Hawai'i 04: Sun!

Wednesday, March 18th

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We woke to a fabulously sunny day. I decided then to stop checking Yahoo weather, as apparently no one but the locals has any idea what the weather is going to be (I'd seen it range 15 degrees on reports in four hours). I ate an avocado for breakfast and then, well and then realized that perhaps one *can* have too many avocados, something I'd never before been able to test. We got our beach stuff together and headed up the coast to Makalawena Beach, purported to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the islands and one I'd been drooling over since our last visit (when it was too far to drive to). We headed north into serious lava country. The road here is cut through black lava hills, dotted all over with names and pictures made out of white coral. It's a stark landscape, and it's hard to believe that there are beautiful, sandy beaches tucked into the hills.

We parked by the highway, and walked in along a bumpy lava track. It was hot and dry, and we were surrounded by tall grasses and what looked like thorn trees. We could hear goats in the grass, and occasionally a 4-wheel drive vehicle would pass us, filled with people and coolers (but not *too* many, it's still a fairly secluded beach). After about 40 minutes we made it to the beach proper, first seeing the water where the black lava and the white coral made up a patchwork effect. There were trees by the water, and sea turtles lolling in the sunshine. Dave found a young tree that had grown out of the roots of a dead tree and took some beautiful photos. We climbed over a little hill and there was...paradise! White sugary sand, aquamarine water in soft waves, heaven. We spent about 3 hours there, playing in the waves and laughing at our luck, and finally decided we should probably not spend *all* day in the sun, ha ha. We stopped by some mostly fresh water pools in the lava rock to rinse off, then headed back to the car. Slowly, as we walked, we realized that perhaps we had not applied sunscreen as assiduously as we might have done. And perhaps we should have used 50 spf, rather than 30 on our pale, pale Portland skin. By the time we reached the car, we were rapidly turning into lobsters, and feeling extremely lame.

We stopped by another beach, closer to town, to meet up with Shannon, Alex, Erin and Erin's new daughter, Malaya. We didn't want to risk too much more sun, and had dinner in town with them, eating enormous burgers and feeling increasingly like we were on fire. Dave grabbed some aloe lotion before the stores closed (Hawai'i closes down early), and after making arrangements to go to Volcano with Shannon and Alex the next day (in the cloudy, wet part of the island), we fled home and slathered ourselves with aloe but too late, too late!