2019-05-09: Lava, Coffee, and Cloud Forest

We woke up at 6:30am this morning (yuck!). We got cleaned up, and went to the Windjammer yet again for breakfast. The theatre was our meeting location for our Kona tour today so we headed there at 7:45am. By 8:00 we were loading on the tender and heading to shore.

We met our tour guide once on shore. She loaded us and nine others into a Transit van and we were off! Our first stop was Kaloko-Honokohau National Historic Park. The pathways here are on lava flows from several hundred years ago. The lava flow looks like twisted rope due to the way it flows and cools. There are remnants of ancient Hawaiian culture including holding pens for cattle, fish ponds, and petroglyphs carved into Lava. The beach where the fish pond ruins were located was beautiful. And best of all, there were three sea turtles swimming around right along the beach! Ancient Hawaiian culture was pretty brutal. They were warrior tribes and were constantly battling other tribes. We saw an old game carved into the lava at one point that the kids played. Apparently the chiefs would monitor these games to see who had the best strategy so they could groom those kids to be warriors. Because they were constantly fighting and losing all their warriors, the game also became a way to settle the outcome of battles between tribes. Some of the laws were pretty outrageous too. The only sentence was death. If a woman ate a banana, she was put to death. If your shadow touched the chief’s shadow, you were put to death. If you ate a meal with the opposite sex, you were put to death. However, there were 11 “sanctuaries” on the island. If you committed a crime and made it to one of these sanctuaries before the warriors found you, you were “safe”. The chief of the sanctuary would give you a task to complete. If you completed it successfully, your crime would be forgiven and you could return to your tribe. If you failed, you were put to death.

We made our way back to the bus and continued to our next stop which was the Cloud Forest. It’s called that because it sits around 3000 feet above sea level where there is pretty constant cloud cover due to the climate system of the island. The forest is on private land. The owners have set it up as a preserve for the plants and only let guided tours through the forest.We spent an hour hiking through the rainforest and seeing many of the plant life including coffee plants, bamboo, ferns, rainbow eucalyptus trees, and blue marble trees. The blue marble tree roots protrude from the ground like walls. There was also a refuge for tropical birds such as cockatoos and macaws that had been given up by their previous owners. We ran into the owner at the end of our hike. He had a Jack Russell puppy in his arms and an older one walking along with him. We had a nice chat with him until we returned to our van.

A kilometre or so down the road, we arrived at the Mountain Thunder Coffee Plantation. They had samples of the coffee they make and gave us a half hour tour of the coffee preparation facilities. We saw how they convert the coffee from the original cherry down to the roasted bean and how they sort the beans based on quality. It was quite informative. The kids tried some coffee and were not impressed. Amanda enjoyed it though and bought some coffee to bring home.

We boarded the van again and were returned to the pier. We said goodbye to our guide and walked along the Kailua-Kona waterfront for a while. We stopped and grabbed some lunch at one of the restaurants. The fried calamari was very delicious! The kids each grabbed a souvenir from one of the shops along the way. We came across the first church built in Hawaii which is almost 200 years old. We also walked by Hulihee Palace which was built in 1838 and is where the Hawaiian Princesses would live when they visited the island. After we’d had enough shopping, we returned to the pier. Michael was dying to play in the water some more but Amanda was starting to feel the effects of the heat. So, Amanda and Patrick returned to the ship while Michael and Darrell stayed at the beach beside the pier. Michael played in the water for about half an hour before he and Darrell returned to the ship.

Once back onboard, we relaxed for a bit before it was time to get ready for dinner. We had another tasty dinner in the restaurant. The waiters and assistant waiters did a little parade through the dining room and sang O Solo Mio to us this evening. The kids ran away to the kid’s club afterwards as usual. We went to the evening show without the kids. The ship’s singers and dancers put on a show called Piano Man which we quite enjoyed. This was their last performance together after being together for 9 months. It is the end of their contract.

After the show, we picked up the kids from the kid’s club and called it a night. We are in Lahaina, Maui tomorrow.