I feel as though this blog title is pretty epic. Then again, anything with the word ‘volcano’ in it is going to be epic no matter what it’s about… unless it’s very scientific, in which case it sucks.
But yes, during the second half of my holiday in Hawaii with my sister, we ventured across to the Hawaiian Island (also known as the Big Island, or the Island of Hawai’i) in order to see the MOST ACTIVE VOLCANO IN THE WORLD. Sadly no one was killed in the making of this blog post.
We got up at an insanely early time in the morning (4:30am for those of you who doubt me) and caught a bus to Honolulu airport, where we then caught a plane, along with six other people in our group, to Hilo, the capital of the Big Island. There, we were met by our tour guide, and we drove round and all over the Big Island, seeing what sights were to be had.
Our first stop: a beach… with an unusual twist. I’m sure there is a technical name given to this beach, but to me it is/was simply called Black Sand Beach. Why? Well… it was a beach, with sand, and it was black. Weird, right?
Oddly enough, the following day, one of my friends on Facebook posted a picture of a Pink Sand Beach… it was a rather strange coincidence. But either way, the black sand was awesome. There was also a strange swamp right next to the beach for some reason… tropical places will never cease to amaze me.
After the beach, we got back on the bus and probably stopped at a few other places, but I don’t particularly remember any of them, so I’ll skip ahead to the next decisive stop: a waterfall.
This waterfall is known as the Rainbow Waterfall and I’m still not entirely sure why… still, it was pretty, and there was an enjoyable Polynesian Gods story revolving around it, which I’m sure you all know by now I am quite partial to. Plus, my sister and I divulged in our first selfies of the day… a risky thing.
I could rant and rave about all the stops we made, but that would make this post excessively long, so I’m going to have to cut to the main point: the volcano.
I must say, I was not quite as excited as my sister was at the prospect of this. Obviously I was excited, but due to her being a crazy science freak, she seemed to take a much bigger interest.
Our tour guide was a lovely man called Steve, who was very informative… only I didn’t listen to half of it, due to it mostly being about science or geography. Still, I’m sure the others (such as my sister) appreciated it!
Our tour took all the way up the volcano to the big crater right at the top. Of course, selfies were obligatory:
One of my all time favourite selfes.
I’m sort of struggling to remember the order that we did things, so forgive me if it is not chronologically correct. I just remember we went up and down the volcano a few times…
Ooh! Next was definitely the coolest bit. We went through a LAVA TUBE. I don’t know if I was being naïve (most likely I was, it does seem rather improbable when I think about it now), but a lava tube to me involved red-hot lava trickling along next to you as you walked through a tunnel that had been created by the magma. I was partly right… there was just no actual lava.
It was awesome to see the solidified lava, though, especially as it had made a walkable tunnel. The texture of the rock was interesting as well… plus the surroundings of the tube were quite pretty to be pictured. No selfies this time I’m afraid, but we did get a picture taken of the both of us before we went in.
Now comes the part that I like to call the Desolation of Smaug (any chance to make a Tolkien-related reference and I’ll take it). The reason, is that we stopped at the side of the road and quite literally walked onto devastation. There was an entire field that had been wiped out of vegetation, and there was solidified lava covering everything. The tree roots that had been covered in lava made cool patterns as well.
My second favourite selfie…
There was another stop, which just involved some impressive landscapes:
And then we arrived at the bottom of the volcano, and found ourselves next to the sea. There was a cool-looking arch that was made mandatory to take a picture of, and then we went on to the final point that I took pictures of.
One of the main roads that had been existed prior to the volcanoes explosion… now covered in solidified lava (there’s a lot of that around the volcano, funnily enough). There was something exceptionally intriguing and mesmerising by a half blacked out road. Not only could you walk along the road (obviously going up and down, depending how much lava had decided to settle), but you the pictures were cool, in my opinion.
I also got a shot of the solidified lava running down the hill/slope, though, I don’t think the picture came out very well.
That about concluded the volcano. We took the bus back to the airport, said goodbye to Steve, and caught our flight back to Oahu (the island where Honolulu is). A short bus-ride back to our hostel, and we crashed out as soon as we got there.
A couple of days later (after enough time to recover) we decided it was time to see Pearl Harbour. Now, we had an absolute nightmare getting there. Our taxi driver dropped us off at completely the wrong place, and so we had to walk for what was meant to be two miles. We walked for about an hour and a half. And I don’t walk slowly. So we think the sign lied to us. Still, we weren’t in the best of moods when we arrived, and I can’t say Pearl Harbour is the most uplifting place to visit. Still, it was educational and moving, so I was glad of that.
We watched a 30-minute long video describing the prelude to the Pearl Harbour disaster and what it meant and so on (the narrator was Rizzo from Grease, strangely enough). After that, we took a short boat ride across to the memorial of the U.S.S Arizona: the ship that was sunk and claimed the lives of 1,177 lives as it went.
I actually really enjoyed the experience. Maybe ‘enjoyed’ isn’t the right word to use… but you know what I mean. It was insightful, and I was glad for that.
I have to say though, the whole tourist side of it did not appeal to me. I cannot abide the fact that people take pictures in front of the memorial. They seem to care more about showing that they’ve been there than actually learning and mourning the fallen. Plus seeing people take selfies in front of the memorials just seems plain rude and disrespectful. But I shan’t rant anymore.
This, unfortunately, almost entirely concludes my Hawaiian adventures. It has been delightful. The weather has been incredible (perhaps a bit too incredible some days), and most people I met were friendly and courteous. Oh, actually, I’ll leave you with the story regarding our taxi driver on the way back from Pearl Harbour.
He was a devout Christian. That much I was able to tell from the outside of his car. There were Jesus bumper stickers all over it (not just on the bumper… as they’re meant to be) and inside he had at least two bibles for show. In all fairness, he seemed like a really nice and friendly person when we first set off, and I suppose he was. He was an extra in the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film, which was exciting and made him instantly more interesting. Except then he had to go and ruin it by trying to give me a sales pitch regarding some gold investment scheme he had going on. Safe to say, he failed miserably. Then, he made things even worse, and neither my sister nor I attempted to make conversation afterwards. The subject of gay marriage being made legal all across America came up. Much to our annoyance, his words on this, and bear in mind this is a direction quote, were: “we’re all going to feel God’s judgement”.
I have no issue with religion, but people like that infuriate me. I’m not going to explain why (I’m sort of hoping its self-explanatory) but yeah. I didn’t agree with him one bit.
All-in-all, our Pearl Harbour visit was a strange day: first, we got dropped off at completely the wrong place and had to walk for ages in foul moods; then we experienced the tragedy of Pearl Harbour, which is always going to be a strange experience; and then we had to endure an extremist who was avid on forcing his opinion upon us. Very strange indeed.
Next stop: Los Angeles and the infamous Hollywood!
A Weary Traveller 