So far we had visited the island of Oahu: the most populated, the island of Maui: the most popular, the island of Hawaii: the biggest and most geologically active, now we were visiting the island of Kaua'i: the garden island. Of the islands we had visited, this had the sparsest population and possibly the most untouched scenery. In fact, some parts of the island aren't even accessible by car yet.
Today was another of those days we were quite looking forward to: driving little two person ATVs through the muddy countryside. This was a really good tour since it had a bit of everything. We basically were told to buy a bandana to wear over our mouth and nose, and were given some old clothes and a mudbug ATV to drive, then our guides took us on a drive through the interior of the island. Some parts were fairly muddy, although we were told not as muddy as it would sometimes get, and Claire even managed to get us stuck at one point. As with all tours, it's the guides that really make or break it for us, and these guys were really
cool. They had the real laid back and fun approach of adventure tourism people, but also knew a lot about the places we were driving through. It turns out we were driving through a lot of blockbuster film sets, like Jurassic Park and 7 days and 7 nights.
We stopped for lunch at this cool set of waterfalls with a nice pool for swimming. Claire and I were the only ones in the whole group keen enough to get down to our togs and get (jump) in. Yeah, it was pretty cold. We were the only non-americans in the group and had us beleiving that our names were in fact New Zealand. I can't remember if it was this day, but some time on our holiday someone asked us if we ate the kiwi? We were kind of shocked and said "No! It's kind of endangered!" Of course they were talking about the fruit.
The other thing I was excited about today was the Lu'au happening at a real fancy person's house on the island. I don't think Claire was initially all that excited since she expected it to be not much more than a maori hangi, and possibly quite commercial. Sure, it was a pretty big event, and definitely set up for tourists, but while the food was pretty good and very filling it wasn't the star of the show. Before I even get to this I should mention that we got
lei'ed on arrival, and we had a ride on the plantation train. The plantation itself wasn't all that dissimilar from the one on Maui, but the train was an antique with cute wooden carriages. And same as on the sunset whale watching tour all alcohol at the event was free!
After dinner was the main event, a Hawaiian cultural show. Even for someone not intensely interested in this I was really impressed. Through song and dance they depicted how the ancient Hawaiians travelled to the islands from Tahiti, stressing the dangers and sadness of what were always only planned to be one-way journeys. The hula style of dancing looks really cool, and I was amazed at how much their hips moved. Later in the piece they told the stories of some of the local dieties, and I was blown away by the guy who juggled the flaming torches,
followed by some girls with flaming poi. Claire took some cool video of these acts, although not any photos.
We got back to the boat just in time for the 'Newlywed/Not-so-Newlywed' game in the theatre. They asked for contestants from different groups: zero to five years married, 6 to 20 years, 21 years plus, and one extra of any group. We put our names in and after a dismal attempt at pronouncing our last name we were called up! It was real funny, the other couples introduced themselves as being married 10 years, 50 years, 15 years, and we were "ummm, 7 days...".
Basically the show works by asking one partner a set of questions, while the other one is occupied back stage, and then ask the other the same questions to see if they match. The guys were first to be tested, and after having to hop like a frog on stage for reasons that shall not be discussed I was doing better than all the others. I don't mean to point fingers *cough*CLAIRE*cough*, but somehow we only ended up third. Turns out I know Claire's bra size better than she does. It was lots of fun and they gave us a monogrammed bag for our
troubles.
Tomorrow: scenic helicopter flight =)
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