Napoopoo 6 August 2021

Paradise Left

With regret, we left our idyllic estate in Puako and made our way south to much more modest accommodations in Napoopoo, where it is hotter that hell, and there's no A/C. We had a Hawaiian-kine lunch at Super J's: pork and chicken laulau and Kalua Pig and cabbage with the usual mixin's, white rice (with spicy shoyu), cold macaroni salad, and lomilomi salmon. The Woodhouse family appeared to enjoy the authenticity.

We rolled along Alii Drive in Kailua, admiring the excrescences that have been erected here since our last visit. (We skipped Kailua in 2017, sure of what we'd find there. But this time, for the sake of our visitors...)

A couple of extra hours before we could check in at our Napoopoo accommodation, we went to see Pu'uhonua o Honaunau, otherwise known as the Place of Refuge, preserved as a National Park, and home of my favorite ring of statues.

Remember Two-step, the snorkelling spot just north of the Pu'uhonua? It is completely overrun.

The Pu'uhonua wasn't as severely overrun, and the National Park Service is in skeleton crew mode due to Covid ...but the carvers in their perfectly oriented palapa were at work plying their quiet trade. And the gift shop was open!

Eventually, we found our house, got our food in a fridge, and tried our best to chill out in the unforgivingly humid 86° air.