Aloha!

Two weeks ago we left for Hawaii, we decided to visit a new island this time. We went to Molokai, which is considered the most Hawaiian of all the islands. There are only 7000 people who live on the island. We left Thursday morning from Pheonix, it takes about 6 hours to fly and we had a nice flight. We landed in Honolulu around 12:00 and then got on this small plane that took us to Molokai. Now I get nervous on big planes, and when I saw this I got really nervous. But it was a nice smooth 30minute flight. We met a young couple on the plane, kind of hard not to talk to new people when you're almost touching. Becky and Eric from upstate New York, they were there for a brother's wedding.

From the plane, flying over Molokai. There is alot of farming on the island, and it gives people jobs, most of it is genetically modified corn that a company is doing research on, so it can't be eaten. The locals don't like having it there and not being able to eat it, but it brought much needed jobs to the locals. Almost everything has to be brought in to the island. When you hear that milk it like $6.00 a gallon, it really is, we bought a half gallon for over $3.00. So food is super expensive. They teach the young kids and talk alot about sustainablity, like grow a garden, and go fishing, and hunting. There are deer, wild pigs, wild goats, and wild turkeys, that they can shoot for food,.

So we landed, got our totally awesome rental car, sorry next picture. a 4 door jeep. By far the best rental car we've ever had. We were kind of sad to give it back.
Then we went to find our place. I loved it, again by far the best place we have ever stayed. It was so cute and had a washer and dryer. I brought home no dirt laundry. We enjoyed our quite mornings listening to Hawaiian music, eating our cheerios and toast on the balcony where you could see the ocean in the distance. It was very relaxing.

Then we went exploring. We drove to the east side of the island, we were staying on the west side. The island is about 60 miles long and 20 miles wide. We got going up this one way, windy road, we didn't make it the end, it started to get late and we decided we better go back. I am sad we didn't ever have the time to go back. There was a waterfall you could hike to with a guide and some white sand and black sand beaches on the other side of the mountain. So we heard. Maybe next time.

We stopped at this beach called 20 mile beach. It was a little beach, but it was supposed to be good for snorkeling. That is Maui in the distance. Pretty cool, we could see Lanai from the west side of the island.

Friday morning we decided to ride some mules down to a peninsula called Kalaupapa. The only way down there is by this trail, boat or plane. We went down 1700ft, there were 26 switch backes. It was only about 3 miles but we went straight down. It was tough on the knees, I finally just had to bend my legs so there wasn't so much impact on my them. I had a sore bum and sore knees for a few days, but it was well worth it.

Marty on his mule.

This is what we went down.

This was the top of the trail and that is where we were headed.

This town was a leper colony. Anyone who contracted lepercy was banished here. There were anywhere between 7000 and 8000 people who lived down there. Right now there are only 18 people who had the disease or are decendents of others who had it. It is now a National Park, so they take care of the up keep of the town and restoring the buildings. The Department of Health go in once a week to take care of the former patients because most of them can't see and can't walk and are in poor health. We stopped at a little market for a potty break, everyone was friendly, they even had picked some fresh mangos for us before we got there. We went to another smaller town called Kalawao and saw another colony and some beautiful scenary. There was a Father from Denmark, named Father Damien who went there in his twenties and took care of the sick people and built the colony and churches, then contracted the disease and died in his 60s. Pretty interesting place, kind of sad, yet beautiful.

This was the view from Kalawao. Absolutely beautiful. See that little island, that is where ships would bring people with lepercy and dump them over board and then they would have to swim to the island. And those seacliffs are the tallest seacliffs in the world.

After we arrived back up to the top, we went to a macadamia nut farm, and learned about macadamia nuts, and ate them.

Saturday we went to Dixie Beach and Marty taught me how to snorkel. For those of you who know me very well, know that I don't swim very well and deep water freaks me out. So I was freaked out, but thanks to a wonderful, supporting hubby who pushes me to grow and learn new things. I learned how to snorkel. The rest of the day went beach hopping and I have to say that I am now in love with snorkeling.

We also got to spend some time looking around the little shops in town, and there was a farmers market going on, I bought more mangos, a papaya, and a large avocado, like the ones I used to love to eat in Brazil.

We walked up to a point and got this shot looking down towards our condo. That beach is called 3 mile beach, whick is the longest beach in all of the Hawaiian islands. White sand beach for 3 miles and no one around, priceless.