Day 3: Kona to Captain Cook

January 13, 2016

The official time for sunrise in Kona today was 7:01. So we set the clock for 6, in order to be ready to go when it would be light. It turned out the desk clock was wrong and we woke up too early. No matter, because the real first thing we wanted to do was to check out the farmers' market on Ali'i Drive. That one begins at 7.

The previous night we had taken a listing of over 20 farmers markets on the island and tried to correlate their locations and times with our own projected locations and times. Quite a few would be a miss, but then again we would be able to hit a fair number.

Ali'i Drive is the main tourist walk in "downtown" Kona. It features a large number of coffee shops and even more tourist trinket places. It is nice, though, because it runs right by the water, and past a half doxen beach parks. There are also some cultural sites along the way, like the Hulihe'e Palace and the Mokuaikaua Church. The former was built in 1838 and was a royal Hawaiian residence. It looks just like a moderately large house. The church was the first built in Hawaii, and dates from 1820. Of course none of this stuff is anything like European palaces and churches.

The farmers' market marked our first chance to tie into any substantial quantity of local fruit and veggies. It is actually a misnomer to call this one a farmers' market, since it amounts to no more than a half dozen fruit stands, each run my someone of Phillipines extraction and each offering essentially the same products. There were, however, some slight variations in size and price, such as for papayas, so we enjoyed inspecting each stall.

We settled on papayas in the three for $5 range, and also got a small stash of rambutans (those lychee like fruits with the rubbery/hairy red jackets - very exciting). I decided I would also like to eat one banana right away and went back to the lady with the nicest looking ones. I asked for just a single banana, and she produced one, but asked $1. Öne dollar, really?" I asked. OK she replied, and handed me a second one. Even at this rate it would have been cheaper to buy at Safeway in Seattle!

At this point a lady (Sarah) introduced herself, and had some questions about the bikes and our tour. We found that she lives and works here, but that she considers herself retired. That is, she used to live on the Hilo side, and she "retired" to Kona where the weather is better and where you can be free of the Coqui frog. On the wet other side of the island, the frog flourishes and makes a racket with its cry of "coqui"!

Sarah pointed out that today is "ship day", with a cruise ship anchored off Kona, and that the vendors are geared up to rake in the cash. She allowed that the banana lady had gotten carried away with the excitement. I actually spotted only one obvious cruise ship denizen among the early morning customers. He asked what I was doing with the funny bike and gear, and followed by inquiring whether I had "bought" the bike. I looked at him funny since I do not usually present as a bike thief, but he clarified to say he was wondering if I had rented the bike locally. These are all pretty standard questions, but as I have been saying, they are more rare in this region than elsewhere.

Papaya like this is worth a fortune in grocery stores back home.

We left the farmers market and continued on down Ali'i. The hotels soon thin out and give way to vacation rentals, plus the beach parks. The beach parks are quite spectacular, and include White Sands Beach. Here there are real "official" surfing waves, and a goodly number of surfers out in them. Signs warn of perils in the currents, but clearly these people know what they are doing.

One of the smallest catholic churches we have photographed in our travels

There are many beach parks like this all around the island

Last year we happily trundled along Ali'i by the water, until it ended. Then we were faced with a giant climb to get back up to the main highway (11). Literally, it was a trap. This time, though, we were smart, and abandoned Ali'i early, making for a less daunting climb. It still took a long while, though, and even when we did reach the main road, it undertook to climb even higher.

All in all we walked and pushed for a good long time. In due course we came to a little parking lot with a stone wall, making good seating for some lunch. Below the parking lot was some sort of house, but a pomelo tree, laden with fruit, was overhanging the parking area (sort of). Through our travels we have debated (though not hard) which "roadside" fruits are fair game. Despite any fine points of this debate, if a fruit actually overhangs the roadway, it is a goner! In this case the fruit was overhanging not the roadway but the stone wall. You can probably guess our decision on that!

The climb along 11, once we did reach it, was fairly boring. We did encounter some mystery fruit or nut, and we did note how little pride the drivers have in this land, as indicated by the drifts of garbage lying in the ditches.

Does anyone have an idea of what these are?

Despite "flatless" Schwalbe tires, plus liners, Dodie got a flat. I turned out to be atotally invisible small puncture. Maybe it was a little grain of sand that got in there.

Finally we entered the string of towns that come before Captain Cook along the highway. These feature a pleasing assortment of coffee shops, general stores, and clothing stores. In Kealakekua, we stopped at the Donkey Balls chocolate shop. Donkey Balls are basically chocolate and macadamia nut balls. The main selling point is the catchy name. I think they also sell Bad Ass coffee.

All along this stretch the traffic, which had been heavy throughout, became ridiculous. It was bumper to bumper, often in both directions. Whatever notion we had had that Hawaii is a little freer of car domination was certainly erased by this. At least bumper to bumper cars are not speeding (so much).

Eclairs. If they were not so few and small, this could be France.

Canoli. If they were not so few and small, this could be Italy

Hill around here can be quite serious. This however is one we ducked by clever routing.

Roadside jackfruit. Fair game or not, what would we do with it?
(Thanks to Bill Shaneyfelt for correcting earlier misidentification of this as breadfruit)

The Manago Hotel in Captain Cook was our objective. We had found this place last year and were taken with its extremely humble, run down, historical vibe. It is a rambling structure, with some small tropical gardens among the buildings out back. The Manago Hotel was founded by Kinzo and Osame Manago in March 1917. It was then turned over to Harold and Nancy Manago, the 2nd generation, in 1942 who managed the business for 42 years. Then in 1984, Harold and Nancy's youngest son Dwight and wife, Cheryl, Manago took over the hotel and are still running the hotel today. There is a photo of the founding couple in the lobby, together with newspaper clippings and other historical material.

Best of all from our point of view was the $40 price of our shared bath room. The room is utterly utterly basic, comprising little more than two cots and a dresser, with a single window looking out onto a tin roof. It is our chance to feel like itinerant sugar cane workers.

There is no space in the little room for our bikes, but we were able to leave them in a common room downstairs. A notice in the room threatens eviction to anyone who would cook, or even harbour a stove or fuel. Oh well, I guess we will have to apologize if caught. All we do is boil water anyway. But for tonight we did go down to the hotel restaurant.

The menu features some fish dishes we are not so used to like opelu, opakapaka, ono, and butterfish. We settled for the porkchop, which was correctly touted as excellent by a sign on the wall. The porkchop, seasoned and grilled very nicely, came with rice and three sides that must be typical of Hawaiian Japanese cuisine. There was butternut squash chunks boiled with pork bits, some kind of boiled dry beans, and a rather complex potato salad. We liked it all very much, and after a day of hard pushing up hills, devoured it all. We can not afford to keep doing this, though, so we will be diving back into our stash of stuff from the Walmart in coming days.

Oh, two exceptions - along the highway we tripped over a shop selling gelato and also pastries. The gelato looked pretty serious, and the pastries though high priced and dramatically undersized had the right names - eclairs and cannoli. The second exception - Island Dreams ice cream. Gotta see about that!

Our humble room. Better than the tent, and the rent is less than the county wants for a piece of camping grass.

Menu in the Manago restaurant, has some exotc sounding fish.

Today's ride: 27 km (17 miles)
Total: 70 km (43 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	0
Comment on this entry	Comment	0