We had planned a day off today to meet our new online-dating
acquaintance, Josh, at Richardson’s beach and then go to the party we’d been
told about yesterday. Little did we know that on this day, luck was not in our
favour. After doing a bit of work (Diwali has become very ill suddenly, we’re
all worried at the moment) we got ready and went out to hitchhike just as the
weather decided not to cooperate at the slightest and a true flood of rain descended
upon us. We got to the top of Maku’u Drive easily enough but from there on our
driver went into the wrong direction, which left us standing by the main
highway in torrential rain for so long that out thumb-arms actually started
aching. After a long while it finally stopped raining so that we could take off
our raincoats --- and voila, we were immediately picked up. The next guy also
didn’t go all the way so we hitchhiked again, this time with a guy who insisted
on bringing us to a different (‘better’) beach than Richardson’s, not understanding
that we had to meet someone there. Finally we got there, an hour and a half
late, and of course Josh was nowhere to be seen. After scouring about for a
while we decided to just sit down and told ourselves that ‘if it’s meant to be,
he’ll find us’. We sat on the rocks by a little pool fed by the ocean, and
while frolicking about in the shallow waters suddenly Sarah screamed and pointed
at something literally two metres away from us – a ginormous turtle just
chilling near the waters edge (and I MEAN ginormous – he must’ve been about a
metre and a half long).
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| Such a gorgeous creature. |
We marvelled for a long while at his sheer size and
proximity and the indescribable elegance he exuded when swimming. Sarah must’ve
recorded about an hour’s footage on her GoPro camera while I got out of
the water pretty soon to sketch as the turtle swam about, getting further away sometimes but always coming back to us. The only thing ruining this pristine moment was
that a group of teenage American girls had set up camp far too close to us and
were discussing the most unsavoury topics in their shrill little voices.
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| Sarah just meditated in the water anyway. |
None too surprisingly, in the late afternoon Josh still
hadn’t turned up and we decided to give up all hope of that and to get
something to eat instead. While standing around in the parking lot giggling
uncontrollably at just the idea of hitchhiking, a white Zimbabwean woman saw us
and offered us a ride to a restaurant she recommended and so we got into her immaculate
car with her three children, being offered biscuits and feeling rather
uncomfortable with the entire situation. The restaurant she dropped us off at was
called ‘Ken’s’ and had a largely egg-based menu (which amused me greatly at the
moment). We got a vegetarian-bacon sandwich and chips and a great time was had
by all, interrupted only by the restaurants puzzling tradition of a waiter
hitting a gong, ringing a little bell and shouting something like ‘Hoy!’ in
seemingly random combinations every twenty minutes or so. (Also the gong was situated right behind the most horrific statue I have ever seen, of a kind of squatting Buddha-child adorned with a big straw hat and a necklace. I started drawing it but it was just too horrific).
When we finished our meal (consisting of the sandwich, a
second order of chips and a huge chocolate cake each) we set out to hitchhike
towards the party, which proved to be near-impossible once again. We seemed to
be right in the ghetto area of Hilo and were told to keep walking towards
the mall since apparently no-one would pick us up here, so we trudged along the darkened
streets, getting creeped out by Christmas decorations of varying degrees of
sinister that we saw along the way. Finally, finally we were picked up by two
piratey-looking guys (called Sky (again!) and Frank) who were going fishing in Kalapana and who offered to drop
us at our party. Unfortunately we knew nothing about the location of this party
apart from a hastily scribbled map Ann had given us as, well as a vague memory
that the guy whose party is was was called Lee, and so we drove around the dark
streets for ages, feebly saying stuff like ‘They said there would be balloons
nearby…can…anyone see any…balloons….?’ until we decided to officially give up.
They guys were nice enough to drive all the way back to Maku’u because they
didn’t want us hitchhiking again at this time of the night and so we accepted
our fate and, especially after the toilet got clogged AGAIN, just went to bed early.
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