> tapioca world tour

69

My gracious hosts have made the most of my last few days in Kona, despite my lack of energy resulting from food poisoning, or psychosymatic gastrointestinal problems, whatever. Yesterday C. and I went down to 69 (I don’t remember what it’s really called, but 69 refers to some aspect of the highway or mile marking) where the waves are calmer, to go swimming at sunset. It was rather awesome to float on soft waves for an hour. Made me forget my body entirely. (E., remember watching the clouds from the hill at the Arboretum in July? I noticed a spot on my retina, a black spot that followed my line of vision wherever I looked in the sky. It bothered me then, but you said I’d stop noticing after time. I did stop noticing — until now, lying face-up on the waves, watching the clouds again. It’s like having a ghost beside me all the time.)

After swimming, we climbed on these funky tree limbs while the sun set.

Then we took trippy photos with my slow-synch flash.

Babies are cool

Fast-forward to this morning. C. & G.’s nice Swedish neighbor came over, bringing her baby whom we’ve been playing with all week. She mirrored C.’s hand gestures with the concentrated effort most 5-month-olds don’t have. It was pretty cute. There are so many nice people here.

Later, we went to a sacred ground. Back in the day, if someone committed a crime, they could run for this place. If they made it without getting caught first, they’d be forgiven. If caught before reaching the sacred site, they’d probably be killed. Fun, eh? So there were lots of statues to the gods here, surrounded by hard black lava, palm trees and tidepools with black crabs that I had previously sworn were scorpions. We found a bench, on which people had placed offerings to the gods. Flowers, coconuts, palm leaves, etc.

The search for sea turtles

Next, and after much encouragement, I agreed to go snorkeling with G. — minus the snorkel. There were sea turtles in this water, and we were determined to find them. We had to leap in the water over the coral reef, so as not to kill it. G. jumped first, then I jumped.

Swimming over coral reefs was just like those double spreads in National Geographic make it out to be: pretty awesome. Lots of black and yellow fish. It was like climbing into one of those fishtanks in the lobby of your local Chinese restaurant — only cooler, because just as the sun was about to set, G. spotted a baby sea turtle on the ocean bottom. We let it swim up for air, and G. swam over to pet it. I wasn’t as bold, content enough to watch the adorable thing swim around underwater, two feet from me.

The moral of the story is Hawaii is awesome, and my friends are cooler than most other people who exist. Amen.