They are chickens everywhere on this island and our room opened right onto a grassy area overlooking the beach. Chickens!
The first thing we did after checking in to our room was find a good restaurant. The Pacific Island Bistro is next to the Safeway in Kapaa, and is not much to look at from the outside. But it was a treat for us weary travellers. We had a nice seafood soup, crab-cheese puffs, some crispy juicy duck and scallops. They had an interesting menu option where you could pick what you wanted in terms of meat, sauce and other items and the cook would prepare it for you. This was very conveniently located so we got water at Safeway enough for the whole trip, and a bunch of stuff at the ABC store (a Kauai chain). Mmm dark chocolate Mac nuts...
The next day we started near our hotel for breakfast at Eggberts/Hula Girl in the Coconut Grove Plaza. The breakfast here was so good we came back for more in our short 6 day stay. We had a delicious fresh seafood omelet, and we also split a stack of 2 giant pancakes with mac nut, papaya, mango and banana (for some reason they charge 1.50 for each of those, but they do warn you.) With the awesome smooth roasted Kauai-Kona coffee (to which I added plenty of half and half and coconut syrup), and, for me, a side of bacon, this made a very nice start to our first whole day on the island.
That's good caafee!
After roaming around looking at waterfalls and such we were looking for a nice place to celebrate my birthday. We also wanted to see if we could make the walk to Kapaa (we could but we decided not to) as we thought we might do some bar hopping, and didn't want to drive back to our hotel. We did find a place near the same shopping center with live (ok slightly cheesy but fun piano) music, the Lemongrass Grill. We opted for the cioppino, but strangely they served this with rice. Asian influence? It was well spiced with generous amounts of fresh fish, shellfish and crab. We also got some great calamari. A little pricier ($30), but very nice. We split a bowl of Kona coffee ice cream. When that was gone (mmm yum), they were singing happy birthday to another table, so Randi prompted our waiter that it was my birthday. So the piano player played Happy Birthday for me and the waiter brought us a huge piece of hula pie. This was like a giant oreo cookie, if the filling was made out of a light sweet vanilla ice cream and the crust was out of this world chocolate. Naturally this made Randi sick to her stomach and knocked me out for the night. (Sugar does this to me as I have hypoglycemia). But it was so good!
Randi and I had booked a Na Pali coast raft expedition (Capt Andy's) for Saturday, so we ate some of our leftovers and drove halfway (about 1 hour) around the island to Kikiaola Harbor in Kekaha. We climbed aboard the raft with 2 outboard motors and took off to circle around the awe inspiring jagged cliffs of the Na Pali (literally "The Cliffs). A little bumpy ride, but you are right on the ocean, riding through huge swells, and seeing dolphins, sea turtles, pelicans, frigate birds, and other wonders. I have to give praise to our outstanding crew: Junior, our captain, and Sterling, his shipmate. Also Steven from the sister ship performed an impressive coconut openning demonstration when we landed on a remote beach. All were friendly, professional, and cool. I really enjoyed it when we stopped for snorkelling, the fish were quite beautiful with rainbows of color and luminescence. After going into some sea caves along the way and seeing dramatic waterfalls, we did land on a beach, where we had a nice lunch. They really go all out, with sliced kiwi, pineapple, melon, fresh salad, rice, huli chicken, and kalua pork. All with cold drinks made for a pleasant picnic. This beach contains a sacred site and it is rumored that Kauain kings and queens for buried in the cliffs, but no one really knows where. According to a story related by Sterling, when a king died, a warrior was selected to bury him. Then this warrior had to kill himself to ensure the king's mana (power) did not wind up in the wrong hands.
[To be continued]
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