12/8/2005   English German
  Edition # 57  
San Francisco, 12-8-2005

Once again Hawaii
Figure [1]: Panorama on the Napali Coast

In November, I managed to wrangle 10 vacation days from Yahoo! once again, and we took off to Hawaii. Since we've already been to all the islands, we had to start over: So we went to Kauai again, the green island all the way in the west.

We didn't just laze around on the beach; we also undertook some grueling hikes that really wore us out. And believe me, my life hasn't been short of brutal hikes. The so-called "Alakai Swamp Trail" is 15 kilometers long and requires overcoming some elevation, which takes a solid 6 hours. And a few days later, we tackled the Nualolo-Awaawapuhi Trail, which was another 15 kilometers long with a 2,000-foot elevation difference. On such a trail, you hardly encounter any Americans, but naturally, you meet Germans and a British couple. And on the way back to the parking lot, which ran along a road for a while, a Frenchman gave us a lift for the last stretch. Apparently, Americans have an aversion to grueling hikes.

Figure [2]: The Waimea Canyon in the evening light

We rented a total of two different vacation homes, first one for seven days in Kekaha, a bit off the beaten tourist path. When we picked up our rental car and asked for directions, the car rental lady actually directed us to the tourist beach Poipu, which made us laugh! Kekaha is a remnant, a rather quiet place on the edge of a now-closed sugar cane factory, with an access road to the Waimea Canyon. We shopped almost every day at the Japanese supermarket "Takahashi" in Waimea, where they had "Poke," which is deliciously prepared raw tuna. Our cabin had a charcoal grill, and after I bought charcoal and lighter fluid at the supermarket, I lit the first grill fire of my life (at home, of course, I have a gas grill). What I learned: Never squirt lighter fluid onto partially burning coals. It does say on the packaging not to do that, but as you know, I don't take advice. Now I know why the warning was on the lighter fluid.

Figure [3]: A discarded traffic light on the edge of a
sugarcane plantation>

In the north, we then stayed for a few days north of Kilauea, where there was, however, a severe shortage of geckos and an excess of mosquitoes. We probably should have brought the mosquito eater from picture 4 from Kekaha, where I photographed it.

Figure [4]: The gecko on the house wall.
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