Kilauea/Hilo

The last few days have been a blur of fun activities and amazing sights!  We drove across the island of Hawaii on Dec 2nd, stopping at the southernmost U.S. point on our way - the same latitude as Mexico City.  Our destination that day was a house rental near Hilo on the east coast of the island.  The owner has been a wealth of information and we took his advice that night and headed to a nearby night market that he said was more party than market.  Because sunset is before 6 pm here, it is truly a night market.  Many of the area residents seem to be 'stuck in the 60s' so we have never seen so many hippies (young and not so young) in one area - made our West Kootenays seem staid!  We really enjoyed the vendors, the food, the live music, the smell of 'funny' smoke, the friendly people and the people watching.  One lady got up to dance to some local music and was obviously an expert at Hula - so expressive. 
Yesterday, we explored more in our area in the morning, visiting first the Lava Tree State Park.  As I mentioned in a previous post, the whole island is a result of volcanic activity so there are lava deposits everywhere. The lava trees were formed years ago when molten lava inundated the trees to a certain height, the trees died and left the hollow rock tubes.  We also enjoyed the wild orchids, interesting mushrooms and other flora in the area.

lava tree

orchids

gecko on leaf

Leaving there, we stopped at an ocean beach park where we watched surfers in the breakers and walked into a jungle hot pool.  We also noticed a low tree with very lumpy fruit the ran into a fellow picking them. I am not sure if he eats them but he was picking smaller, greener ones.  He told Shon that the soft, smelly ripe ones are used to rub on aching joints.  I am not sure of the name but it sounded like 'no knees' which he joked about as they soothe sore knee joints.  So many plants here that we don't know!

In the afternoon, we headed to Volcanoes National Park, a main destination for us on this volcanic island.  We should have gone for a full day as there was so much to see!  The Kilauea volcano is smaller than the two big ones, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, but it has been erupting continuously since 1983!  It is not an explosive erupter like Mt. St. Helens but oozes, bubbles and spits out lava continuously, sometimes in its cauldron and sometimes in faults in its rifts around it.  In 2014, oozing lava destroyed some homes near where we are staying. Until recently, it was oozing into the ocean - a spectacular sight that we would have had to pay $200 US per person to see on a boat trip.  Lucky for us, it has stopped flowing into the ocean so we didn't have to make that decision!!   Below you can see the Kilauea cauldron in the day time and at night - very cool to see it at night.

While at the park, we also walked through an anciant lava tube, formed when molten lava flowed and the outer edges cooled, leaving a tube.  This one was about as big as a mining tunnel and maybe 200 m long.  The pic below was taken looking back into the tunnel (which is now lit inside).

Today, we wandered in the Hilo area, walking around town, checking out a couple of nearby waterfalls and having lunch, coffee and dinner in town. Thai for lunch, Hawaiian kalua pork for dins with a spinach/avocado salad - so good. This side of the island is much wetter than the Kona side so the growth is much lusher - amazingly huge trees covered with vines, epiphytes and fungi!!!  This type of growth has to be seen to be believed - photos do not do it justice!  The waterfalls were beautiful but the walks into them were the highlight due to the variety of flowers and trees and vines and lush, lush growth!!!  Hilo had its Christmas light up tonight but it feels very strange to see Christmas lights and hear wandering minstrels singing Christmas carols as we are wearing shorts in the humid climate!  No photos downloaded from our cameras today.
Tomorrow we fly to the island of Kauai to continue our adventures.  Our time on Hawaii, the Big Island, has been much too short but that is good.  We are leaving much to see and do on a return trip!!!