they told us if you go underwater and be very quiet, you can hear the whales singing.
The waves were relatively crazy (not terrible) but we did as they mentioned and you definitely could. It was very, very neat. We did some body surfing, then headed in. We sat in the parking lot there calling places. We only got a hold of a couple places. One sounded like a really odd, possibly creepy situation, so we just went for a room that almost seemed like it was a hostel. When we got there, Joe couldn't find the lady, and it seemed a little more slummish than we wanted to deal with. From there we decided to head out to Paia and find dinner and a place to stay out there. There was a hostel there that we figured we could check out.
We got to Paia, went for a little walk and found the Rainbow Surf hostel. We were hoping for a room, but the rooms were booked up, so we are staying in one of the dorms. There are 6 beds per room, so it's not too bad. Hopefully we don't have a snorer in the room.
We walked back into Paia to get some dinner. There is a Vietnamese Vegetarian restaurant in town. It was very good. We had walked around some and saw a Creperie, so we went there for dessert. It was excellent.
Hopefully we get some sleep tonight. They have a strictly enforced quiet time of 10, so hopefully it works out.
-Miranda
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