Hilo/Kilauea
Road trip today over to the other side of the island. On a map it doesn’t look to far, but there aren’t a whole lot of roads (and even fewer that are straight) on an island made up of two volcanoes, so there’s easily two hours of drive time between our hotel and our first stop of Hilo. Going over the pass between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea is marginally faster than driving around the coast, so even though the car rental companies frown on it, we head up and over. Hilo is one of the rainiest cities in the US (yes, even worse than Seattle), so we don’t have high hopes for the weather, but to our pleasant surprise, it is as sunny and clear as Kona.
There isn’t actually much that we want to see in Hilo, so we stop primarily to grab some lunch (and for Nick to try some rambutans at a local market). From a fairly small handful of choices, the kids picked Mexican, and we sat down to is easily the worst burritos we have ever eaten. The rice was clearly scraped from the bottom of a pot sitting on a stove for at least two days. I felt like I had an eating disorder, chewing mouthfuls of food a few times before spitting them back into a napkin rather than trying to swallow. To rub a little extra salt in the wound, two blocks down the street we saw another Mexican restaurant that was packed 🙁
After lunch, we headed north about fifteen miles to see another of the places from Nick’s report, Akaka Falls. These are the highest falls in Hawaii, and have been something the kids have asked about since we got here (I think more because the like to say Akaka Falls than because they actually care that much about seeing them). It is a small hike from the parking lot to the actual falls, and they are quite impressive, but looking at them, its hard not to see the difference between seeing something like this in the US versus a country like Thailand. Overseas, we would have hiked right down to the bottom of the falls and swam right up to them. Here, the closest you can get is a fenced overlook about 300 yards away. I’m guessing at some point there was a trail to the bottom that someone twisted an ankle on before suing the state, so now, this is as good as it gets.
Now what we really came to see here was the volcano, and according to all that we have read, the best time to see it is when it gets dark, so after the falls, we head south to the national park where it is located, figuring we could see some things like the lava tube and steam vents while it still light.
When we arrive at the park, the first place we stop is the information center, which has a few displays about volcanoes and the native flora and fauna of Hawaii. There is also a pretty interesting video that talks about how the islands were formed that we take some time to watch. This is also the place to stop and find out where the can be best viewed from on that particular day. Sadly, the news on that front is not good, as the park ranger tells us where we can see some activity, but aside being another hour away (partly going back the way we just came), he tells us we’ll be lucky if we can even see some glow, much less actual lava or the explosions that occur when it hits the ocean. After coming this far (not just the two and a half hour drive, but the 2,500 mile flight), it is not what we really wanted to hear.
Nevertheless, things are what they are, so we try to make the best of it. We drive to the lava tube and walk the full length (props to Ang who didn’t even freak out much when we turned off the flashlights), visit the steam vents, hike up to the caldera, and in the last moments of daylight, walk to a spot where sulphur is coming out of the mountain, which the kids have dubbed “the wall of farts.”
If there a silver lining in not seeing the lava, its that we get back to the hotel much sooner that we expected. We stop for dinner at local chain called L&L Barbeque, and for $30, get a dinner that could probably feed 12. It includes short ribs for Nick, fried shrimp for Sam, and chicken fingers for Joey, so they boys think it is pretty much the best meal ever.