Have you ever slept under a tin roof while it is raining? If not, it's true bliss. It poured the whole night. The sound of that in our cottage roof and the breeze lulled us to sleep. The one room cottage doesn't have AC but instead a bunch of windows that cross ventilate perfectly. Heaven.
I was happy to lounge around and take my time writing a bit. For anyone wondering why in the world I'm blogging in vacation - for Italy and Greece I did a hand journal. Convenient. But I found I got burned out retyping everything later. I also often couldn't read my notes. For Croatia- oh that's a sad one. Stupid blogger didn't support the iPad last year. So I had to write all my notes in the iPad and then type them. Somehow all the notes got deleted when we got home. I lost everything. So I'm blogging and posting live. These blogs are more for us than anything else and we want to save all the memories.
Josh tested the shower out first as it is outside and I always make him go first for new things. Other than the fact that I had to walk around the side of the house and figure out how to keep the shower curtain from billowing out with the breeze, it was fine. I actually love outdoor showers.
We were now getting close on time so we grabbed some of our food, packed our bag with stuff for the day and hit the road. We had to be up in the mountains somewhere by 9.
One thing we had decided we really wanted to do was visit the Hindu Monastery. Not your typical Hawaii vacation activity. We heard the grounds were amazing and they only did tours once a week. We called a few weeks earlier and found out what day it would be and got our spot. Apparently they have very limited parking so it's reservation only of a very long taxi ride.
For anyone going to Kauai you must do this. First it's cheap. Donation only. Second it's fascinating. Third it has to be some of the prettiest land I've ever seen. The tour started with about a 20 minute talk about Hinduism and the monks. We both were surprised at how much we enjoyed that part. Then we spent about half an hour walking the grounds over to the new pilgrimage temple. The monastery is on 365 acres. There are waterfalls with pools where the monks swim. The monks grow 70% of their own food on site so they have quite the farm too.
Then we spent about half an hour touring the new temple. It has been under construction for 22 years and will probably take another 5. It is entirely hand carved white marble by artisans from India. An art form that had all but died and no structure has been built like it in over 1000 years. Josh apparently wasn't impressed as he took no pictures...
The tour ended by 11 and we were getting hungry. We headed back down the mountain to Kapa'a to find some lunch. We ended up grabbing plate lunches from Pono Market. Wow. It was almost all locals there. It was a takeout local food type restaurant but the folks were super nice. They told us which two local foods to try. We got the Lau Lau (pork wrapped in grape leaves) and Teri Meatloaf. They both came with a bunch of rice and another side. With two drinks our total bill was $17. Considering we couldn't finish it all even though it was delicious I'd say it was a good bargain.
Now that we were reenergized we headed back up the mountain and past the monastery. We had decided to do the Jungle Hike since we were in the area. The directions kept saying to take the dirt roads as far as you could and that a regular car should be ok. While 4wd may not be necessary, high clearance definitely was. We were going through streams and over some pretty bad rocks in places.
After 4 miles or so we hit the stopping point and parked. We had packed a change of hiking clothes and a bathing suit. We threw them on and headed for the trail. Now the guidebook said this was fairly easy. While I agree the trail was well marked and pretty cleared. It was pretty steep up and down. Be warned. At the very beginning the trail takes you right next to a steam. I think that was my favorite part. I felt like I was at Disney World. It wasn't a long hike and we quickly found the waterfalls. Another couple was there. They had just abandoned their shoes and was scurrying up some rocks when we arrived. We weighed our options and visualized either dropping the camera in the water, falling due to trying to climb with a camera, or leaving a camera behind.... We sat and enjoyed the view for a bit and then headed back. Who knows what that scurrying would have uncovered.
Back at that car, I now matched the Jeep - wet and muddy. It was mid-afternoon so we figured we had at least time for one more adventure. As we made our way back up the shore I looked at the clock. Almost 3pm. I realized that Wednesday's farmers market was starting right now in this town. I quickly looked up directions and made our way there. We got there at 3:04 and it wax packed! These people are serious about their farmers markets. I had read you have to arrive when they open or you risk having things sold out. Yep.
It was pretty amazing. All the colors and smells. It was all locals too. We had no clue what we were doing so we watched for people who seemed to have a purpose and followed them. We ended up with two mangoes, three chocos (I'm told they taste like cinnamon and heaven in your mouth) and a bag of Logan (I think) fruit. I wanted some papaya and pineapple but Josh put a cap on my fruit consumption for the day. Unfortunately we left the camera in the car... Next time.
Even with all that fruit we were still craving something cold so we headed a couple blocks over and hit up Hee Fat General store for shave ice. I wish we could be more original and think for ourselves but the suggested lava flow creation sounded too yummy to pass up. Macadamia Nut ice cream topped with shave ice. Syrups are pineapple. Coconut and strawberry and topped with a vanilla ices cream "snow cap". Not sure how one person could eat that alone.
Sticky and content. we headed back up north with a plan to hike down to the Secret Beach. The directions were pretty good. It was a pretty steep hike down and I knew it would be a rough walk back up. When we got down it was do worth it. To the right was the golden beach with the lighthouse in the distance. To the left were the lava rocks. The black rocks against the blue waters were divine. As we emerged from the trees - raindrops. We decided to walk a bit and see if we could make it to the lava pools which were supposedly 600 m down the beach. Raindrops intensified. I turned around and saw the most perfect rainbow. Uh, Josh... Get your camera. It only lasted a minute or two. We grabbed pictures and then hiked back up. We decided to come back on a beach day.
It was now 5 and we were so tired we didn't even want to stop for groceries. We were disgusting from the day and grateful for the outside shower. (note: leave a tower outside so you don't have to go inside at all until you are clean. ) We ate our leftover pizza and cracked a bottle of wine. Determined not to go to sleep before 7 I woke Josh up and dragged him down to the beach for sunset. Considering this is one of the most famous beaches in the world I was surprised at how few people were there. It was very peaceful.
I think we stayed awake until 8:30 tonight. A little better!
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