Forest of bamboo? Don't mind if we do..

Things haven't been too bad lately.  This is kind of a rainy morning so while Sam and I lay about listening to a little of Tom Petty and his Heartbreakers playing live I thought I could take a couple minutes to attempt to catch up a bit [Editor's Note: I wrote this around 9:00am here, then got called into work.  My first f'ing day was a call in a half hour before the shift started.  Life is hard for the new guy, especially when the new guy is broke.  I got $20 in Hula promo bucks, though.  This is like getting $40 because food there is half price.  Sam went snorkeling.  I brought home the bacon.  Sweet dinner, here we come!].  Sam's been here since Saturday, I think, and we've actually been able to do quite a bit and the weather's been more or less decent with the exception of this morning.  Jon also had a friend come who renteted a car so Sam and I have pretty much been cruising with them on the regular to see some of the sights around the island.  Since I landed I hadn't done more than go five or so miles north of where I'm living or five or so miles south of where I'm living...so much of this exploring has been new to me, as well.

Tuesday, for example, we headed east past the airport and then we continued to the east side of the island on the Hana Highway to check out a bamboo forest.  It did not disappoint.  You just kind of pull off the side of the road, hide what few valuables you brought, lock your car up, and then walk through a little porthole of bamboo onto a trail that winds all through, well, a forest of bamboo.  This walk leads to a stream and passes by waterfalls of different shapes and sizes and some other pretty killer sights.  This was capped off by a jump and a swim upstream where you climb up and find a pool with a 60 foot waterfall.  Ya, pretty crazy all around.  Then you jump and swim back downstream and foot your way back out.  The whole "hike" was done in bare feet.  Earthy, indeed.

FYI: I'm putting "hike" in quotes because my schema of hiking is still basically backpacking and overnight camping and that sort of thing.  Walking through the woods for a couple of hours is just that, walking through the woods for a couple of hours.  Out here everyone calls that hiking, and I guess it is.  Hopefully I can open up my conception of hiking while I'm here...I think that becoming more progressive in my definition of hiking would make me a better person, right?

Well, these are probably what you want to see, so here are a few snapshots from our walk on the bamboo forest hike.


Two studs in the back of a red Mustang..

Our fearless leader..

Follow the white rabbit..

Into the rabbit hole..

Tight quarters..

Until things open up just a bit..

And you reach a nice little water fall..

And another..

There was a bit of climbing..

And we got buzzed by a chopper...this is the scene we had passed up, too.  Not bad..

We had just swam through that pool so we could see what was ahead..

Sam was moderately impressed..

The three amigos by a 60 footer.  Nice way to start off the week..

I'm not a strong swimmer.  And the water was cold.  My wee wee was smaller than usual upon exit..

I didn't know Jon took this picture until I got home but this whole swim I was thinking "Man, if this was in the Amazon and we were swimming througha  murky pool I'd crap my pants.  I should probably be nervous here, too, right?"  But I didn't say anything because I figured if I did I'd get eaten by something.  By holding my tongue I stayed safe from the Karma Police..

On our way back down the trail..

I tried to get artsy before we exited the bamboo and lava rock..

Lahaina provided us with a rainbow for the return to town.  Nice cap to the day..

Somehow I managed to take 160 pictures.  Hopefully sometime soon I'll get a slideshow up of some more of the better ones.  It's dinner time now, though.  Cheers.