Bali Hut

Once again we have lucked into a nice living arrangement. This one is on the big island, Hawaii. Quite the opposite of a plush high-rise efficiency apartment, this one is a hut in the woods. The owner, Eddie Yandle, calls it his "Bali hut". Eddie is a colorful extrovert who is available (for a nominal price) to transport and guide us around this northeast corner of the island.  The hut, prefabbed of teak, was manufactured in Bali and transported and assembled here. This is definitely the jungle, though Eddie insists he lives in a subdivision. One where the smallest lot is about an acre and nearly nobody bothers to clear more than a modest space for house and yard. Sometimes skimping pretty severely on the yard thing. In between, it's just as it always was - jungle. The nights are noisy. A full chorus of frogs and lizards starts tuning up around dusk and runs a full symphony all night long. At intervals through the night, one species will give it up and another join in, providing a change in rhythm. Indeed, after a while, you spot actual rhythms, whether real or just a mental trick, I cannot tell.

Our host, Eddie Yandle

We're a few miles east of Pahoa, which is 30 miles east of of Hilo, the largest city on the island and second largest in the Islands. This is  actually not a tourist area, just folks making a living doing whatever. Lots of small agriculture. The Farmers Market convenes on Sunday mornings and is a sight to see. Somehow I managed to forget my camera last Sunday but I will rectify that next week. Fruits I have never seen and have only managed to sample a few. So far, all I have tried are delicious.

We got here courtesy of Go Mokulele Airlines with a pickup by Eddie Saturday evening. By Sunday morning Liz had a low grade fever and sore throat. Since it was Sunday we waited it out.  A couple of days of downtime put her all to right and by Monday morning we joined Eddie for a 3 mil hike. Fine with me. I kept watch on her and kicked back with a good book, punctuated by naps and admiring the vegetation.

Today we went to see Kilauea, the active volcano. Unlike the steep cliffs of Oahu, the mountains here are comparatively gentle slopes. You just keep gradually going generally up, noticing your ears popping now and then. Kilauea is only about 3500 feet up and I was a little surprised when we reached the park entrance. I was still waiting for the big slopes. The welcome center is a couple of miles away from the entrance. The building is full of exhibits explaining what a volcano actually is and describing Hawaii Island's own three. We had just arrived when a ranger announced he was about to do a nature walk to the caldera viewing area. This young man, Travis Delmont, grew up within sight of the park and did a fine job describing the plant life around us, the realities of life on a live volcano and Hawaiian folklore. An hour well spent. From there we went even further up the slope to the science center. That's where the real view was! Unfortunately wind conditions were such that we weren't allowed to approach the edge of the viewing deck and park employees were somewhat insistent that we do our viewing from inside the center itself. There wasn't enough wind to blow the sulfur compounds out of the caldera and they were filling it up at a high enough level to be dangerous.  Fortunately the Science Center had huge clear windows so the photography didn't suffer too badly.