#the 2nd time I rewatched after the cancellation news it was fine I had accepted it but this was the first time I rewatched after it was

[whenfatecollides]

maybe rewatching warrior nun was a mistake (it wasn't) bc I literally can't stop thinking about it

[tirsaroundtheworld]

Hawaii

After a 3-movies-and-a-far-too-short-nap flight, we arrived in Honolulu. The change of scenery could not have been more different; jackets changed to boardshorts, scarfs and hats to sarongs and snorkel sets, hot tea to icetea, pinetrees to palmtrees and 10 degrees to 25. Yet, on first sight, we also found quite some similarities between New Zealand and Hawaii. The ancient Hawaiians share their Polynesian descent with the Maori and different aspects of their initial culture are still visible in both countries, though evolved differently over time. Both the Hawaiians and the Maori make use of a ‘tiki’ as a symbol for strength, their languages are similarly phonetic, they brought the same types of produce, have similar tattoos and generally have a similar look. Just as in New Zealand, the population now merely consist of transplants and people with partial Hawaiian descend, but the culture is still alive.

We arrived in Oahu, the 3rd largest island that, as we later learned, is referred to as ‘the city’. It also seems to be the least favourite island, which could explain the fact that we were slightly dissapointed. With the presence of the state’s busy capital city, its many highways filled with pressing traffic, its neverending supply of airconditioned superstores, its skyhigh pricetags and its honestly not that impressive scenery, Oahu came nowhere near our experiences in New Zealand (which, as must be said, had set the bar incredibly high 😂). After backpacking in cheap Asia and basic campinglife in New Zealand, we were now forced into a very American lifestyle, complete with a decadent rental car to get around, crazy supersize food portions, an instant cold due to the strong airco and staying in pricey accommodation, which asked for quite some getting used to. Luckily we stayed with a very nice couple in a centrally located airbnb, the mega cheap car rental deal that we had found turned out not to be a scam and got us rolling around in nothing less than a bright red Volkswagen Beetle convertable and we quickly got the hang of finding the most local spots to get a better feel of the island. We spent 5 days cruising all around the island and these where the highlights of our adventures:

# One thing one can absolutely not miss when on Oahu is Pearl Harbour. We rewatched the movie for the occasion and spent hours exploring the memorial ground and museums to learn more about the painful events that happened almost 70 years ago. An interesting experience!

# One of the downsides of traveling with a rental car is the need for parking space. Probably 99% of Hawaii has plenty of that, but we happened to stay in that 1% where finding a spot is a true struggle. Needless to say we were surprised to find a free spot, almost too conveniently close to home! A few hours later a nice and shiny fine on the windshield explained why no-one had parked there (and that the car’s rego was overdue).. Note to self: do not park within 10 feet of a fire hydrant or it will cost you. 😂 Gotta learn the hard way I guess, at least we managed to remain fine-free from there. 💪

# Oahu is Hawaii’s hikers’ paradise and we tried a selection of tracks, with the memory of our 3728272 breathtaking hikes in NZ still fresh in our minds and muscles. From all the hilltop views, emerald waters and dramatic coastlines we mostly enjoyed the hike to deserted Makapu’u Point with its beautiful views, from where we spotted two great whales jumping up and showing us their mighty tails. Awesomeee! 🐋

# Speaking of spotting sea life; we spotted our very first wild sea turtle while snorkeling in the beautiful and preserved Hanauma Bay. The very pretty and gracious fellow gave us quite a show too; for what seemed like hours he swam peacefully around the reef, going up to get air, going down to nibble on some tasty-looking algae (not) and getting up very close, seemingly interested in us too. And as if all that wasn’t enough, we shared this wonderful experience with another tourist who happened to be holding a HUGE super pro underwater camera. A big thanks to Richard for the photo-proof of this magical encounter! 🐢💖

# To end our time on Oahu in style, we went to watch the sunset at the famous and overcrowded but beautiful Waikiki Beach with our nice Airbnb hosts. The plan was to watch the weekly fireworks from the terrace where we had dinner, but it turned out that we were on the wrong side of the beach for that so the many tall buildings along the coast blocked our view.. The fireworks sounded beautiful though! We ended the night with a few drinks and dances in a very happy Hula bar, of which we never realized that it was a gay bar until we left. 😂 Time flies when you’re having fun!

In under half an hour we flew from Oahu to Kauai, ‘the garden island’. This beautiful island, the 4th in size and 2nd in highest prices, offers some of the most eye-popping scenery and is a lot less American and commercialized than Oahu. Forced by our last-minuteness, we booked the most expensive accommodation we had stayed at all year (and probably even EVER) but spent the next 7 days sleeping like royals. And this is what we did:

# One of the island’s main tourist attractions is the Wailua waterfall. With reason; the falls are truly beautiful and you can drive up all the way to the lookout platform for a magnificent view. Less touristy is the climb down to the actual bottom of the falls, which follows a muddy and steep drop down through thick jungle after you made your way over the fence that’s there to keep you from going there. Once we reached the pool at the bottom we were all alone (apart from some 38393738373 asshole mosquitos) and enjoyed a refreshing swim around the falls and its magical rainbows in the sunlight. 🌈💦

# As if celebrating your birthday with your bum on a stunning beach, dipping in crystal blue seas, staring at palmtrees and sipping from a cooled fresh coconut isn’t enough of a present, we treated each other to one of the most adrenaline rushing experiences we ever had: a skydive! After a first attempt was canceled due to the strong wind, we got up super early, drove to the tiny airport in pretty Port Allen, signed the piles of papers preventing us to have any possible reason to sue the company, got on board of the plane, enjoyed a short scenic flight over the Southern coast of Kauai, jumped and 3 minutes later gently landed back safely on the ground. Doesn’t sound like much, but WOW, what an experience!! I wish that moment of free falling had lasted forever, tumbling down and piercing through clouds, rain and even rainbows before the most amazing sights of the ground below open up in front of you. I was lucky enough to be given some control of the parachute by my ‘buddy’ who I was with in this tandem jump, so I could make turns and see all around while we slowly descended and the harness’s wedgy started to be increasingly more uncomfortable. Quite an exciting start of our 28th and 30th years on this beautiful earth! 🎉

# Along the line of extremities, hidden in the middle of Kauai is the extremely beautiful Waimea canyon - one of the most unexpected sights we found on this trip. Perfectly American we followed the stunning Waimea Canyon Drive all the way up to the step of the central lookout. Just before a stream of tourist busses arrived we took our time to soak in the breathtaking sight of steep cracks of land descending into a deep and colourful valley with beautiful waterfalls and perfectly snaky rivers as silver lining. For the first time Hawaii came close to some of New Zealand’s spectacular sights! We tried to lose the better parts of the crowds by hiking deeper into the valley, passing dense forests, exposed ridges, rocky slopes and countless sick views. We chased waterfalls, balanced on fallen trees and got off the beaten track; what a good day! 💖

# It took some time, but we finally accepted that Hawaii is much more of a place for a holiday than to travel around in. And as soon as we switched to holiday mode, we started to appreciate the comfort we found ourselves in rather than bothering the high pricetags while we could do with so much less. We adapted a slower pace and lined up right next to the seals to chill on Kauai’s stunning Tunnels Beach, found the most beautiful Secret Beach and snorkeled its amazing reef filled with bright fish and turtles, indulged in typical koi burgers and poke bowls, visited farmers markets and hung out in in our lovely Airbnb.

# Any visit to Kauai is incomplete without an encounter with the most amazing and historically important Na Pali Coast, famous for its sheer cliffs and lush green valleys. We found ourselves in the middle of the crowds marching along the muddy Kalalau track that goes rights through the Na Pali Coast state park, until we reached the beautiful Hanakapi’ai Beach, 4 miles into the track. Unfortunately, the views along the track were not as breathtaking as we had hoped and expected, and the crowded beach wasn’t a peaceful oasis to experiece the serene beauty of this special place at all. Nonetheless it was a stunning walk, but we realized that it is hard to experience a majestic place like this from right in the middle; it can better be enjoyed from a helicopter or by boat to see it as a whole. Oh well, at least we saved hundreds of Dollars by just exploring the area by foot. 👍

Warming up to Hawaii more and more we flew to The Big Island, obviously largest in size - it is as large as the size of all other islands combined - but also the youngest of them all. 8 of the world’s 13 climate zones exist on this island, and to us it seemed to be the most ‘Hawaiian’ with less tourists and commercial areas, more ancient Hawaiian sights and a lower pace of life. Upon arrival in Kona we were surrounded by black, solidified lava, which doesn’t look too paradise-y, but we ended up extending and extending our stay as there is so much more around and the highlights kept on coming:

# Going to Hawaii is equal to going surfing, so we had to hit the surf at least once. We were lucky enough to stay with a nice, retired local on Airbnb who took us and his surfboards to his favorite beach where we spent all morning being thrown around by the waves. Right away we were done with surfing, so instead of cruising the island in search of the best surf we got under the waves in search of the best snorkeling spots. Just for the record; the beautiful and insanely colourful reefs and fishes at Two Step won!

# Aiming for a slow afternoon, we went to Kiholo Bay. This peaceful bay is to be found at the end of a not so slow hike along the coast, passing several beaches, a beautiful Balinese house, some private mansions and a field of lava. But once there, it was all worth it; we found a stunning black sand nook and crannie that we shared with just sea turtles (many of them though 😍) to soak in some sun and test our new GoPro. All afternoon we didn’t see another human soul, which felt like a true miracle on Hawaii!

# The first few nights we stayed in Kona with the surfer host, who had ensured us that it barely ever rained on that side of the island. Ironically, we woke up the third morning (and actually already a few times during the night) in the middle of terrible rain and storm. We decided to move to the ‘Hilo side’ of the island, all the way to the east, where the weather is usually a lot wetter but the Airbnb’s a lot cheaper. We ended up in a perfect place on a hill just outside hippy-town Pahoa with the nicest hosts, who we ended up staying with for 12 days. They shared the best places to go and see, where to eat, what to do and what not to do and they took us to the local weekly food festival where we enjoyed local and nonlocal foods, live music and hula dancers. Spending some more time in one place allowed us to find our own favourite supermarkets, beaches, cafes and bars, plus get the hang of the directions! All the right ingredients to blend in and experience a more authentic side of Hawaii; we loved it!

# One of the most interesting and varied national parks of all of the USA is Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park. We spent a day exploring this widespread wonderland of craters, lava tubes, thermic activity, ancient petroglyphs, rainforests and spectacular coastal formations and special it was for sure! Especially our drive down to the Southern coast, when the sky cleared, the sun started setting and reflecting on te solidified lava and we could see as far as the end of the coast, was one to remember. And as if we hadn’t seen enough beauty, the park completely changed in the dark! We went back to the star feature of the park, the massive Halema’uma’u crater, the home of Pele, goddess of fire, that seemed all peaceful and quiet during the day but was now spurting burning, bright red lava!! Now that’s a seriously unusual sight for us Dutchies, wow!! 🔥

# Another unusual thing that we went to see is the summit of Mauna Kea, the world’s tallest mountain. What struck us as most unusual about it is the fact that you can just drive up to the summit, at 4.200 meters! Half way up the drive we made an half hour stop at the visitor center, to acclimatize to the altitude and to make a short walk up one of the cones. From there it took us under half an hour to reach the summit, where we got an out of this world panoramic view over the slopes of the mountain, the beautiful surroundings and over the incoming clouds. Unfortunately, it wasn’t clear enough to see any of the other islands - but hey, we were expecting less visibility after recent persistant bad weather! Being that high feels a bit weird, so we didn’t stay for too long before we returned - right in time to avoid the crowds that were coming in to settle for some star gazing. Sometimes you spend the afternoon in the supermarket, sometimes on top of the world’s tallest mountain! A ma zing! 🗻

# Another special place on The Big Island is Waipi’o Valley, which can only be reached by a steep road leading into the valley. One option to go down is by shuttle (a 15 min ride at max), which would cost us nothing less than 60$ a person, so we decided to ‘just’ walk down. Once we reached the valley floor, we found ourselves right in the middle of a blooming green oasis, the most fertile grounds, an abundancy of fresh fruits growing from the trees in and around the gardens of the hippy locals - who aren’t that approving of them curious tourists -, lushy cliffs all around, the smell of weed and free roaming ponies. No wonder the locals are really pressuring the governments to keep their policies out of this valley; time stops here. We continued to walk deeper into the valley, aiming to find a huge waterfall, but a few miles of walking, millions of mosquito bites (on my side) and a slip and fall in the river we had to cross later we learned that we had gone the wrong way and had to turn right back around… In the end we never found the waterfall, but we did end up at a beautiful beach where we enjoyed a picnic on the black sand before we struggled our way up the steep road out of the valley. An adventurous way to keep our summer bodies in shape! 💪

# We ended our stay on the lovely Big Island with a night trip to see Puna’s lava stream. Here, lava from the Kilauea volcano flows down into the ocean, which should be a spectacular sight. To get to the flow, we rented mountainbikes to bike 6 km into the volcanoes national park, from where we continued by foot. The flow was not strong enough to reach the ocean, so we started walking landward as we could see smoldering lava in the dark distance. We walked and walked and walked over the sharp and crunching solidified lava from previous streams, which must be the most deceptive surface in the world as we just did not seem to get any closer. Finally, after an 1,5 hours walk, we literally felt heat under our feet and started to see burning lava through the cracks of the lava we were walking on. Scary!! And just when it all started to feel slightly too dangerous for our taste, we bumped into the actual flow of burning, glowing lava! Wow, that truly was one of the most special things we have seen!! And very very hot, so after we took a really good look and some underlit pictures we decided to start making our way back. It took forever before we finally got back home, but whát an experience! 😱

Sort of sad to move on but ready for new adventures at the same time, we made our way to the airport. The rental shuttle dropped us at the smallest airstrip at the side the airport, where it turned out that we had booked two seats on a tiny 7 seat plane! Though the windy weather made the short flight significantly less comfortable, the stunning views we got while flying over the Big Island’s extraordinary landscape to and over Maui completely made up for it. We had heard a lot of good things about Maui and we had saved our last week on Hawaii to find out for ourselves:

# We were off to a great start when we checked in to a conveniently located Airbnb where our hosts happened to be a very fun couple of our age with who we really clicked! Even though they had adapted the ‘Maui midnight’ routine, which meant that they would go to bed at 8 pm and wake up at 4 am, we managed to spend some time together and really became friends. They had a reaaally cool dog too, awesome!

# One of the main attractions on Maui is ‘the road to Hana’. This road leads from the ‘commercial’ centre around Kahului to Hana in the rather remote and natural side of the island, passing beautiful, thick rainforest dotted with countless waterfalls, rainbow eucalyptus, lushy cliffs, stunning coastal views and food-trucks with local treats. After the ‘secret’ Bamboo Forest that we heard about, to be reached by climbing through the fence around the 6,5 miles marker along the road, turned out not to be the ‘hidden oasis’ that we expected to find, we continued to Hana with just a single stop for some fabulous banana bread, straight from the oven; a treat that cannot be missed on this road! Though honestly beautiful at times, the road was just dreadfully crowded with countless tourists including reckless Asian drivers. Hana itself is a tiny, sleepy place, where we just stopped for some chili dog before we continued our roadtrip along the coast. Even though it is a lot longer in miles, we decided to continue driving around the island, rather than driving back the way we came, and that was the best choice we could have made! Even though ‘the road to Hana’ is supposed to be the main attraction, we were blown away by the beauty of the road on the other side of the island! It took us along the most stunning coastal views - from where we could actually see almost all other Hawaiian islands! -, around a range of stunning, lushy cliffs and beautiful rivers floating through while the sun was setting and the sky turned fifty shades of pink. Where we drove the road to Hana almost in one go, here we literally stopped around every corner! Wow! 💖

# One of our absolute highlights on Maui was catching the sunset at the beautiful crater rim of Haleakalã. On the way to the top we enjoyed some seriously beautiful views, though they weren’t as impressive as Mauna Kea. We settled down on the West side of the of the crater rim, from where we watched the sun going down, through the crowds into the ocean behind the hills, completed by the sky’s brightly changing colours. Will sunsets ever get boring?

# All the way at the Eastern end of the Haleakalã National Park we went for a walk along the Pipiway Trail, which led us through thick forest, past a gigantic tree that looked all magical with the sun roaming through its many branches and into the most amazing Bamboo Forest that not even the ones in Japan could compare to. We kept following the path that got more and more narrow as we continued, with tons of branches of bamboo bending over us and closing us in. At the end we reached an opening with a waterfall and millions of mosquitos, so we quickly made our way back into the jungle. Hawaiian jungle must be the most beautiful we’ve seen!

# Maui seems to have it all; there is a commercial center with resorts and high-end shops, there is a quiet and natural side with countless waterfalls and thick jungle, there are beaches of all sorts and densities and there are many small and rather authentic villages as Kihei, Paia and Lahaina. We loved to spend our time roaming the tiny streets with cute shops, artist markets and peaceful parks, visiting museums to learn more about Maui’s whaling and settlers history and feel the vibes, while indulging in fresh smoothies, açai bowls and shave ice. We did save one of the bests for last!

# Our favorite beach on Maui was Big Beach, where we were lucky enough to meet some nice people to play beach volleyball with. We came back for the weekly beach volley ‘competitions’, which is a gathering of people who spend all day playing volleyball, chatting, swimming and drinking. Gotta love islandlife! 🤙

# As recommended by our new Airbnb friends, we made a beautiful hike along the Waihe’e Ridge. In under two hours, we climbed higher and higher, following the ridge and enjoying the most beautiful views over the ‘Iao Valey, the coast and the other side of the island. How I wish we would live in a place like this and could do this as our daily exersize! 💫

# We had our first couchsurfing experience! It took us a year, but we finally signed up and were accepted to be hosted by a lovely couple on the island. Other than with Airbnb, these people really invested in getting to know us a little bit, we had dinner together and we shared travel experiences. It is really interested to see how an experience changes when the influence of money is taken from the equation! Our stay really added to a genuine and authentic experience of Hawaiian life on Maui, and we hope to be able to return the favor one day as our lovely hosts come to visit us in NL!

And then, all of a sudden, those 5 weeks that seemed so long at the start had flown over and our date of departure arrived. Still sandy from our last day at the beach, we changed into our warm winter clothes on the airport and checked in. Bye bye summer, beachbums, palmtrees and coconuts; time to get used to some winter temperatures in Chicago! ❄️🇱🇷