Our Big Island "vacation" - part one.

We were so fortunate to be able to spend two and a half months on the Big Island this winter. Granted, we spent most of that time working at Earth Matters and a coffee/macadamia nut farm, but we did manage some fun on our off days. We also specifically planned "vacation days" at the beginning and end of our stay - a practice we highly recommend for our fellow work exchange travelers!

This post is about our first few days on the Big Island back in January. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words... Pretty sure you don't want to read 13,000 words about what we did, especially since many of you have done these same things yourselves, so we'll just let these 13 chronological photos speak for us. Links are provided for anyone who wants more information on any of the places or activities.

Portuguese sausage breakfast at Mickey D's

(a desperate first hour on the island)

Lapakahi State Historical Park

Lapakahi State Historical Park

Kapaau

Waipio Valley lookout

Akaka Falls

Rainbow Falls

chicken katsu and ahi don at Puka Puka Kitchen
(the dish so nice we ate it twice)

Hilo fruit and vegetable market

lava flow near Pahoa

Ka'u Coffee Mill shop

Ka'u Coffee Mill

the end of our Big Island "vacation" - part one

Not bad for ~28 hours, eh? (Sometimes we have to ignore the whole "slowly" thing and just go all out.)

From here, Patrick went to Earth Matters and Jen did her second Habitat for Humanity Global Village build, joining Patrick at the farm a week later. And then we went to the coffee/mac nut farm. But you know that already. So let's move on!

Next up: our last few days on the Big Island, excluding Volcanoes National Park - that deserves a special solo post...

About that coffee and macadamia nut farm...

For our last Big Island farm hurrah, we spent three and a half weeks on a coffee and macadamia nut farm. Because when in Hawaii... right?

We were a little apprehensive about this farmstay because we'd had such an amazing time at Earth Matters and we'd been hearing that coffee and mac nut farms weren't exactly the most exciting places to work. But we really did want to learn anything we could about Kona coffee, and even if it wasn't exciting work we figured that at this point we could do just about anything for 24 days. Plus, this farm was really close to the best snorkeling spots on the island and we would have our own private space.

We were there during the off-season so unfortunately, the farm work was especially unexciting. (Hurrah!) Patrick actually spent most of his time helping with construction jobs. This work probably prepped us for the coming months of helping our parents with house repairs, so we really can't complain.

(Also? We were living for free in a beautiful flat with a gorgeous view, in Hawaii, in February/March while everyone else in the country got pummeled by snowmageddon. We really can't complain.)

I pitched in with the construction work when absolutely necessary but I was much more interested in being around the plants - no matter how tedious the farm work might be.

So I spent a few days pruning coffee trees. The process is surprisingly like pruning grape vines; given our prior vineyard experiences this made the work go quickly despite the rocky, uneven paths and the treacherous weaving and bobbing that was required in order to dodge the bazillion crab spider webs.

before

after

to be pruned in a few months -

have to determine the strongest spurts first

(see? just like grape vines!)

During our short stay we witnessed the progression of coffee buds.

from barely showing...

... to "Kona snow" practically overnight

... and from flowers come coffee beans
(eventually - these were leftover from the last harvest)

But that was about the extent of the coffee tree exposure. We actually learned more about coffee farming from a 15-minute video at the Royal Kona Coffee Museum up the street than we did at the farm. So mostly we just enjoyed drinking coffee.

$25/bag

(first bag free with 20-hour work commitment!)

Macadamia nut trees were another story. I spent hours and hours (and hours and HOURS) clearing broken and hollow shells from the paths and tree rows at the farm. This enabled the mac nut pickers to easily find the good nuts. The seven 100-lb burlap bags of broken and hollow shells that I collected were eventually run through the chipper and used for coffee tree mulch.

Anyone else would've been bored to tears with this task but honestly, I really enjoyed my time with the trees and the songbirds and the iTunes and the occasional wandering chicken.

all clear

Patrick, Lila (the other HelpXer) and I also spent about three full days husking macadamia nuts.

step 1: hurl giant burlap sack of mac nuts onto husker

step 2: wait while machine does its thing

(the debris will also be coffee tree mulch)

step 3: try to pull out remaining debris without getting pummeled by mac nuts

The three of us made a really good team - we even beat the "bags husked/hour" record set by the German HelpXers a few months ago. Take THAT, Germans!

But it was loud and tedious work and we were glad when we were done.

And now for the not-so-tedious fun stuff about our farmstay...

In addition to coffee and mac nuts, Larry's farm has an abundance of trees that produce ginormous fruit. We enjoyed all of this very much.

ginormous palmelos

ginormous lemons and

ginormous piles of tangerines

ginormous avocados

ginormous cups of roasted cacao

(thanks, Lila!)

(incidentally, this is what a cacao looks like inside)

(and incidentally, avocado and cacao make awesome pudding)

ginormous buckets of jaboticaba from Larry's friend

Larry also showed us how to make kombucha.

Patrick is now hooked...

Jen is still not sold

And we had three adorable farm kitties to keep us company during down time. They had real names but we could never remember them, so the super-friendly kitty was "Skinny," the mostly-friendly one was "Chubster," and the super-skittish one was "Mama."

Skinny, Mama, and Chubster

(in that order)

We spoiled them rotten. Sorry, Larry.

oh hai

pawsing

Our lodging was pretty awesome. "The Octagon," as it was called, had a spacious sleeping/sitting area and a well-equipped kitchen. The bathroom was inside but the shower was totally outside. A little odd at first, but we really came to appreciate bathing while overlooking the beautiful ocean and gardens.

the main room of The Octagon

(kitty not included)

a shower with a view -
the ocean is there, it was just a gray day

much bread was baked here

From The Octagon's balcony we witnessed a terribly predictable sunset almost every day we were there. I really don't know how Hawaiians stand it.

boring

sigh

meh

yawn

zzzzz

(Kidding, obviously. We really looked forward to sunsets.)

We worked hard during our stay but we definitely enjoyed some play time too. Larry was great about driving us to local snorkeling spots and even lent us gear. More on that later...

In summary: definitely glad we had this opportunity; don't need to work on a coffee or macadamia nut farm ever again.

thanks, Larry! (and Lila!) -

the blur represents our combined level of fatigue that day

Next up: Big Island "vacation" and then the mainland... Gulp.

Every-day-is-Friday five: on (really) entering the next phase.

The five phases of Slowly Global, in chronological order:

• Phase One: Canada!
• Phase Two: Central Europe! (and Turkey! and Morocco!)
• Phase Three: SE Asia!
• Phase Four: Australia!
• Phase Five: the good ol' USA...

Phase Five is in progress - we've been in Hawaii for 74 days now. But Hawaii doesn't really feel like the good ol' USA to us.

But.

This time next week we will be on the mainland.

Gulp.

Mixed feelings about this - we are excited to see friends and family, of course. We are looking forward to having the car back. We're very curious to see what path we end up taking from Maryland to Oregon, and how long this path will take (we have a general plan of Portland by July but otherwise, no timetable to speak of). We're having fun with our initial planning and research sessions.

research

(photo courtesy Maps of World)

also research

(photo courtesy Independent Beers)

But in some ways it does feel like the end. Or that the end is near. Or at least, that our travel finances are nearing their end... and therefore, that paid work is imminent.

Paid work.

Gulp.

Very clear feelings on this! Words like "fear," "anxiety," "dread," and "waaaaaah" kept coming up in the conversation last night. (OK, maybe some swear words too.)

We are pretty set on what we don't want to do for paid work, and we're pretty set on what we do want to do for paid work. We know we will have to do something for a little while, and we know this something will probably fall into the category of what we don't want to do for paid work.  That's okay, as long as we have a plan for getting to what we do want to do.

Like our road trip path, we're very curious to see how this "paid work" path unfolds.  In the interim we'll be building our network and continuing to learn and hone skills as we head across the southern states this spring and summer.

And if The Universe isn't ready when we arrive in Portland, well... Perhaps we'll just keep going.

Gulp.

Every-day-is-Friday five: enjoying Hawaiian macadamia nuts (the old-fashioned way).

We've been helping at a coffee and macadamia nut farm as we finish out our time on the Big Island. (More on that later!) Luckily for us, our Earth Matters hosts had several macadamia nut trees in their backyard so we got pretty familiar with them during our stay.

Our current host, Larry, has a machine that husks the mac nuts:

it's as fun as it looks

And he sends the husked nuts off to be roasted, shelled and processed.

But the setup in the backyard at Earth Matters was totally old school. Should you ever find yourself in the vicinity of a macadamia nut tree, a tree stump, and a good rock, here are five steps to perfect macadamia nuts:

1. Find a nut on the ground. It should look something like the second one pictured here:

not quite ready, ready, de-husked, NOM

(in that order)

2. De-husk the nut by hand and place in a hole in a tree stump. It looks like this:

mahalo to whoever set this up

3. Smash the nut with a giant lava rock that has the perfect little nub with which to crack the shell.

SMASH!

Don't hit the nut too hard! One smash and the nut should look like this:

like an egg, only not really

... OK, not at all like an egg

4. Peel away the shell. If the nut inside is discolored, brown, or moldy, throw it back on the ground - it will make nice mulch for the trees. If it's whitish all over, keep it! A good nut should look like this:

pure deliciousness

5. When you have a bowlful, enjoy! You can eat them raw, like this:

perfection

Alternately, you can toast them in a frying pan on the stovetop, or you can roast them on a baking sheet (200°F for about 15 minutes, shake the baking sheet and roast another 5-10 minutes until slightly golden brown). After toasting or roasting, add salt if you wish. Even better, add freshly harvested sea salt!

The bowl above took about 45 minutes from ground collection to shelling. We probably shelled six bowlfuls during our stay at Earth Matters. Totally worth the time investment, really good prep for our current gig... and really delicious!