Continued from first post….
We got off our flight at Lihue Airport and immediately went to the car rental building on the site. We ended up being convinced into renting a brand new Mustang convertible which was actually great to cruise around in on this AMAZING island. I have never been to a more beautiful place in my entire life. Truly surreal being there. We forked out the money for the stang and took the bad boy to our beach home. The place was alright and super hot… No air con, as most homes apparently don’t have in Hawaii. We lived off fans for these 4 days. Thank the lord.
We were super tired from the flight. I, once again, get super sick from planes and just wanted to relax again so my nausea could disappear. After relaxing and making ourselves at home we went to explore the town of Kapaa where we were staying and discovered all these cute little food trucks and a somewhat “down town” area where you could park and walk around a bunch of shops and restaurants. This area was lively and had horrible traffic. We drove through and went to get smoothie bowls and once again the place had just closed. Legit missed it by 5 minutes. Thank you traffic. We grabbed a bite to eat at a Mexican style restaurant in that “down town” area I just mentioned and let’s just say I lived off fish/shrimp tacos and quesadillas this trip. As well as Acai bowls.
We went back to our new home after and just relaxed and went to bed so we could get to hiking early the next morning.
END OF DAY 2.
START OF DAY 3- I will never hike again…
This was Thursday morning and I think it may have been the craziest day we had during the entire trip. We decided to hike this day and boy am I sorry we did. We started the day off with a grocery shopping trip to the local Walmart (wasn’t expecting one on the island) and we grabbed all the food we would need for the next three days ahead. I also grabbed the cheapest bikinis ever! They had just regular style bikinis in bright neon colours for $4 a piece. I grabbed a pink set, neon yellow set, and white set. Also grabbed some pairs of shorts and souvenirs for the loved ones back home. Now onto the hiking…
We went back to our home and dropped off our groceries and got changed for hiking. I wore a bikini with shorts and a loose forever 21 active wear top. Super comfy for the long day ahead. We started off with driving to the smoothie stand (I’ll look for the name) that was closed the day before and actually got something this time. I got pitaya lemonaide (SO GOOD AND FRESH). Brandon got a smoothie since he was just LIVING for them on both islands. We started driving towards the north coast of the island and stopped at Kealia Beach and just enjoyed the sun, sand and ocean. Super beautiful and empty which I loved about Kauai.. Everything was super private unlike O’ahu.
After we had a beach break we continued up to Hanalei. This was one of my favourite places during the entire trip. The atmosphere was so awesome, people walking around drinking from coconuts, camping, food trucks and fresh coconut/pineapple stands everywhere, as well as Shave Ice huts surrounding you. The environment was beautiful as well, all mountain and cave around you right on the waterfront. I would definitely stay in this area if ever returning to Kauai. We made our way to Hanalei Bay and it was GORGEOUS. So relaxing and beautiful and felt like a little piece of “untouched, natural” beauty. I had my first fresh coconut there; got to watch them cut it for me with a machete , drank the coconut water, had them recut the coconut in half, scrape out the coconut meat, season it with lime and salt and I got to enjoy. I WANNA BE AN ISLAND GIRL. It was sooooooo good, I didn’t want my little coconut to end. There was also a cave directly behind the stand that Brandon and I checked out. This cave was so flat and far back an entire tribe could have lived in there.
After we enjoyed more Shave Ice and snacks, we got back on the road towards the Na Pali Coast state park. We parked by the Ha’ena Beach Park and started our long and trecharous venture town Kalalau Trail on the Na Pali Coast. Now looking at a map.. It seems like we did no hiking at all… Our goals was to get out to the Kalalau Valley but that was 5 miles into the trail (then another 5 miles back). We were hoping to see some waterfalls but just saw some amazing views of the Na Pali Coast. We truthfully only made it 2 miles in and found Hanakapi’ai Beach and a cave. Both so beautiful.
We started our horrible hike back (I was actually dying) and got in the car and made our our drive home. Not going to lie, we found a McDonalds and totally chowed down because we had barely eaten all day and I was going to puke. I think the McDonalds probably made it worse but whatever.
xo Christina
CHRISTINA PETROVSKI 