Today was just the four of us as my in-laws decided to stay home. We took off inland, hoping to see the famous Waimea Canyon. The drive up was gorgeous, but the ever present rain clouds that have relentlessly pestered us this trip decided otherwise, and we realized as we drove into the cloud that we weren’t going to see anything, so we turned around abruptly.
On the way down the canyon was this completely random dilapidated fruit stand in the middle of a field surrounded by coconut trees. A little Asian couple was there, chopping up papaya and pineapple. They gave us some to taste and also chopped up a mango for us. We ended up buying two mangoes and a jar of pineapple, and then Camden spotted the coconuts. His dream this trip was to drink out of a coconut, and this fellow delivered. He snatched a coconut (already husked) and sliced off the bottom and top with a huge machete, then carved a hole in the top and poked a straw in it. Camden was ELATED.
Until he drank the coconut water.
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| The beginning of the end |
You know, coconut water really is an acquired taste. It’s sweet but not sugar sweet, and it has an odd earthy aftertaste. He tried REALLY hard to like it and drank half the coconut before throwing in the towel and saying forget it. I drank the rest, and while it wasn’t my favorite, I could see how it REALLY hydrates you.
With that bucket list item checked off, we went to do more touristy things. We drove to the South Shore to the famous Spouting Horn, a lava shelf on the shore with a large hole that the surf forces through, causing a blow hole effect. This was WAY COOLER than I even expected it to be and we stayed for quite a while watching it. There was even a sea turtle battling the surf.
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| Probably spouting two stories high |
Just up the road was our lunch of choice! We went to the Koloa Fish Market on the south shore for delicious poke bowls, then walked a block over to Fresh Shave ice for some delicious orange flavored shaved ice and a nice picnic area to eat lunch at.
The majority of the afternoon we spent at Kiahuna beach, our seemingly new favorite beach for its combination of boogie boarding and snorkeling. I was skeptical of the snorkeling conditions due to the high waves, but Brad went out and said it was AMAZING. So I geared up and gave it a try and was blown AWAY by the amount of tropical fish out there, not just plentiful but HUGE. We would have stayed longer but for the fact that we were meeting the in-laws for dinner, so we had to wrap it up.
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| Randomly, while finding a bathroom |
We de-sanded ourselves and got dressed to go to a nice restaurant called Keoki’s Paradise in Poipu, which is exactly as touristy as you can get without going to an actual Luau. There’s tiki torches and a koi pond and thatched roofs. Dinner was delicious, featuring coconut shrimp, macadamia nut crusted ahi and hula pie.
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| Hula pie! Macadamia nut ice cream on an Oreo crust with chocolate fudge and whipped cream |
After dinner we walked around a couple shops, the boys got shark tooth necklaces and I got a puka shell necklace circa 1998, thank you. Camden even found his name on a surfboard! So of course that came home with us.
Another amazing day in paradise!
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