Musings

Other than the obvious perfect weather and scenery, I am thinking about what is different between life on the Big Island and Toronto. here are a few of my final passing thoughts.

Time
Life on the island is slow. Things get done on "Hawaiian Time". Road work that was underway last year when we were there has advanced little. Compare that to the breakneck pace at which miles of Bathurst St. have been widened up here in Aurora; things move there at a snail's pace. Damage to roads and buildings that occurred in the Oct. 15, 2006 earthquake - still being repaired. The pace is slower. People are nicer, more relaxed; although traffic congestion is a problem, drivers are considerate and let you merge, or pass if necessary. Clerks in stores, waiters in restaurants, all seem more helpful and friendlier than here.

Medical
I had the fortune (or misfortune) to need some medical care while there - three days in a private, spa-like, American hospital is quite a change from what we experience as medical care here. No waiting in the ER, immediate admitting, CT scan, x-rays done in minutes, doctor taking time to explain all the options and then a specialist to provide the care. The nurses and aides were all over me like the commissioned sales people at Future Shop. "Do you need anything", "are you comfortable", "here's some soap, shampoo, razor, and shave cream if you need it". Was this a dream? Was I on some Candid Camera show? When I was discharged they voluntarily copied my file along with a CD of my x-rays to bring to my GP at home. And the room - the room! They had only private rooms with three piece bath, table and TV set all set up like one gets in a motel, (in fact I've stayed in worse motels) a sliding glass door walk-out to a private lanai surrounded by tropical plant garden.

But would I trade our system for theirs? No. Only those rich enough to pay the outlandish costs of this service or those with exceptional health care insurance (luckily I was covered) can get admitted to such facilities. The signs in the ER made it clear that if you couldn't pay for your care all they were required to do by federal law was diagnose you. Nice!

Island People
Whenever Canadians interface with local Americans we are shocked by their lack of knowledge about our country. On the island multiply it by ten. When I said I was from Toronto, there is a blank stare returned... "Canada", "The East", - okay, getting a little better, "Near Buffalo", not much better. They'd then say things like, "my aunt went to Seattle once". They have no idea how lucky they are to live there.

The Travel Guide

If anyone is contemplating a trip to the Hawaiian Islands the best guide book for each island is from the series , "The Big Island Revealed", "Maui Revealed" etc. It is detailed and complete, with terrific reviews, explanations, and driving directions. Cost here was about $19 at Chapters, available there at Costco for $9.


Kapu

Remember I said the people were nice. That is true of all the interactions we had. And we weren't exclusively in tourist areas. Living at Mike and Betty's for the month, we were more like locals as to where we shopped, walked, etc. The one thing we noticed was the prevalence of "Kapu" signs. (Kapu means "forbidden") They are equivalent to our "No Trespassing", "Private Property". It seems that almost every house, lot, building is either fenced or posted with the signs. I could understand it in the tourist areas when visitors drive down private roads by mistake, walk across property to get to the beach, but even up in Waimea and elsewhere this strong territorial imperative, this private ownership, was evident.

South Point - The End of the World

South Point, 12 miles off the main highway, along a single lane black top, one comes to the end of the world, in a manner of speaking. This is the most southern point of the Big Island, at 18 degrees 54 minutes, it is the most southernly point in the United States. And it looks it. A stark, raw wilderness, desolate and foreboding, a place where the only visitor is the wind. (I stole that from Ken Follett).

The huge cliffs drop sharply to the crystal clear blue water. The waves dangerously crashing on the rocks. A kayaker trying to time his approach to land his craft safely on the rocks - at least three attempts before he wedged it in and hopped out.

Also incredible that the surfer dudes snorkel here and spear fish. There were four guys and they had a big, four foot long fish they were putting on ice. "How do they get down there?", I asked. They jump. THEY JUMP! Then they do their reef fishing - the blond guy said after he skewered his fish he came out quickly because he saw four sharks. And he doesn't like sharks. He jumps 100 feet into rocky pounding surf and he's worried about sharks? So then I asked, "How do they come back up?" - there's a ladder and there are pulley systems hanging over the edge to bring people and their small boats back up. Amazing.

As well as these daredevil fishing guys and their sleeping rottweiler there were two more sedate fisher guys sitting in chairs with their lines a couple of hundred feet out in the bay.

The water is so clear here, even from this great height you can see schools of fish in the water below. An awe inspiring place. South Point.

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This Diverse Island

Not only is there a rich diversity in the people, who are decedents of various cultures and races; Hawaiian, Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Spanish, and Portuguese, but there is diversity of climate and vegetation as well. Open grasslands around Waimea, desert scrub in the low dry Kohala region, tropical rain forests in upper Hilo and Kona, pine forests near Honoka'a and so on an so on.

• The Big Island boasts"...eleven of the 14 known climate zones in the world - from desert lavascapes to tropical rain forests to beaches to snow on the peaks of 14,000 foot volcanoes..."

So it is not surprising we attended a Texas-type rodeo around the corner from our house. The Paniolo, were Spanish cowboys brought here to teach the Hawaiians ranching skills; they, and the Hawaiian cowboys, rode the range on the Parker Ranch ( and many other small ranches) for the past 150 years . At one time, the Parker ranch was the biggest cattle ranch in all of the United States. The town of Waimea is in the center of the Parker estate and still has a western flavour. Mike and Betty said when they first moved here in the 80's cowboys were still seen riding horseback in town.

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Dogs

People are always so interested when we take cute gentle little Denver out for walks in town; the response to him is beyond what we expect. Kids come over to him, even adults are interested. It seems dogs are not kept as house pets here. To have a house dog is an anomaly because they consider dogs to be work animals. This is Parker Ranch territory where cattle dogs tend to the herd, guard dogs protect your property, and hunting dogs head up the mountain with their gun and bow totten' masters. Pick-up trucks can be seen with dogs in the back almost everywhere we go in this area - and these are NOT your nice little companion animals - these are tough, mangy, mean looking curs.

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Lazy Day

We had planned to head up Mauna Kea mountain to the secluded Hakalau Forest and Bird Sanctuary. It's the last refuge of native Hawai'i Island species and is aggressively protected. After phoning the National Wildlife Reserve in Hilo, giving them all our personal information, getting the combination of the lock on the gate and hearing all problems in driving two hours along the gravel roads to the 5,000 foot level, the restrictions on use of the area, and how to stay out of the way of hunters on the adjacent land, we still decided it would be worth the drive up. Well, we were wrong.

After an hour of driving on the infamous, but now very much improved, Saddle Road, we turned up the Mauna Kea access road but drove right past the gravel path that turned out to be the road we were looking for. After asking the other solitary person on this desolate stretch of road we headed back and took that "road" towards the refuge. When we travelled two miles on this washed out bumpy cattle path of a "road" we knew we could not drive the total 16 miles in and 16 miles back out. We were almost on "top of the world" in a most deserted uninhabited open area - we headed back down, past some guys setting up to "para-glide" off the hills,

We came back to town, loaded up with groceries for the week and had our picnic lunch outside in the back yard on the lanai. Sue will spend the afternoon happily tending to Betty's garden. So much for our Bird Refuge adventure.

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Hilo- The Wet Side of the Island

We've been spending our days at the beaches on the dry Kohala coast. Today we headed to Hilo, the wet side, where the tropical rain forests and all the rivers run down from the mountains. We lucked into a surprisingly bright sunny day and really enjoyed the sites. First we went to the famed "Rainbow Falls" a water fall that creates it's own rainbow. The majestic waters cascade down from pools of churned-up water called the "Boiling Pots". Huge Banyon trees grow in the jungles alongside the river. We see gigantic vegetation here that dwarfs what we know as tropical plants in our climate.


After Hilo we headed to The Hawaiian Tropical Botanical Gardens.

This privately run nature preserve was created by a San Francisco couple, Dan and Pauline Lutkenhouse, who bought the valley in 1977 and restored it to a showcase of natural beauty.

Because this is one of the few places on the islands inhabited by the non-native mosquito it is necessary to put on insect repellent when walking the trails through the jungle preserve. Many species of Pacific island tropical flowers and trees have been planted and maintained here even if they're not all indigenous to Hawai'i. A two hour walk through the area yields photo opportunity after photo opportunity. Too many to show here but each as beautiful as the next. From the Onomea water falls to the multi-coloured orchids that thrive in the environment - just magnificent!

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A malasa.. what?

On the pretext of driving to Hilo to see the sites we headed south on the eastern (wet) side of the island past the famous TEX DRIVE IN - we've been there before and we knew what we were doing and where we were going but wouldn't admit it. You see, the calories don't count if you don't talk about it, right? TEX, the home of the famous Big Island: Malasada.

• Malasada (n) : a puffy filled donut without a hole that is deep-fried, rolled in sugar and best eaten while hot. Malasadas are a Portuguese snack introduced by workers imported for cane and pineapple production.

As we drove by - we decided we'd just drop in for one. And we were good - just had one. I had a Strawberry-Guava and Sue had a Chocolate. Boy, they're so bad for you - but so good. Well, we did head down to Hilo and we did catch the sites so I'll never have to admit we did it for the malasadas.

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