Day 2.
1. After a Locals Breakfast (including eggs, bread, and
potatoes with Skin – Yummy!) at the Coconut grill, we headed out for the
Volcano tour. Our guide, a wonderful and
witty old man came on time at around 8.30 am on Saturday morning to pick us
up. The holy almighty did answer my
prayers with minimal rain on this day.
2. We once again
drove past the Coconut Island, black sand beach, downtown Hilo and the statue
of King Kamemeha to Rainbow Falls. What
a beauty! Though the falls are not super high they are beautiful and we were
lucky to see a rainbow at the Rainbow Falls.
3. Our next stop was
the Macadamia nut factory. Our guide
told us to sample the macadamia nut coated with coconut and dipped in chocolate
and boy he was spot on! I am bringing
back tons of macadamia nuts in a variety of flavors.
4. After a beautiful drive, we then stopped at the Volcano village
for lunch. The order of grilled
Mahi-Mahi and veggie burger was made to perfection. Lunch in a perfect scenery is something to be
really thankful of!
5. The next stop was the
most looked forward destination for the trip – The Hawaii Volcano National
Park.
6. This was my first guided tour experience and I feel like
having a local tour guide really helps a lot as they can tell you the tiniest
of details that can be overlooked easily.
He took us to the Jagger Museum and Sulphur Banks first. It was literally an out of world experience
to see continuous cloud of Sulphur smoke
coming from the surface. We were also lucky to get an up –personal view as
the wind was flowing away from us in the opposite direction.
7. We then stopped at the Kiluaea Iki Crater. Our tour guide tells us that many-many- many
years ago, he was showing the crater to another group, when lava came bursting
out as high as xx feet and filled 400m
out of the 800m crater.
8. After this we
stopped at the Steaming bluff, which out of everyone present there, I enjoyed
the most. It has started raining a
little bit and hence when water fell on the hot lava rocks, it created a
natural steam. I enjoyed the nature’s
steam a lot and literally had to be dragged out to continue with the journey.
9. We then explored the Thurston Lava Tube.
This was formed when lava went gushing towards the ocean. We walked through the lava tube, which is
covered beneath a lush green rainforest.
10. We then drove past Tree fern and Ohi’s forest. Ohi is a local variety of plant, which as far
as I remember correctly is the first plant to grown on lava.
11. Next stop was
Keanakakoi crater, unfortunately, of which we did not have a good view due to
Vog combined with fog and rain. VOG =
Volcanic Fog
12. We then drove
past 1982 lava flow. While it is a once
in a lifetime experience, I did not leave happy. To me lava brings some sort of sadness. Just black lava everywhere. To add to this, I was able to see patterns in
lava, which was later also pointed to by
the guide. You can see a side-profile of
a face looking up and lava shaped as dead bodies piled one over the other ( I
think I might have saved a picture, it was so depressing I deleted the set !)
13. We then drove all
the way down from 4,000 feet to the bottom of the ocean to see where lava meets
the Pacific. The drive was beautiful and
so was the day. Even caught a couple of
rainbows. We even saw the “Sea Arch”,
which is a beautiful arch formed naturally by the ocean water in a huge rock.
14. After spending some time at the bottom walking on lava,
we headed back up. We made a stop at the
Orchids garden nursery which houses hundreds of orchids of different kinds,
including a chocolate orchid – looked and smelled like a chocolate, didn’t have
the guts to try eat it.
15. Dead Tired when dropped back at the hotel, and before I
knew it, I was in another world.
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