As soon as we entered the state park, the atmosphere turned misty, moist and totally green. Iao Valley is recognized as a very special place in Hawaii for both its spiritual value and spectacular scenery. Iao means "cloud supreme", the bank of clouds that often sits over the valley.
Commonly called “Iao Needle”, the traditional Hawaiian name for the 2,250 foot peak that dominates the valley is Kuka`emoku. This peak is known as the phallic stone of Kanaloa, Hawaiian god of the ocean.
This is a beautiful picture of the needle - note the clouds all over the valley and just the Iao needle standing tall. The camera honestly cannot do justice to the beauty of Hawaii. And like I kept saying through out the vacation - two eyes are not enough to sink in the beauty of the place.
It really feels like paradise.
We walked around the whole park, drinking in the scenery and the greenery. At that place, it was hard to believe that Hawaii was an ocean-beach destination. The valleys and mountains were so beautiful – it was too good a package – ocean, beaches, valleys, mountains, tropical rainforests, and volcanoes – wow!!
After we were done with that – we went to check out their Tropical Plantations. It was a short tour showing various trees and plants that are most commonly found in Hawaii.
Nothing really noteworthy – but one important thing I learnt about there about the Lei. Lei – is the Hawaiian word for garland or wreath or basically any floral jewelry that one can wear. It is very common is Hawaii to be presented with a single flower or a lei upon arrival or departure. The previous two days I was wearing the flower – like I said total touristy. They usually have pink orchids or champa (plumeria) or hibiscus flowers. Well, getting back to the point – there are different interpretations of wearing the flower. Basically in Polynesian culture it sends out a different message depending on how and where you wear it. If you wear it on the right ear – it means you are single girl and looking; on the left ear it means you are taken, ball and chain; if you wear in the back of your bun – it means just follow the girl – no questions asked and you will have a good time! Well, I had been wearing the lei on my right ear for the last couple of days! J It was all very very interesting! Look at the lei in my right ear in the below pic :D!
Getting out of that place – I was stung by a bee on my toe… and my toe swelled up in no time. The people there helped us out and put in some medication for stings and the foot was hurting.
We got out of there and started driving for the beaches in that part. We covered the beaches of Wailuku, Pai’a, Hookipa, Makawao and Haiku.
Needless to say they were beautiful and different from each other. Some of them were sand beaches, some were gravel. Hookipa is one of the best beaches for surfing – and we stood there at the look out watching people surf in the ocean currents. It is fascinating to watch people do that – I have no clue how they manage to balance.
All done we decided to head back home and go to the kamaole beaches – those are the ones opposite to our condo complex. So we changed and headed there – played in the water for quite some time and got back to the condo complex. Turned out there was a pool side Mai-tai (a Polynesian cocktail) party going on. So we headed to the pool side, picked up our mai-tais and headed to the Jacuzzi – it was a nice lazy hour spent, and also there was live music playing – all Hawaiian style- so basically had a very good time.
After After that just outside the condo complex, there was a small farm market. Just a big shed, with some fresh veggies, fruits etc. We went there, got some fresh fruit jelly bottles - guava, strawberry, passion fruit and pineapple-chili jelly. Also got some fresh pineapple (yum-o!) and called it a night.
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