Aloha

There must surely be only one place on earth where you can swim with dolphins in the tropical, crystal clear waters in the morning, fly over snow capped mountain peaks and an active volcano by helicopter in the afternoon ending the day diving with manta rays at night. We did all of this on the Big Island of Hawaii. We decided to stay in Kona, the home of the Ironman world championships. The diversity of the island was amazing. It has deserts, rain forests, cliffs, spectacular waterfalls, stunning valleys, mountains, volcanos, a deep blue ocean, black sand, green sand, white sand beaches (and everything else in between). Interestingly Kona airport is the driest in the US with the airport at Hilo (just 2 hours drive away) being the wettest.

View from our condo

After a bit of a miss on the accommodation at Lake Tahoe, we were very relieved when we walked into our Kona self catering condo. It had all the home amenities we could have asked for and was right on the water’s edge allowing us to sip homemade cocktails and dance the night away to the gentle crushing sound of the waves right on our doorstep. I was surprised at how close to the water’s edge these condos are built. Speaking to the locals, some of the properties were affected by the recent tsunami as a result of the earth quake in Japan, although any damage was not obviously visible to us.

After this experience, Denise and I decided that we much prefer self catering style accommodation compared to full service hotels. Not only is it cheaper but it is also much nicer. This has lead us to rethink the second half of our trip a bit (most of which we have not finalized yet) but you will have to stay tuned to find out how that all pans out. Mahalo.