Next stop: Hilo!

After spending a night in the rainforest in the Honaunau area, we moved on to see more of the island. We travelled by bus around the south route of the island, passing through pasture lands, by coastal cliffs, through Volcanos National Park, and back into the rainforest in the Hilo area. Hilo is the only real “city” on the island, with a population of about 48,000. It’s located on the east coast of the island, in one of the wettest regions. Something crazy that we saw all over was block-sized trees, where an entire city block was inhabited by a single tree.

We stayed in an AirBnb right in the downtown area which made walking to cool places easy! We did some grocery shopping, ate at a great burger joint, and went to the beach. We spent a total of 4 nights in Hilo, using Uber or the public transit system that runs around the island. We discovered that “Hawaiian time” is a real thing here- everything moves at a less hurried pace. Busses are often 5-30 minutes later than scheduled. We like the laidback culture, but it’s hard to come from such a structured society to this and plan a day. It rained every day we were there, usually multiple times. Very wet.

On our final day in Hilo we hiked to Rainbow Falls. It took us about 45 minutes to get there (only uphill) but it was worth it! The waterfall was big and beautiful. It falls over the opening to a large rocky space and it is in the middle of the rainforest- scenery we will never be bored of.