Hawaii part 2

View out over the south-west coast of Oahu

The next day we drove to the north of Oahu, around the area where they do a lot of the filming for Lost. We’d booked ourselves onto a horseback riding trip that promised a mountainous trail offering “panoramic views in all directions”.

La-hoola stopping for a bite to eat

Soon after we arrived at the base camp, we were joined by a group of 8 Latinos (3 fairly young couples and 2 kids) from California. We had to wait a little while after we arrived, to give the horses that had just come back from another trek a bit of a rest. This was a bit of a problem for one of the ladies, who kept on asking when the ‘whore-seeees’ were going to be ready. When we were all saddled up and ready to go, our guide told us how to control our horses and how it was important to try to keep our horses moving. The only time we should let our horses stop for a munch of grass on route, would be if someone’s horse had to stop to go to the loo. If this happened, you just had to yell out ‘potty break!’

Riding on the trail

About halfway through our journey, during one such break, one of the fat Latino women yelled out “the whore-seees aren’t the onleee ones who godda poop” Lovely. Throughout the rest of the journey (which although was fun to do as something different, didn’t offer quite the scenery we’d thought we’d get,) this woman kept on reminding us how she needed to go for a shit, and how increasingly desperate she was becoming. As we got back to the base camp and were unloaded, the shitty woman jumped the queue to be dismounted and promptly trotted off to the port-a-loo.

Massive turtles sunbathing on the beach

Before we left the north coast, we tried to find the Lost beach, and somewhat unsurprisingly, had no success. We did, however, find some giant turtles sunbathing on another beach, so stopped to take some pictures of them chilling out.

The launching point for the kayaks.

For our last full day in Hawaii we decided to hire a kayak and paddle out to some small islands that lay a few hundred metres offshore, to the east of Oahu. Only when we were ready to launch into the water did I realise that we didn’t actually have any water or food for the journey. So, I suggested to Angela that she go for a swim for a few minutes while I pop up the road to get some supplies. Though we were in a more residential neighbourhood, we were still in part of one of the major towns on the island, so I figured that it would only take me 15 minutes max to get to a store and back. I ended up walking, on a baking hot day and without water, for over an hour. There wasn’t a shop or even a bloody freshwater tap anywhere near the main beach in the town. Figuring that Angela was probably panicking about where I was, I hurried back only to find her relaxing in the shade taking pictures of the sand. When we did finally attempt to begin our journey towards the islands, we managed to capsize the kayak in the not inconsiderable surf, and Angela’s sunglasses, which had travelled all this way from Shrewsbury, were lost to the ocean. The second attempt to set off was a lot more successful, and we made it to the islands pretty quickly, navigating around the odd giant turtle that was looking to catch some waves.

We kayaked to these islands just off the coast from Kailua

The beach we landed on was absolutely packed, so we decided to try to hike around the island for somewhere a bit more peaceful, but equipped only with flip-flops, this adventure was fairly short lived, and we made our way back to the beach and went snorkelling instead. After taking a few more pictures, we paddled back and dropped the kayak off, before heading out for our last meal at the Cheesecake Factory - our restaurant of choice in Waikiki.

Palm trees at sunset

The next day we dropped the rental car back, and packed our bags one last time. We left them at the hotel while we did one last bit of shopping and had our last meal on the road. The shuttle bus to back to the airport got us there in good time, especially so given that once we arrived we discovered that our flight to L.A. had been delayed by 3 hours. Then I was ‘randomly selected’ for extra screening while going through airport security, which even involved my flip flops getting rubbed with some sort of cotton wool, which was then screened for something or other. Luckily, whatever they discovered can’t be illegal, so I was allowed on my way. The flight arrived in L.A. just in time for us to make our connection to Toronto, and we arrived there pretty much on time. My 1 year visa was processed and stuck in my passport, which brought a bit of symbolic closure to the last year’s globe-trotting. I was finally going to be somewhere to stay. At least for a little while.

Honolulu, United States