This took us down into the valley of the Rio Urubamba around Alcanote.
On program visit with Practical Action, our 2nd base camp (after Lima) was the city of Cusco high up in the Peruvian Andes.
The 2nd day of my stopver, I rented an electric bike with a broken battery, followed the cable cars and eventually the bike path across the Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge all the way to Muir Woods via Sausalito, where I enjoyed the sun.
On my way back from Hawai’i I had to stop over and went for a quick city trip with a two-night stay in the now-a-Hillton Parc 55. In the first afternoon after my red-eye arrival from Kona, I walked along Market St and got a few shots of the F-trams running by.
I had been watching for Nene – the state bird of Hawaii – across my visits in the park, but eventually just asked ranger friends and they pointed me to a subdivision of Volcano village just outside the park. Fair enough, the Nene flock was to be found on the fairground of the local golf course.
Can’t ever get enough of such a spectacular event. Lava lake in the crater again. Pele has come back to the surface to show her beauty.
Living the island life
Still Kona-side, I visited the 2nd Heiau and enjoyed a morning and an evening at different beaches, with a nice Birthday dinner in between at the Lava Lava Beach Club that was about to close done for major renovation works.
It was a bit a squeeze I have to say to time the 100th dive well. It had started with an online cancellation of the booking I had made for a two-tank dive on O’ahu that would have gotten me to 98 dives – which meant another two-tank with the final sunset dive with the Mantas would get me to the round number. Then the shore dive I got spontaneously booked in on O’ahu turned out to be only a single tank dive, so I booked another activity on the Big Island for the day before the big day. And there we were all ready to jump aboard at Keauhou Boat Harbor when eventually the call came in that the boat was sitting out in open water with no electrics working whatsoever. So again I was stuck but got lucky just talking my way into joining another boat that was leaving – the rare advantage of a solo traveler. So finally, I did get to do the Kona Manta Night Dive as the 100th dive.
And this time, thanks to Dramaqueen-Dramamine, I was not the one sick on the boat. But the night before I could have sworn I’d never get on another boat. Ever.
The last time I was at Po’ohonua o Honaunau that I can remember, I was dispatched as a volunteer from Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park to support the big festivities there in 2012. It sure felt much calmer this evening with a little drizzle from the sky.
