R(h)einfall

Dear Travel Diary,

Friday, May 14, 2021

After school, a few of us had lunch at 'Topped', Luca's favorite restaurant. In the afternoon, Lisa, Jasmin, Chantal, and I wanted to go to the Lulumahu Falls. The other two live in Waikiki itself, so they went home to change shortly after. Afterward, we all met again at the bus stop to get to the starting point by bus. After about an hour and a transfer, according to the navigation, we arrived at the start of the trail. Like many hikes here in Hawaii, this trail was also not well-marked.

Beginning on a road, we were stopped by a resident who asked if we wanted to go to the trail. He politely informed us that this was the wrong road. We should have taken the right side at the junction further down. Later, when we took the right side, we found ourselves on a beautiful road. Plants surrounded us, and vines-like ropes hung down. Also, monstrously large leaves and colorful flowers adorned the roadside.

After a while on this road, we turned into the forest to start the trail there. First, we had to cross a river, which luckily had enough stones for us to balance on. The trail then led us through a short bamboo forest into the real forest. We passed muddy spots where we had to demonstrate our dexterity.

The trail itself was nothing special, as we couldn't even enjoy a view. Only after a while, we reached a small viewpoint and saw the city and the coast. But even this view was nothing special or incredibly beautiful for us. We had already seen much more beautiful ones.

After we were once again tricked a bit and the trail showed no sign of being close to the waterfall, we checked the map again and found out that we were on a different trail. For the Lulumahu Falls, we should have turned into the forest later. We then decided to turn back since this trail seemed endless, and it was already a late hour. We didn't want to get lost in the forest due to darkness.

A bit frustrated, we made our way back and had to cross all those muddy parts again, of course. When we reached the road below again, it started pouring rain. Jasmin and Lisa did a rain dance, and afterwards, we could march back to the bus stop in the dry. Shortly after, our bus arrived, and we went home.

However, Chantal and I didn't arrive home until 8:00 PM because the bus ride, once again, seemed endless. Anyway, when we finally arrived, we were surprised that someone was actually there because we were supposed to have the place to ourselves today. Debbie had been planning her colleague's birthday party for a while and wanted to have a movie night outside at Lehua's place. However, since it was too windy there, they had to move to our place and have the party here. We had a huge family pizza for dinner, which we almost completely devoured.

Shortly after, it was already time for bed, and we fell into it exhausted.

Saturday, May 15, 2021

Shortly after 6:00 AM, Diane is awake... This can't be true, I thought. So I grabbed my eye mask and tried to get some more sleep. However, about an hour later, I gave up and started my day.

After writing a few lines for the blog, I got tired again and closed my eyes for another hour and dozed off. Finally, around 9:30 AM, I got up and went outside. There, Tony greeted me with big eyes and said he had never seen me get up so late. When I explained to him that I had been awake since 6:00 AM, he couldn't believe it again.

Then we had breakfast, had to protect ourselves from flying kitchen cabinets, and went on a search for my flip-flops.

Once everything was settled and found, we could relax for a moment and wait until we had to catch the bus. Today, we had an even longer bus ride ahead of us because we wanted to go to Maili on the west coast. This is about a 3-hour drive. Downtown, we met Jasmin and rode together to our destination, which was also the start of another hike. There is another Pillbox Trail here, with a total of four boxes.

The ascent was only half as beautiful as the Pillbox Trail in Lanikai. The nature around us was brown and dried out, which is a completely unfamiliar sight to me in Hawaii. Already on the way to Maili, we felt like we were in a different world because it looked more like the mainland than Oahu. Wide brown fields and only a few buildings really didn't fit the part of the island we had already seen.

When we arrived at the pillboxes, we enjoyed the view and had to be careful not to be blown away by the wind. Despite the wind, I could hear the music from the ice cream truck and wished I were down there on the street at that moment. It would surely be an experience to lick an ice cream directly from such a moving stand.

After about half an hour, we were already back down and just missed the bus. So we had to wait for the next one, which took us back to downtown and finally to Hawaii Kai. Three hours later, we were finally home, and I was happy to have a good meal and a warm shower because even though the temperatures were reasonable, I sometimes felt a bit chilly. Of course, it was also cold on the bus again, so it was exceptionally pleasant to enter the room warmed by the sun.

Sunday, May 16, 2021

After another 'sleep-in', I started looking for rental cars for our onward journey. I found one for Maui for a price that was appropriate under the circumstances. For Kauai, on the other hand, we thought we were being smart and rented a scooter to zoom around the island. And so we did. Later, we realized or became aware that it is not allowed to be two people on a scooter in the state of Hawaii. Once again, a pretty strange rule, as it is ironically allowed to transport a lot of people on a pickup truck. Anyway, we had to book a second one because we couldn't cancel the first one anymore.

We didn't look for a car for Big Island anymore because we needed to strengthen ourselves first. Together with Debbie and Tony, we had breakfast, and we even ate at the dining table. Shortly after, they went shopping, and we went back to our relaxation oasis, called Chantal's room. There, we lounged around lazily and did nothing all day. It wasn't until later in the afternoon when we felt hungry again that we went in search of food, quite literally. There wasn't much food left in the fridge or anywhere else. So we improvised and put together a delicious lunch from various leftovers.

Soon, we made our way to the city to have dinner at the Cheesecake Factory with Sonia, Hana, Jasmin, and Manu. After oversized portions, we all shared a mandatory cheesecake.

Now it's off to the girls' apartment because Chantal and I have been invited to stay the night there. Tomorrow, we have to get up early as we want to go on a hike with Sonia and Jasmin. So it's easier for us if we're already in Waikiki and don't have to drive into the city in the morning. But now, it's time for bed...