Pololu Valley

Pololu Valley: could it be the most beautiful place on earth? It gets a vote from me.
We climbed down a very steep, narrow cliff-lined trail to reach the bottom where a black sand beach and a dead whale carcass awaited us. The whale was deeper in the surf, so we couldn't see it up close. We had just come from a morning at Hapuna (boogie boarding). That is why we are still wet and a few of us even travelled commando. It had just rained on the trail and it was extremely slick mud. We passed many shoes abandoned at the side of the trail as their owners had decided to brave it barefoot. Because it was so slippery and steep, we took much longer on the descent than climbing up (it is usually the opposite). The bottom of the valley was lush with fresh water rivers running into the ocean. If you look at the cliffs, you'll see that there are waterfalls along them, falling into the ocean.
Just before we arrived at the trail, I decided to stop by the side of the road to take a picture from our high vantage point. I was sitting on the edge of a road on a ledge that dropped deep into a jungle below. As I attempted to change one lens for another, my big, expensive lens seemed to very gracefully, and in slow motion, leave my hands and topple down the cliff into the jungle--just call me Schlep-rock. I was in shock and could only turn back to Peter (waiting for me in the car) with an open mouth. I could still see the lens lying in the brush. Peter came to my rescue and scaled down the rocks and retrieved my lens.
After our exhilarating hike to Popolu Beach and back, we stopped at a cool, old Hawaiian town called Hawi for Hawaiian made ice-cream. The town is unbelievably old Hawaii and I want to have a small acreage near there someday. However, the rather rotund Hawaiian woman who served us our ice-cream, proceed to lick her hands and then grab our cones. Yucky. I whispered quickly to the girls that they could eat the ice-cream but not the cones. I had Kona coffee/oreo. It was good ice-cream.