BLOGGED, BUT NOT ALONG THE WAY: PART III

 I woke up again in the middle of the night again (damn the time difference) and made a reservation to visit a vanilla plantation!

The guy who did our timeshare thing (you're going to hear about him again, so I'm gonna call him Charles. I don't know if that was his name but humor me) gave us some ideas on what to do on the island after he stopped trying to take our money. He asked if we had heard about the place, and that they did a tour and then fed you a meal where every course had their own vanilla in it. We had not, but the idea stuck, so I found it online and bought some tickets!

Our reservation was at 11:00, so we got up with the sun and then went back to the shopping center to have breakfast at one of the restaurants before we got on the road. We ate at a place called Kona Biscuit Co. and I learned about guava jelly and passionfruit butter. My life will never be the same. 

The plantation was on the other side of the island, so we had about an hour and change to drive to get there. Sorry about the rough nature of this map, and that it isn't to scale or painted:

We started roughly on the far left of that red line, and had to drive to the spot on the right, so it wasn't a terribly long drive, all things considered, but it felt longer because the speed limit all over the island was fairly low. Maybe that's all a part of driving in the spirit of "aloha." Well, that and not giving people the bird when they piss you off. It was interesting, because we started out in bright sunlight and those lava rock fields, going up through hills and grass, and then it got cloudy and drizzly as we made it higher up and found ourselves driving through neighborhoods and small towns. Then the sun came out and we were in thick trees and flowers, and much greener landscapes, so we knew that we had made it to the "wet" side of the island. That was where it looked much more like I had thought Hawaii would, and it was gorgeous! 

Trying to find the Hawaiian Vanilla Company was a lot of driving down one lane roads and through farms of different kinds. It reminded me to trying to find the small whiskey distilleries in Tennessee, but with less kudzu and more hibiscus. We finally found it and found ourselves in this tiny old coffee mill turned vanilla farm. We were super early because we hadn't known if we'd get caught in traffic or what, so we sat around reading and browsing the gift shop until it was our turn to tour.

There were about 15 of us in total, and they served us a delicious lunch before walking us down to their hothouse to see the vanilla vines. Unfortunately the orchids has already bloomed and been pollinated before we got there. The flowers usually only last for about three hours, they said, but we did get to see the vines and some of the beans that they'd left as a visual aid. We were told all about the process, and that this particular farm was the first American vanilla farm, and it was a beautiful walk around the grounds. There we avocado trees just casually on the side of the road, and we were in a place where people lived, so it was small and intimate. It wasn't their main farm, but the one where it had begun and where they taught people about how vanilla is grown, but it was still a neat experience.

On the way back we acquainted ourselves with the beaches that were closest to us along the way. I asked to stop at a state park beach, just to see what it was like. Very crowded, as it happens, and Steve found a very small, but very beautiful black sand beach in a cove in a gated community. Apparently, there are no private beaches in Hawaii, so we were let in without any trouble. 

It was probably the most beautiful beach that we'd seen up to that point. It was small, the sand was more gray than black, but black enough, and it wasn't overrun with people. We walked and took pictures, and I had to physically restrain myself from taking rocks from the beach. My gremlin self really wanted to take rocks, but it's supposed to be bad juju to do so. So I didn't. Boo.

By the time we made it back to our condo, it was late in the day and we were exhausted. I guess we're getting old, because instead of getting cleaned up and going right back out, we just ordered a pizza and called it a night.