Snow Birids in Paradise

Argentina – Buenos Aires: Empanadas, Tombs & Tango

| 2suitcasesfor2years

The ferry vibrated gently as the engines were switched into reverse as we approached the Buquebus ferry terminal in Buenos Aires. We had departed earlier from Montevideo, Uruguay, and hoped to view the Argentinian coastline from the Río de la Plata estuary, as the first Spanish explorers did in the early years of the 16th century. But we hadn’t expected the ferry not to have an open observation deck, and instead had to contend with the view, or lack of view, through hazy saltwater-etched windows.

Seasoned travelers on this route between Montevideo and Buenos Aires had already called for the ride share services of Cabify, inDriver, Didi, Easy Taxi or BA Taxi and waited curbside in front of the terminal. By the time the ferry docked there were no available drivers for 45 minutes. We were among the last to leave the port that morning.

Our first impressions of this wonderfully cosmopolitan city were formed along the 16-lane wide – yes, 16 lanes – Av. 9 de Julio. Despite its width it is a pleasant tree-and park-lined esplanade, that extends for 27 blocks through the city and reminded us of the area around Central Park in Manhattan. Older buildings from the 18th and 19th century shared the skyline with more modern buildings than we expected, as well as the first of many street murals dedicated to the football player Lionel Messi #10 for Argentina national football team, and the country’s superstar at the moment. The sidewalks were bustling with activity. We wondered how we would ever cross 16 lanes of traffic on foot.

Our hotel for the next six nights, Urban Suites Recoleta, was across the street from Buenos Aire’s historic Cementerio de la Recoleta. We soon learned that most landmarks and hotels in the neighborhood ended with Recoleta in their name. The cemetery from our balcony looked like an ancient lost city.

The next morning, we explored the immediate neighborhood around the hotel that was full of activity with delivery trucks off-loading produce and dog walkers leading their packs of small dogs to the parks. We eventually crossed the Puente Peatonal Dr. Alfredo Roque Vítolo, a brightly painted footbridge across the roadway that connects the parks around the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes to the Universidad de Buenos Aires. The Facultad de Derecho subway station is located at the foot of the bridge. It is a terminus on the H-Line, one of Subte’s (from Subterráneo de Buenos Aires) six lines, that can get you nearly anywhere in this sprawling metropolis. Opened in 1913, Buenos Aires had the first subway in South America.

The Floralis Generica, a unique abstract aluminum sculpture, an iconic symbol of the city, centered the Plaza de las Naciones Unidas next to the school. The 23m (75ft) tall mechanical flower with six petals which opens in the morning and closes at night was a gift to the city by the Argentine architect Eduardo Catalano in 2002. Walking paths circled the sculpture and offered different viewing perspectives of the flower that the sculptor visualized to “represent all the flowers in the world.”

Walking back towards our hotel we veered down Avenida Alvear, seven blocks that were once Buenos Aire’s Park Ave or Champs-Élysées at the turn of the 20th century.  It is known for the art nouveau-influenced Belle Époque architecture of the old mansions along the street that have now been converted into hotels and embassies. Unfortunately, many of the building facades were hidden by the trees that line the street.

Long before Starbucks was a thing, the Porteños, “people of the port,” as the citizens of Buenos Aires are called, developed a strong coffee culture that coincided with the arrival of several waves of Italian immigrants that began in the mid-1800s. The result is a city where it’s nearly impossible to get a bad cup of coffee. One block over from Avenida Alvear on Av. Pres. Manuel Quintana our “walk a little then café” philosophy was easily satisfied at La Fleur de Sartí, Confiserié Monet, and Cafe Quintana 460, where espresso-based coffee drinks rule.

When we travel, our mid-afternoon lunch tends to be our big meal of the day, so we end up looking for supermarkets to buy crackers, cheese and fruit to snack on later. Near our hotel there was a large Carrefour Market on Av. Vicente López. Around the corner from the supermarket was a block of traditional shops with two butcheries, a fish monger, fruit stands, and a cheese store. Though our best find in the neighborhood was Möoi Recoleta, which had a pleasing interior and excellent food. To our surprise it’s part of a small local restaurant chain.

That afternoon we timed our visit to the Cementerio de la Recoleta after the surge of the morning’s tour buses had departed. It’s a huge cemetery with a labyrinth of narrow passages through the grand mausoleums of Buenos Aires’ who’s who of notable citizens and wealthy families.

Some were very well kept, while others were under renovation, and a number appeared forgotten, with their doors broken and façades crumbling, as if the family line had ended or a once great fortune had been lost. One was highlighted by a whimsical statue of a woman roller skating atop her own tomb.

Many had small bronze plaques attached to the side of their tomb, hinting at the deceased’s illustrious career. Several had death masks protruding from the side of their mausoleums. The first one we happened across suddenly as we rounded a corner, and the very life-like stone face protruding from the side of a tomb, literally scared the wits out of me.

Surprisingly, Evita Peron’s tomb was one of the simplest structures. Immortalized since the Broadway musical “Evita,” by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice opened its curtain in 1976, and the following 1996 movie starring Madonna, folks have been intrigued by the controversial legacy of Eva Duarte. It is the rags to riches story of a poor country girl, the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy rancher, who moved at the age of 15 to Buenos Aires and found fame as a radio and film actress, which resonated in the barrios of the “Paris of South America.” She found love at the age of 26, marrying 48-year-old Colonel Juan Perón, in 1945, two years before he was elected President of Argentina.

Passionate and combative, as Argentina’s First Lady she used her influence to champion social justice and worker’s labor rights, and was endeared to the less fortunate who saw her as the voice of the people. Her early death at the age of 33 from cancer saddened the nation and calls were made for her canonization. Flags across the country flew at half-mast for ten days. Blocks around the Presidential Palace were filled with mourners, and an estimated 3 million people watched the horsedrawn caisson carry her coffin through the streets of the city during her state funeral. Her embalmed body in its glass coffin was displayed for two years in her office in the Ministry of Labor building, as plans for a memorial that was taller than the Statue of Liberty were made.

After a 1955 military coup Juan Perón fled to exile in Spain, and the new military dictatorship secretly disappeared Evita’s corpse for 16 years. First it was secreted away in various locations across Buenos Aires until one “officer mistakenly shot his pregnant wife while guarding the corpse in his attic.”  The military dictatorship then enlisted the “covert help of the Vatican” to hide her body away in a crypt in Milan, Italy’s famous Cimitero Monumentale, for 16 years under a false name. In protest “Where is the body of Eva Perón?” was spray painted on walls all across Argentina.

In 1971, Evita’s body was exhumed and flown to Spain where Juan Perón and his third wife allegedly kept the “coffin on display in their dining room.” In 1973 Peron returned to the Presidency of Argentina, with his third wife as Vice President, but died a year later. The saga continued to get weirder when an anti-dictator revolutionary group, the Montoneros, “stole the corpse of General Pedro Eugenio Aramburu, whom they had also previously kidnapped and assassinated,” to use as a bargaining chip to get the third Mrs. Peron to return Evita’s body to her beloved country. Subsequent governments have gone to great lengths to secure Evita’s hopefully final resting place, in a subterranean tomb with trap doors and false caskets to deter grave robbers, within her father’s Duarte family mausoleum in Cemeterio de la Ricoleto.

Across the street was the Gomero de la Recoleta – Árbol Histórico, a majestic 225-year-old rubber tree planted in 1800. Over the decades its huge buttress trunk has grown to support a 50m (164ft) wide canopy, with tree limbs so long that wooden poles and sculptures are needed to support their weight.

Behind it, we found a reprieve from the hot February afternoon, and an early dinner at Bartola, which served an excellent lemonade, and has pleasant décor along with a rooftop terrace.

Buenos Aires is full of interesting street murals, and we spent the next morning wandering about searching for them.

That afternoon, after exploring farther afield from our hotel, we took a rideshare across the city to La Boca, a colorful neighborhood that is also the location of La Bombonera stadium, home of the world-famous Boca Juniors football club, the team on which some of Argentina’s legendary football players first played. Our route eventually took us below the elevated portion of Rt1 amidst a forest of concrete pilings painted with a vast array of creative street murals in an area named Silos Areneros. We found the area intriguing, but a tad sketchy, so we kept going.

La Boca was originally Buenos Aires’ first port at the mouth of the Riachuelo River, as it flows into the Río de la Plata. It has always been a bustling working-class neighborhood, “filled with all kinds of people, dockworkers, fishermen, musicians, prostitutes, thieves, socialists, anarchists, and artists.” But it grew substantially with the arrival of new immigrants in the 1800s and early 1900s.  Hastily constructed tenements called conventillos were built with galvanized metal walls and roofs and brightly painted with whatever left over colors were available from the shipyards, in an effort to cheer up the area.

La Boca is one of the city’s vibrant neighborhoods where tango originated on its streets during the hot summer months and was perfected in the bars along Caminito and Magallanes during winters of the late 1800s.

Today, satirical figures adorn many of the balconies along Caminito and the adjacent streets, and poke fun at politicians, rival football teams or celebrities. Though we think you need to be Argentinian to fully appreciated the humor behind them.

A mural at the end of Caminito commemorates the Bomberos Voluntarios de La Boca (La Boca Volunteer Firefighters), Buenos Aires’ first fire brigade, formed in 1884.

Sadly, we found the wonderfully colorful area was oversaturated with cheap tourists’ shops heavily devoted to everything football, especially Lionel Messi’s #10 blue and white football shirt, which was available everywhere.

Afterwards we headed to the dockside area of Puerto Madero. Built in the late 18th century the port helped support Argentina’s economic growth during WWI and WWII as the country’s beef and food stocks were sent to a war-torn Europe. But the viability of the port declined as the size of merchant ships became larger and containerization took hold, until eventually the port was abandoned for many decades. A masterplan for the port’s redevelopment was realized in 1989 with plans to renovate some of the old warehouses along one side of the quay into restaurants and shops, while land on the other side would be developed into a mixed-use area of offices and residential towers, with the two sides connected by pedestrian-only bridge.

The redevelopment along the Puerto Madero waterfront was a great success and created a strikingly beautiful, new waterfront neighborhood. Its reflective skyline and restaurants along the old docks continue to be destinations for both locals and tourists. Us included! It was a great place to people watch as folks strolled along the quay and over the footbridge. Towering cumulonimbus clouds glowed with golden light, as the sunset silhouetted the “Presidente Sarmiento,” an old three-masted sailing ship that is now a nautical museum.

We both grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey and worked in New York City for a while, but living in Manhattan never appealed to us. It wasn’t until we started traveling and experienced living in some foreign cities through short-term rentals that we grew to appreciate the vitality that city life offers.

Mysteriously, overnight the Parque Intendente Torcuato de Alvear in front of the historic Centro Cultural Recoleta building was transformed into a sprawling art and crafts festival, that to our surprise happens every Saturday and Sunday. Artisans’ tents and tables lined nearly every path through the sprawling park that was filled with folks shopping and buskers playing to the crowd. This was probably the best crafts market we’ve been to, as the quality and variety of items offered were very impressive. If our suitcases had been bigger we would have made lots more purchases.

For many years the Cultural Center was repainted frequently with colorful murals, which added a nice flair to its otherwise stoic facade. Sadly, this policy was discontinued in 2024, and the building is now covered in a monochromatic “Pompeyan Red.” The decision has received a mixed public reaction, but hopefully the verdict will be reversed in the future. The historic 1732 building was originally the convent of the Recoleto monks, for whom the Recoleta neighborhood is named, as well as part of Our Lady of Pilar Basilica, the second oldest church in Buenos Aires. Over the decades as the influence of the church waned after Argentina’s 1810 May Revolution the building was used as a hospital, military barracks, asylum, and an art school before being renovated into an exhibits and events space in the 1980s.  

That afternoon the tree lined blocks around Plaza Serrano and Plaza Armenia in the charming Palmero Soho neighborhood were so different from the high-rise towers of Recoleta, and reminded us of Barcelona & Madrid, with the wonderful mix of sidewalk cafés, along with trendy shops. Colorful street murals brightened many of the narrow alleys.

Across from Plaza Armenia we passed the Las Petunias restaurant which was full of lively diners at lunchtime.  But we continued our wanderings and returned around 15:00 when the restaurant was quieter, though there were still enough other people dining to make it a nice experience. We shared Los Tablones de Carnes for two. The grilled meats were excellent, and it was the best parrillada we had during our stay in Buenos Aires.

Sunday, we headed to the Feria de San Telmo, a weekly street fair that spans eleven blocks of Av. Defensa, a street known for its antique stores and art galleries. San Telmo is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Buenos Aires and has striven to retain its 19th and early 20th century character with well-preserved buildings.

The street was full of activity, but the feira was really more like a flea market featuring clothing and everyday items with only a handful of artists’ and craftsperson’s tables mixed in between. Buskers worked the street corners, and a puppeteer dazzled a young audience. Occasionally a street mural graced a side street.

Along the way the ornate mausoleum of General Manuel Belgrano stood beneath the towers of Basílica Nuestra Señora del Rosario. The church was constructed in 1753 and British soldiers sought sanctuary here after a failed invasion of the city in 1807. General Belgrano was one of the founding fathers on Argentina’s independence and is also credited with designing the country’s flag.

The Mercado San Telmo was our destination for lunch. It is a cavernous hall set in an 1897 building that resembles a Victorian era train station with an ornate iron superstructure supporting a glass roof.  The hall’s traditional produce stands, butchers and bakers, now share the space with takeaway restaurants, and antique stalls. But it was crazy with activity on a Sunday afternoon, and we vowed to return if we had the chance. Instead, we ate at Havanna, a small café chain across Buenos Aires, that we had eaten at the day before in Palmero Soho, and enjoyed.

Tango dancers were mesmerizing a crowd with their graceful twists, turns, dips, and kicks at the Plaza Dorrego. Resting between dances, they encouraged folks to come forward and dance too. It was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon, with a vibe totally different from the craft market in Retiro, and the shaded lanes of Palmero. Every August the city hosts the Buenos Aires Tango Festival & World Cup, a two weeklong dance-off, with concerts and shows where over 400 couples from around the world compete for the top spots in different categories.

The next day a rainy morning finally cleared as we were on our way to a three hour cooking class to learn how to make those savory pastry meat-filled turnovers called empanadas, and alfajores, a melt in your mouth layered shortbread-like cookie filled with dulce de leche.

Our hosts Tomas and Lala graciously welcomed nine of us into their home; we were from France, Norway, Switzerland, and the United States. The other participants, like us, we learned after introductions all around, were snowbirds escaping a cold northern winter.

Tango music played softly in the background as Tomas divided us into three groups of 4, 2 and 3, the odd man out joining Donna and me. It was very well organized, and Tomas led us through the mixing of ingredients and made sure we added just the right amount of water so the dough was kneadable, but not sticky. Everyone cut their balls of dough and rolled them out into taco size discs, not too thin or too thick. Lala provided a meat filling. The hardest part was crimping the edges of the dough together to seal in the filling. The gal next to us was very good at it and created bakery worthy pockets. The three of us had various aesthetic results, that would improve with practice. Brushed with an egg white, trays of empanadas were put into the oven to bake. The cookie batter was also quite easy to make. We sipped some mate (a traditional herbal drink with lots of caffeine) and got to know our tablemates as we waited for the empanadas. We can see why people like mate (pronounced mah-tay) but I think for us it would be an acquired taste. The empanadas were tender and tasty, though it was obvious which ones my fingers had molded, as they oozed from some thin spots in the crust. This was the first cooking class we’ve ever taken during our travels and found the whole experience, along with the shared camaraderie, very enjoyable.

The next morning, we pulled our luggage behind us as we strolled down Calle Florida, a 10 block long pedestrian walkway in the center of Buenos Aire’s shopping district that runs from the Plaza General San Martín to Plaza de Mayo. It was a very pleasant lane centered with rows of young shade trees, and intermittent sidewalk cafes along the edges. The Galerías Pacífico, an upscale glass domed shopping complex, was our destination.

With architectural inspiration taken from the Vittorio Emmanuelle II galleries in Milan, the 1889 building was designed to be a shopping experience akin to the Bon Marche stores in Paris. But a long economic recession in Argentina during the 1890s and early 1900s nixed its realization and the gallery area was used as part of the National Museum of Fine Arts, while the Ferrocarril Buenos Aires al Pacífico acquired part of the building for offices. The company’s presence eventually led it to being called the “Edificio Pacífico,” (Pacífico Building).

The famous domed lower level over what is now the food court was constructed during renovations in the 1940s and embellished with twelve spectacular murals by the artists Lino Eneas Spilimbergo, Antonio Berni, Juan Carlos Castagnino, Manuel Colmeiro, and Demetrio Urruchúa.

A hundred years later a 1990s renovation finally covered the galleries with a glass ceiling and the “Galerías Pacífico,” became the flagship of Buenos Aires’ shopping district. We really are not into mall shopping, but this is very nice, and an architecturally and culturally interesting spot that attracts a diversity of folks. It was the perfect spot for our “walk a little then café,” break before having an ice cream bar decorated with Lionel Messi’s blue and white uniform.  The Buquebus ferry terminal was only a short walk away for our crossing back to Uruguay and our flight home.

Buenos Aires is a sprawling city with 48 different neighborhoods and three million people. It is a great destination, and we only scratched the surface of the multitude of places to visit, and things to do within this vibrant city. In hindsight, we could have stayed several more days to explore the museums and government buildings, based ourselves in the Palermo neighborhood, and used the subway to get around.

Till next time,

Craig & Donna

Along the Coast of Uruguay: Sand in Our Shoes – Faro de José Ignacio & Punta del Este & Beyond

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After a three-day road trip through the colonial towns of Colonia del Sacramento and Carmelo, then the rural farmlands of Minas and ranchlands of Gorzon, the amount of activity around the traffic circle in Faro de José Ignacio took us by surprise. We had reached civilization again! Not that it was really busy, but literally more cars had passed us in the last five minutes than the last three days, as we pulled into the small collection of shops along Rt10, which leads up from Punta del Este. Some fruit and supplies were gathered for our four night stay at Casa Franca from the Devoto Market, a well-stocked, but typical beach town store that benefits from a captive market. A few doors down the Panadería José Ignacio, a popular bakery, has a very nice selection of bread, pastries and tasty delectables. They also have a pizza and sandwich counter along with tables for eating outside on their terrace. We returned every morning during our stay for fresh from the oven delights.

Folks parked along the road followed sandy paths across the dunes to the beach. The sails of kite surfers filled the sky as we passed the Laguana de José Ignacio, a freshwater lake separated from the South Atlantic Ocean by a sandbank, which it breaches when it rains too much.

Surf pounded against the Playa Balneario across from our host Daniel’s guesthouse in the tiny hamlet of Santa Mónica, only 5km (3mi) west of Faro de José Ignacio, but a sea change in tranquility, compared to our earlier shopping experience. His wife and children waved from their balcony as his friendly dog energetically greeted us. Daniel helped take our bags to our room, which was located through a private entrance to an extension on their home with three other guest rooms. While our chic petite studio didn’t face the ocean it did thankfully have a shaded porch, where we spent many hours.

After settling in we headed to the lighthouse in José Ignacio, located on thumb-like peninsula that juts into the South Atlantic. Its 32m (105ft) tall lighthouse has guided sailors off this treacherous reef coast since 1877.

While Punta del Este has been promoted as a beach resort for wealthy Argentinians and Uruguayans since the early 1900s, and is now known as the “Ibiza of Uruguay”. José Ignacio remained a quiet isolated fishing village without running water or electricity, as the coastal road from Punta ended at the Laguana de José Ignacio. All that changed in 1981 with the construction of a bridge across the lagoon. The infrastructure improvements that came at that time were appreciated, but the town’s small population rallied to prevent the coastal area from becoming a Miami-esque playground, and successfully petitioned the local government to enact ordinances to ensure its quiet, peaceful character remained intact by allowing only single-family homes, no taller than two-stories within the Maldonado region. Along with banning discothèques, pubs and nightclubs, as well as all motorized vehicles on the beaches, jet skis and speedboats are also prohibited in the lagoons. Today the town’s seven miles of pristine beaches attract folks from all over who just want to unwind along what many consider the best part of Uruguay’s 410-mile-long coastline.

We walked out onto the rocky point next to the lighthouse, then down a boardwalk over the dunes to the Playa Brava, a long gracefully curved stretch of sand, scoping out the best spots to return to the next morning for sunrise photos. We strolled along the wide beach between lifeguard chairs. Squealing kids ran into the surf from the beach speckled with blankets and sun umbrellas amidst impromptu volleyball and soccer games. We stopped at El Chiringo, an outdoor restaurant with tables in the sand and shared a pizza for an early dinner.

Heading back to Casa Francawe stopped along the lagoonto watch a beautiful sunset across its calm water. Kite Surfers unwilling to end their day skimmed along the water until it was nearly dark.

The next morning Donna slept in while I rose before dawn and drove back to the lighthouse to watch the sun cast its first rays of light across the rocky headland and lighthouse.

A few hardy fishermen had already made their first casts of the day from the rocks. On the other side of the lighthouse a group of fishermen were readying two large skiffs to push into the surf from the beach. Next to them the first surfer of the day paddled out, and a few joggers pounded along the cool sand in early morning solitude.

After a day of rest and relaxation we wanted to explore the beach towns farther east along the coast as it runs towards Brazil. The weather doesn’t always cooperate, but we were hopeful the sky would clear as we drove along Rt 9 near Rocha. There were a good number of produce stalls along the road hoping to entice travelers to the beaches to shop. We stopped at one with shelves stacked full with jars of local honey, jams, and Dulce de Leche, along with wheels of artisanal cheeses. We purchased a Dambo, similar to Edam or Gouda. It is a traditional local cheese made with the milk from grass fed cows which graze freely in the palm tree studded, pampas rangelands, that define the region. Farther up the road we stopped for our “drive a little then café,” break at a small shop attached to a gas station in the uniquely named town, 19 de Abril.  The town takes its name from an event related the revolutionaries called the Thirty-Three Orientals, who returned from their exile in Argentina on April 19, 1825, an event that eventually started the Cisplatine War, which led to Uruguay’s independence from Brazil.

Normally in the states we avoid like the plague any eateries attached to gas stations, as they are typically places that just offer junk food, but route 9 traversed a semi-rural region, and there were few options. We were pleasantly surprised as we parked to see a mural of a painting by Simon Silva on the side wall of the café. We bought a poster of this image twenty years ago and it still hangs in our home, and it was nice to know that someone else enjoys the image as much as we do. The café Parador 19 de Abril delighted us. It’s a quaint oasis in the wilderness. The cappuccinos and fresh pastries were quite good, and the folks who ran it were very nice.

Folks were slipping and sliding through streams of water that were gushing down the hardpacked sandy roads of Punta del Diablo, as a deluge had descended upon us since our coffee break. The rain was too heavy to wander about, but we contented ourselves with driving through the haphazard layout of the oldest part of the rustic fishing village, that now has brightly painted shops and restaurants but is reminiscent of a village being founded by survivors of a shipwreck, using whatever materials they could salvage from the sea. Taking a horse drawn cart across the dunes was the only way to reach the once isolated village, until a road connecting it to Rt 9 was built in 1968. Larger flat bottomed fishing boats were beached along the gentle curve of Playa del Rivero, awaiting their next awaiting their launch at the arrival of high tide. A fisherman under a rain tarp offered his morning catch. Often during the Uruguay’s winter, June to November, the deep ocean just offshore allows folks to spot humpback and southern right whales breaching from the town’s beaches as they migrate north to the warmer waters around Brazil.

By the time we reached Aguas Dulces the rain had stopped, though the sky was still threatening, and the streets were nearly deserted. The high tide was rough from the earlier storm and was inching its way towards the row of boulders placed along the shoreline to prevent further coastal erosion and homes being swept away.  Laidback and low keyed, Aguas Dulces is a budget-friendly destination for Uruguayan families who enjoy its lifeguard protected beaches when the weather cooperates.

On the way to La Paloma we stopped at Puente Valizas, a picturesque riverside fishing village along the Arroyo Valizas. The tributary flows 10km (6mi) from the Laguana Castillos to the Atlantic Ocean, near the beach resort of Barra de Valizas. The river was busy with fishermen speeding to the Laguana to catch pink shrimp, which thrive in the brackish waters of the lagoon, for the restaurants along the coast.

In La Paloma the afternoon sky was brightening as we walked along the Paseo Marítimo, a boardwalk through the dunes that lined the tranquil waters of Bahía Grande, a small clam shell shaped bay. La Paloma is the largest coastal town east of Punta del Este and is a popular resort area with 20km (12mi) of beaches that are suitable for surfers and families with young children to enjoy.  Eventually we reached El Faro del Cabo Santa Maria, the town’s historic 42m (138 ft) tall lighthouse. Built in 1874, the powerful navigational beacon atop the tower can be seen 37km (23mi) out to sea. When it is open, folks can climb 143 steps to the top for some spectacular views of the coast.

On the way back to Faro de José Ignacio we followed Rt10 across the Laguna Garzón Bridge, an experience that totally took us by surprise, as the 2015 bridge has a unique circular design that resembles a flat donut. It’s really quite unusual but was designed this way to naturally slow the speed of traffic.

Our host and his family the next morning departed for a day trip a few minutes ahead of us. Their dog which watched their leaving from the second-floor deck had somehow escaped and was running frantically around outside the gated area. Fortunately, Donna has mastered that universal dog-call kissing sound, and we were able to lock him securely behind the gate. We called Daniel to let him know.

A few blocks down we stopped to photograph two abandoned properties. They were both very interesting, and we always wonder what the backstory is that goes with these places.

Route 10 hugs the beautiful 33km (20mi) stretch of wild undeveloped coast that extends from Faro de José Ignacio to Punta del Esta.

Reaching the outskirts of Punta we got our first glimpse of the Puente de la barra, a whimsical wavy bridge, that our route followed across the Arroyo Maldonado. Designed in 1965 to force drivers to reduce their speed, it’s said the rollercoaster-like bridge can cause vertigo if you drive too fast across it. On the Punta side there is a traffic circle that made it too easy for us to cross the bridge multiple times, just for the fun of it.

We stopped at a mirador near the “La Ola Celeste,” a stylized sculpture of a wave that overlooks the fast rolling breakers that beat against the waters of the Arroyo Maldonado as the river empties into the sea, and separates Punta from the smaller resort town of La Barra, which has a vibrant nightlife that rivals Punta’s as the best place to party in Uruguay.

This was also a great spot to get an expansive view of the dramatic beaches along the coast and Punta’s modern skyline, which often prompts folks to refer to it as “the St. Tropez or Monaco of South America.” The vista reminded us of Miami Beach.

We stopped for lunch at the Aura Beach House, a small modern café with a light menu, set on the brilliant white sand of Playa La Brava. They also have several rows of lounge chairs under nicely thatched beach umbrellas for daily rent. It was a beautiful, relaxing spot and our food and coffees were excellent; we didn’t want to leave. We found in our travels across Uruguay that street parking was always free, even along the beaches, something that is very rare in the United States.

We weren’t sure what the weather was going to be like the next day, so we took advantage of the splendid afternoon and stopped at The Hand, Punta’s most iconic landmark since the Chilean artist Mario Irarrázabal installed it along the oceanfront in 1982. It was very crowded with a tour group, but we waited for their departure before taking any photos. As it turned out the sculpture was within walking distance of our hotel, and we returned to it several times during our stay in Punta.

We continued on our way to the Faro de Punta del Este lighthouse that stands on the highest point of the narrow peninsula that was Old Town Punta, a whaling port established in the early 1800s.  

Punta, like Montevideo, has a lot of public art on the streets we realized as we drove by the Monumento El Rapto de Europa. The large bronze sculpture references the myth of Europa, a Phoenician princess who was abducted by Zeus in the form of a bull and taken to the island of Crete.  Why it is on a street corner near the beach in Punta, we haven’t a clue. Across the street from the lighthouse were several architecturally interesting homes and the very blue Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria church which had a lovely tranquil interior.

At Punta’s modern marina, sleek motor yachts and sailboats now bob gently in the water where the whaling ships once anchored. The first tourists to Punta arrived in the early 1900s, but it wasn’t until the infrastructure improvements of the 1940’s supported the construction of modern hotels and the town’s first casino that Punta’s reputation as a luxurious destination in South America was cemented. We stayed in the Old Town at Hotel Romimar, a budget-friendly lodging with an excellent breakfast, off Av. Juan Gorlero, Punta’s main shopping street.

We love exploring a new city early in the morning as it wakes up. By 7:30 beach attendants were hard at work carrying lounge chairs and umbrellas from trailers parked along the street, down to the sand and assembling them into tidy rows for their expected sunbathers. It was the perfect time to re-visit The Hand, as the sun was just cresting over its fingertips, and sunlight was reflecting brightly off the row of high-rise condos that fronted the coastline.

Wandering about we spotted several cachilas, old cars that out of economic necessity were lovingly maintained and passed forward through hard times. Some are now totally restored and look as good as the day they rolled out of the showroom. One, an old Plymouth, was creatively covered in a mosaic pattern of old Uruguayan coins.

Families were also out early to claim their preferred batches of sand at Playa El Emir, a small beach on the edge of Old Town Punta with a wonderful view of the coastline, near the Ermita Virgen de la Candelaria. The shrine to the patron virgin of Punta del Este is located on a narrow sliver of land that juts into the South Atlantic Ocean, that is believed to be where the Spanish explorer Juan Díaz de Solís held a mass when he landed nearby in 1516. Our “walk a little the café,” breaks were satisfied that morning with excellent coffee and pastries at Donut City and Cresta Café. Both were only a short walk from the beach.

A day trip the next morning took us to towns west along the coast from Punta that also interested us. Our first stop was at the Escultura Cola de la Ballena Franca, an open wire metal sculpture of a whale tail that overlooks the ocean between the endless beaches of Playa Mansa and Playa Cantamar. It is a popular lookout spot for southern right whales during the peak of their winter migration between July and October.

Casapueblo  is a surreal Guadi structure that captures the essence of the whitewashed cliffside homes on the Mediterranean island of Santorini, Greece. It started as a small wooden shack in 1958, the studio of Páez Vilaró, a Uruguayan abstract artist. He expanded it himself along the oceanfront as his family grew, and friends like Picasso and Brigitte Bardot visited, until a whimsical 13-story structure with 72 rooms stacked upon each other covered the cliff face. Today it is a museum and hotel.

Afterwards we drove to the Laguana del Sauce and enjoyed a quiet lunch overlooking the lagoon from the Hotel Del Lago.

Away from the oceanside a rural landscape quickly unfolded as we drove through farmlands to the Capilla Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, a pretty church that reminded us of settings in the American Midwest.

The next morning, our last full day in Uruguay, we headed west toward the Canelones wine region near Montevideo, an area which produces nearly fifty percent of Uruguayan wines at vineyards which were started four to five generations ago by families which immigrated from Europe. Piriápolis is a small coastal city which grew from a private investment as the country’s first planned resort was along our route. El Balneario del Porvenir (the Resort of the Future) was the vision of Francisco Piria, a wealthy Uruguayan businessman, who in 1890 bought 2700 hectares (6672 acres) of undeveloped land along a beautiful beach, 99km (62mi) from Montevideo. He spent forty years commissioning hotels and a promenade along the oceanfront, which he likened to the French Riviera, before his death in 1933. In 1937 the population of the resort town was large enough to be declared a pueblo, and twenty-three years later it achieved the status of a city. From the landing of a small chapel atop Cerro San Antonio we had a perfect panoramic view of the city that still draws visitors to its beach where families can rent scooter cars for their children to wheel along the promenade. During the high season the Aerosillas Piriápolis chairlift whisks tourist from the marina to the top of the hill. The Castillo de Francisco Piria, the entrepreneur’s home, was on the outskirts of the city as we headed to a wine tasting and overnight stay at the Pizzorno Winery & Lodge.

We arrived at the winery as a tractor pulling a wagon full of just-harvested grapes was being unloaded into a destemmer-crusher, the first step in the long process to create wine.

Founded in 1910, the fourth generation of the Pizzorno family operates the wine estate. It has 21 hectares (52 acres) of vineyards planted with Tannat, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Malbec, Arinarnoa, Marselan, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, and Muscat of Hamburg vines.

We were the only guests that afternoon during the last week of February and thoroughly enjoyed the interesting tour of the wine cellar led by Joaquin, the winery’s sommelier. He   explained their viticulture philosophy which endorses “traditionally harvesting grapes by hand, respect for the ecosystem, environmental conservation through a no fertilization and watering wisely policy, along with green pruning, leaf removal, and bunch thinning to obtain the best grapes, which is reflected in the quality of the wines we make using only our own grapes.”

Afterwards Joaquin’s experience continued to enhance our tasting of four wines as he shared his knowledge of the vineyard’s terroir, and the different grape varietals, along with their aromas, flavors, and recommended pairings with food.

It was our last night of our 15-day trip around Uruguay and we treated ourselves to a luxurious stay in the winery’s posada. It was for many years the family home until it was creatively restored into an attractive boutique inn with four guest rooms overlooking a pool and the vineyards.   

“You will have the posada all to yourselves tonight. Enjoy the pool, and feel free to walk through the vineyard. A nightwatchman will arrive later.”  The golden hour was upon the vineyard as we cooled off in the pool. 

This surely dates us, but it felt like we were in an episode of the TV show Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous hosted by Robin Leach, who used to sign-off with “Champagne wishes and caviar dreams.”

Till next time,

Craig & Donna

Hawaii – Road Tripping Around the Big Island or Black Sand, Sea Turtles and Snowbirds in Paradise

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There’s a saying in the low country, that “summer in Georgia is like living on Hell’s front porch.” Our winters here are usually very mild, and our neighbors tell us a dusting of snow falls about once every 13 years, and it melts away in hours. But this year 3 inches of snow fell and stayed frozen on the ground for 4 days. The counties along the coast and in southern Georgia can’t cope with this type of “unusual weather phenomenon,” and declared a state of emergency. Schools were closed, and folks were advised to stay off the roads. Traffic came to a standstill on Interstate 95 due to the icy roadway and was shut down for 2 days. State Police rescued stranded truckers by using ATVs. Our neighbors shared, “When it snows like this in Georgia, you know Hell has frozen over!”

Fortuitously, months earlier four of us from our lake community had booked a flight to Hawaii that departed the same day the runways at the Savanna Airport were cleared of ice and ready for business again.  

The balmy air was a welcome reprieve as we descended the stairs from the plane onto the runway in Kailua-Kona, on Hawaii Island or as the local folks like to say, The Big Island. But we were overdressed and overheated by the time we reached the baggage claim area and headed to the restrooms to strip off layers of now unseasonably warm clothing.

When we arrived at the Budget Car Rental office the queue was already out the door, and we watched our first Hawaiian sunset from the waiting line as the sun’s dying rays silhouetted the palm trees. This was not the romantic drinks-on-the-beach sunset we had envisioned for our first night on the island. The problem was a severely understaffed rental counter which gave priority to members of the company’s Fastbreak Program. We finally figured this out after waiting two hours, with more than one hundred other folks in a queue that now wrapped around the building. Donna realized we could download their app and take advantage of the expedited checkout program, and signed us up on the spot. As we switched lines, we shared our tip with folks around us, and we were headed out to our car within minutes. Donna acknowledges a twinge of guilt as we sashayed past all the other poor folks still stuck in that dreadful line. We’ve used Budget Car Rental flawlessly many times, but this was a horrendous experience. Fortunately, our lodging for the week at a Hilton property in Waikoloa was only a 30-minute drive north on Rt19.

Beyond the reception desk, the dancing patterns of light off the ripples of the hotel’s dramatically lit pool looked enticing. But after a long day of flying we needed a good night’s sleep.

The next morning we were up with the sunrise and out for a walk after a quick cup of coffee. The day was beautiful and there were many other like-minded couples out and about following the sidewalk that looped between the buildings of the sprawling resort.

Budha Point, a tranquil scenic spot on Waiulua Bay, that overlooked the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean, was our destination. We visited here several times over the week and spotted whales breaching offshore a number of times.

It was less than a mile walk from our room through the beautifully manicured landscaping which coursed through the jagged lava fields that surrounded the Hilton Waikoloa Village, a sprawling complex with a tramway and footpaths connecting several towered hotels and pools along the seafront and the site’s lagoon.

Hawaiians have a great reverence for the ocean, and one of the wonderful things about the state are its laws that guarantee folks have a right of access along the beaches and shorelines, and that private property owners cannot obstruct access to it.

A little segway here: Hawaii is costly – think San Franciso or NYC expensive! The cost of parking is outrageous across the island, with residents parking for free and rental car drivers paying a high hourly rate at parking kiosks. Hilton guests staying in their premiere hotels around the resort’s lagoon or visitors wanting to attend the Legends of Hawaii Luau are charged $48 per day or $8 hourly for self-parking, and $55 per day for valet parking. Fortunately, the hotel we were staying in was farther away from the action and included free parking.

There was also a free shuttle bus that connected the hotels, shopping and restaurant courtyard within the complex. Several small free Beach Access Parking lots, which are closed to overnight parking, are across from excessively expensive Waikoloa Village parking lot.

Continuing our loop around the resort we came upon the Kings Highway Foot Trail, part of the Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail, a 175-mile narrow footpath that follows an ancient trading and communications route, through rough lava beds. Starting at the farthest spot north on the island, Upolu Point, the trail which dates from the 1500s, connected the ancient Polynesian fishing villages and religious sites along the western and southern coast of Hawaii island to the farming villages in the highlands. In places like the Waikōloa Petroglyph Reserve, ancient messages were carved into the lava stones.

Dinner and watching the sunset from the Lava Lava Beach Club on ʻAnaehoʻomalu Bay is a pleasant nightly ritual for many who visit the area.

We could have spent the entire week lounging by the pool, but that’s not really us, so we planned several road trips around the island. We had driven to the hotel in the dark two days earlier, and the area around the resort was a mix of verdant greenery and sporadic patches of lava. Exiting the hotel complex onto Rt19 revealed an immense Martian-like terrain of arid inhospitable lava fields that stretch for dozen of miles down from the 4205m (13,786 ft) tall snowcapped summit of the dormant volcano Mauna Kea, and Mauna Loa, the world’s largest active volcano that sits 4170m (13,680ft) above sea level. They represent just one of the 11 climate zones found on the island. Which means when you circumnavigate the diverse landscapes of the island, you can experience everything from lush rainforests to arid deserts.

A short part of our drive that morning was through a landscape that reminded us of the American Southwest as we headed toward Hapuna Beach, the longest and widest stretch of white sand on the island. It consistently gets ranked as “one of world’s best beaches.”

The boulders of ancient lava, from the now extinct Mt Kohala, carpeted the shoreline at Kapa’a Beach Park. An estimated one million years old, it’s the oldest of the Big Islands’ six volcanoes, and last erupted 120,000 years ago.

Rain clouds threaten us as we stopped for coffee at the Kohala Coffee Mill, in the small town of Hawi, to indulge in our “drive a little then café,” philosophy. Rain poured for a few minutes as we sipped our coffees at tables under a covered sidewalk, and waited for the shower to pass. It’s a quiet one street town with a few small shops, galleries and artwork along the street. Away from the large resorts on the Kona coast a little bit of “old Hawaii,” shined through here.

A few minutes farther up the road we stopped in Kapaau at the Statue of King Kamehameha that commands the slope in front of the Old Kohala Courthouse. Ancient Hawaiian legends had foretold, “a light in the sky with feathers like a bird would signal the birth of a great chief.” Halley’s comet passed over the isalnds in 1758, the year Hawaiians believe Kamehameha was born. For centuries warfare between clans and inter-island raids were widespread throughout the Hawaiian archipelago. Kamehameha with an army of warriors on hundreds of peleleu, double-hulled 70ft long war canoes, sailed between the islands. In a series of battles he defeated the opposing chiefs on Hawaii, Oahu, Maui, and Molokai and united the islands into the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi in 1795. By 1810 the islands of Lanai, Kauai, and Niihau voluntarily joined the kingdom.

Leaving Kapaau we followed Rt 250 up into the Waimea highlands beneath Mt Kohala, a vast grasslands atop a long ridge, and home to the 135,000-acre Parker Ranch, one of the oldest and largest cattle ranches in the United States. From the road distant views of the west coast of the island were abundant. As we descended into Waimea the summit of the dormant volcano Mauna Kea poked through the clouds.

Waimea is the center of the Big Islands’ paniolo (Hawaiian cowboy) country. It’s a large pretty town, with several old historic churches, colorful street murals and a tall cowboy boot marking the entrance to a shopping center. The first cattle on the island, 11 cows and 1 bull, were given to King Kamehameha by the British Naval Officer, Captain George Vancouver, in 1793. The king prohibited the islanders from slaughtering them and the small herd was left to freely roam the highlands.

In 1803 King Kamehameha received, from an American trader, the first horses to arrive on the island. The king invited vaqueros from Spanish California to the Big Island to teach some islanders cattle herding and roping skills. Eventually, the taboo against killing the cattle was lifted in 1830 by King Kamehameha III, when an estimated 25,000 wild cattle became troublesome as they destroyed farmer’s crops. Some of the cattle would be herded into the sea where they were swum out and then lifted onto waiting freighters and transported to the other islands. Hawaiian paniolos grew to be accomplished riders and over the years, have competed in numerous rodeos and world steer-roping championships. In 1999, Parker Ranch paniolo Ikua Purdy was inducted into the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. We had hoped to attend a Paniolo BBQ at Kahua Ranch for a night of good food and cowboy stories, but the weather the week we were on the island was just too iffy for us to commit to it.

Oustide of Waimea on the Mamalahoa Hwy, the ring road, we headed to the eastern, or windward side of the island and traveled through verdant landscapes of thick forests and jungles, the beneficiaries of the 130 inches of rain that this side of the island annually receives from the tradewinds that bring moisture in from the Pacific Ocean.  It’s a sharp contrast to the arid western, or leeward side of the island that receives only 18 inches of rain.

The overcast sky persisted as we drove down a twisting road through a rainforest to Laupāhoehoe Point. It’s a small, beautiful peninsula, with a rough lava rock coastline. The ocean swelled and crashed against the coast with a ferocity that the beaches on the west side of the island don’t experience, unless there’s a storm.

Saffron finches scooted around the undergrowth near the water’s edge. Over the horizon Baja, Mexico was 2,000 miles away. Things are not always wonderful in paradise and a memorial commemorates the tragic deaths of 20 schoolchildren and 4 teachers who drowned as their school was swept away in the giant waves of a tsunami that pounded the northeastern shores of the Big Island on April 1, 1946. Farther south in Hilo 159 people drowned and 1,300 homes were swept away.

The Big Island has over 100 waterfalls with the tallest, Waihilau Falls at a lofty 792m (2,600ft) tall, hidden away in the remote Waimanu Valley. Some serious trekking through the rainforest is required to reach them, while there are others that are way easier to view. As much as I liked the idea of an expedition through the tropical forest with my crew to see this spectacular waterfall, they can be a mutinous car full towards happy hour. So, we opted to seek out some of the more readily accessible ones during our week on the island.

Continuing south on the Mamalahoa Hwy we stopped to view the cascading Triple-Tier Umauma Falls, thundering loudly from all the rain that had fallen lately. It’s on private property, so there was an admission fee, but they did have really tasty coconut, pineapple and mango ice-cream.

We ended our day with drinks and dinner at Jackie Rey’s Ohana Grill in Hilo. It’s interestingly set in an old bank building across from some street murals. Our dinners from the happy hour menu were delicious and quite filling. In our opinion it was one of the best values on the island, and we did in fact eat there twice. Occasionally, a feral goat or donkey would be illuminated by the car’s headlights as we followed Saddle Road across the center of the island. At one point we reached an elevation of 2,021m (6,632ft) as we passed between the summits of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. On the downhill side we could have coasted all the way back to the hotel.

Two days later we headed to Kona for their Farmer’s Market. We very much enjoy wandering about the stands at a good street market. Sadly, the Kona market was a huge disappointment, with only a handful of vendors selling tourist souvenirs and clothing. Only one stand sold local fruit and vegetables, which we did purchase to enjoy back at the hotel. Across the street we had breakfast at Papa Kona Restaurant & Bar, which had a spectacular second-story balcony perched right above the rocky oceanfront, where fishermen were casting into the surf.

Our ambitious plan for the day was to follow the Hawaiʻi Belt Road, Rt11, to the Hikiau Heiau temple on the opposite side of Kealakekua Bay from which Captain Cook landed in 1779, then hit a number of other interesting spots as we continued south to Ka Lae, or South Point as it is also known, before swinging around to the eastern side of the island, and ending our day on the volcanic black sand of Punaluʻu Beach.

Cook happened to sail into Kealakekua Bay during a Makahiki festival, a religious festival to appease the Hawaiian deity Lono, who in legend returns to the islands on a large ship. Timing is everything! Cook lucked out, his skull could have hung with other victims who had been sacrificed to appease the wrath of their deity, amidst the towering fierce tikis which portrayed Lono. The High Chief of the island ceremoniously welcomed the captain and lavished him with gifts of feathered capes, helmets, lei, and tapa cloth along with hogs, taro, sweet potatoes, and bananas. The bay is a tranquil spot now, but during Cook’s visit it would have been filled with hundreds of islanders on wa’a, outrigger canoes, and surfboards.

Continuing south we reached the Pu’uhonua O Honaunau National Historical Park, site of an ancient religious sanctuary. Few spots on the Big Island resemble paradise more than Pu’uhonua O Honaunau, with its brilliant white sandy beach lined with swaying palm trees, along a cove with clear blue water. For centuries before the Christianization of the island started with the first arrival of protestant missionaries in the 1820s, it was also known as the City of Refuge, where islanders who broke a kapu, an ancient law, could flee to safety to escape the death penalty their action incurred. Here an offender of the ancient ways would seek absolution from a high priest and be free to return to their village. Villagers and defeated warriors could also seek sanctuary here during periods of inter-chiefdom wars.

The most important structure on the site is Hale o Keawe, a stone and thatch royal mausoleum that contained the remains of 23 deified high chiefs. Around it, fierce looking tiki statues serve as guardians of the dead, and embody the spiritual power of the kapu.

The site also has two Hawaiian hale houses, open sided bamboo and palm frond or pili grass covered structures. Multiple hale houses were built in a village for specific uses: men’s meeting house, cooking house, separate eating houses for men and women, workshop and canoe house, and a menstruation house.

Uphill from Pu’uhonua O Honaunau we visited the Painted Church, aka St Benedict Catholic Church. It’s a simple wooden church that dates from the 1880’s, and easy enough to just drive by unless you know it has a spectacularly painted interior.

While it’s not Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, the message is the same with every surface of the interior illustrated with stories from the bible. It was all the work of one creative Belgian priest, Father Jean Berchmans Velghe. He painted these religious murals between 1899 – 1902 for his, largely illiterate congregation.

The Coffee Shack,  a laidback breakfast and lunch restaurant on Rt11 in Honaunau-Napoopoo, was recommended to us as a nice place to eat. Parking was a little difficult in their small lot, and the place doesn’t look like much from the outside, but inside they have a lanai, an open sided porch, with panoramic views over the hills leading down to the Kona coast and Kealakekua Bay. We had just gotten seated when the power went out, something that we were told happens quite frequently across the island, and the server informed us “the cook doesn’t open the refrigerator when this happens, so we only have pastries, and the coffee is still hot.” It wasn’t much of a sacrifice to content ourselves with coffee and luscious pastry.

After a snack we optimistically continued south in search of an open restaurant, and we were not having much luck. Talk of mutiny was fomenting in the back seat. This whole southern coast lies in the shadow of the Mauna Loa volcano. Past the town of Ocean View the road crossed scars of ancient lava flows that stretched from the volcano’s summit to the sea. Fortunately, we came upon the El Encanto Food Truck, which had its own generator, and was busily serving a long line of hungry patrons at its window. Our lunches were delicious! The mutiny was postponed.

The power outage also affected gas stations along our route. With the afternoon sky darkening we decided to forego visiting South Point and continue on to Punaluʻu Beach. It’s a graceful crescent shape, and we are sure on a sunny day its volcanic black sand beach lined with coconut palms would be stunning, but this afternoon it looked foreboding with a gray sea sweeping its shore, more apropos for the scene of a novel’s fictional shipwreck, than a place to sunbath.

Rain was threatening now, but as we walked back to the car, Donna was waving excitedly to us. On the beach were three large green sea turtles in a roped off nesting area. Native to the Hawaiian archipelago, they are the largest sea turtle that nests on the islands and are symbols of good luck, wisdom, and protection. It was such a pleasure to see them.

The Hawaiian legend of Kauila, tells of a mystical turtle born on the black sands of Punalu’u, who had the ability to shapeshift into a human to play with the islander’s children that came to the beach, and to protect them from the dangers of the ocean. Heavier rain sent us hurrying back to the car. It was a long but rewarding day; we agreed that the spotting of the turtles was a real highlight of the trip.

Our pursuit of waterfalls continued the next day. Recrossing the mountains during the day cast a new light on the arid windswept heights as we ascended the road under snowcapped Mauna Kea then descended towards Hilo and into verdant greenery of the eastern side of the Big Island. It was a contrast equivalent to night and day, like our two drives across the island.

Roaring from all the recent rain, Wai’ale Falls was easily seen from the bridge over the Wailuku River. There’s not any official parking, so folks just park along the side of the road and walk out onto the bridge. There is also a rough trail, through thick undergrowth, up and over the road embankment that leads to the upper falls. We followed the footpath for a while until it narrowed along the edge of a fall-off, and we decided to turn back. Though some younger, more adventurous folks had reached the top of the 17m (55ft) high falls and were fearlessly jumping into the pool below.

Downriver, Rainbow Falls, in Wailuku River State Park, was a short drive away. It’s known for, you guessed it, rainbows that frequently appear when the light is just right. The riverside park is quite pretty and has paved trails that overlook the falls where the river’s cascading water veils a shallow cave as it drops 24m (80ft) into a large stone basin created over the ages by erosion. “Legends say that the cave beneath the waterfall was the home of Hina, mother of the Hawaiian demigod, Maui.”

Our next “drive a little then café,” moment was satisfied at Coffee Girl, a cute café in a Hilo strip mall, on the way to Makuʻu Point.

Turbulent seas churned from storms blowing across the Pacific along with volcanic activity have prevented the creation of beaches on eastern coast of the Big Island. Dramatic volcanic cliffs and lava outcroppings line the windward coastline instead.

The next morning, we set out to find more ancient stone inscriptions at the Puakō Petroglyph Park, in nearby Waimea. The trail started in Holoholokai Beach Park, where there is a unique beach of black lava rocks mixed with white coral, and soon led to a gathering of petroglyphs.

The symbols were quite interesting, but it was obvious that the carvings were reproductions of ones that the trail led to. We followed what started out as a well-worn trail through a primeval forest full of twisted trees, until the trail seemed to vanish. It was a hot day, and we were concerned about getting lost, so we backtracked and turned our attention to discovering some of the smaller beaches near the resort.

Puako Bay is a few minutes south of Hapuna Beach, the island’s largest stretch of sand, which we had visited earlier in the week. It’s a tranquil bay with many public access trails from the road to small sandy beaches, and rocky coves, that folks like to snorkel in.

There was a small beach next the Hokuloa Church that offered a nice view of the bay with Mauna Kea in the distance. The church was built with lava rock and then whitewashed in the late 1850s.

Kikaua Point Park was south of our resort and access to it was, surprisingly, through a gated community. Where folks are allowed access to the beach after getting a parking permit from the security guard. A long concrete walkway led from the parking lot through a boulder strewn lava field to a lovely palm treed beach. Folks were enjoying the breeze in the shade of the trees and swimming in the warm water of an almost completely circular and shallow sandy bottom cove. It was the perfect spot to spread our towels out and go for a swim.

We only scratched the surface of this big, beautiful island. And if we ever return we would definitely go to see the array of telescopes at the observatory atop Mauna Kea. The cost of living is very high on the island, with even locally caught fish, fruit and vegetables being expenses. Folks always say eat at the food trucks; while less expensive, their prices are steep too. So, if we ever return to the island – Donna furrows her eyebrows when I say this – we are packing snacks, several bottles of wine, a jar of spaghetti sauce and pasta, along with a couple of frozen steaks that should be perfectly thawed by the time our flight lands.

Till next time,

Craig & Donna