Kanye West to Kalalau

Fullmoon Rising over the mountains of the Kalalau valley.

Happy to have completed the 11 mile hike, to paradise.

This was our campsite, with a waterfall to the right that we showered in and drank out of,

still not sick:)

A seal who joined us for the day, have you ever smelled a seal fart? We have.

Alix striking her pose in a cave on Kalalau beach, Yoga Journal anyone?

A view of the Na Pali Coast from the boat.

The last couple weeks have been laid back, yet amazing. We've been chilling at Phil's, had a brief stint on a Kanye West music video, got paid well for it too. Alix was going to fire-dance for the video, but the ignorance of Los Angelians shone through when they built a giant bonfire on the beach, not realizing that tides change and it was soon washed away, cutting the shooting short, we still got paid for sitting around a bonfire on the beach, watching rap stars play with their baseball caps in front of a camera.

We hiked the Kalalau Valley trail with an amazing Austrian girl named Claudia, she extended her trip to stay with us for a few days, which is turning to into over a week, and happens to be a professional snowboarder. The journey was 11 miles each way along a rugged coast line, up and down cliffs and in and out of lush valleys. When we got to the beach where we camped, a man with stunningly, abornmally, bright blue eyes came out of the jungle and gave each of us an orange from the valley to welcome us, then he walked away in to a rainbow. He was definately a symbol for what this place is like. A lot of people, like this man, live deep in the jungle and sustain themselves on the garden of edenesque land.

We planned on staying one night, but it was hard to leave even after 3 days. We had to get creative with feeding ourselves, so one night we went fishing for prawns in the river and cooked up a feast! We also lived off the extra food that people left behind when they hiked out, or went into the valley looking for tomatoes, oranges, and squash.

At night, we watched whales breaching during the sunsets, and then sat around a campfire playing music, and watching the clear night sky. This place is too powerful to describe, guess you'll have to go see it yourselves!

Only bummer, when we returned from the hike our car had been broken in to. Luckily our valuables were not inside, but all of Alix's clothes and souveniers she'd collected along our travels were stolen, even her travel journal. But she says "At least my bag is lighter!" After being in such an amazing place where the land and the people just keep giving, it is really trivial in comparison.

Just over a week before we come home, we are relaxing at the moment but might hop over to the Big island.

Happy Easter!

Aloha from Hawaii!

As you can tell, we like jumping off things. This is a waterfall that Sam is flying off of.

Taking a dip in to Queen's Bath, a turquoise swimming hole filled with colorful fish on the rough ocean waves.

We left paradise for paradise, went from Bula to Aloha; Alo- to confront, be in the presence of, Ha- the sacred breath. We started off staying in a hotel for a couple nights in Lihue, Kauai. Our hotel had the towels to the Marriott resort right on the beach, so we went ahead and used their amazing swimming pool and spas. Now we are in Kapaa with Phil, a native Hawaiian who suprises us everyday by guiding us to amazing waterfalls and ocean swimming holes. He lived in the jungle for two years and is very connected to the land here, and he took us out in to the jungle, showed us how to harvest bambooo, and make flutes from them! His life is about keeping traditional music, dance, and awareness of the abundance of our land alive for the next generation. Yesterday we harvested buckets full of huge, sweet grapefruits which we have been living on.We feel blessed that he is teaching us how to play all these instruments, fire dance, and live in the Aloha spirit! We went to one of his shows, it was like the Cirque de Soleil of Luau's. Amazing hula and fire dancing, and we had an all you can eat buffet with traditional foods, a good night. A highlight was when we took a cadamoran along the Napali coast and saw whales breaching, dolphins, and we even swam with sea turtles, and the best thing, we (accidently) got the whole day for free :) Such an incredible coast line, we hope to hike the challenging Kalalau valley trail soon if weather permits.
ALO-HA!!

Bula from Fiji!

Singing songs at sunset, and preparing Kava in the wooden bowl

Bula!! Fiji wasn't quite what our preconceived notion of Fiji had us expecting, but it was the spirit of the people that made it one of our favorite spots so far. The water was not like what you see in the pictures of Fiji, there was a storm right before we arrived that sent all sorts of debris into the water making it the opposite of crystal clear, but we did find a sandbar that had nice bath tub warm water around the island. We spent the majority of our time on the tiny island of Robinson Crusoe which we were able to walk around in 15 minutes. It was a welcomed change of pace from our hectic traveling in NZ. We slept in a thatch hut and never knew what time it was until a lunch or dinner bell rang. We enjoyed spending time with the local staff, they were much chiller people than the horrid, teenage English girls that were inhabiting the island when we got there. We did a jungle walk at night, they were already very apprehensive about the whole thing, after a few poisonous snakes had crossed our path they were hyperventilating and repeatedly screaming "I want to go home!" we found this hilarious. We partook in the native drink, kava, which is just water and a powder derived from a pepper plant root, the locals seem to love it, and so did Sam, who earned a position as chief at the kava ceremonies for being a true "kavaholic." Our days on Robinson crusoe were very laid back, spent mostly in Fiji time as they say, we played some volleyball, went fishing with a big net and sticks (actually caught fish), made coconut jewelry, watched knife and fire dancers, sat around bonfires, and ate fresh coconuts. It was rewarding to stay in one place for a week, because we saw people come on tours to our island for the day, we were very content to not be rushed off on a boat at the end of the day. If the water had been clear, we would probably have been writing letters home to tell you that we were never coming home.

Recapping New Zealand

The last couple weeks in NZ were fairly uneventful, and we're falling behind on our blog so we'll be brief. We spent most of our time driving around trying to cram in everything we wanted to see into a couple weeks. We went to see the Franz Joseph Glacier, we decided not to do the hike on it because we were both a little under the weather and walking on a giant ice cube didn't seem like a good idea at the time, though we did snap some photos (above). We spent a few nights in the little peninsula town of Kaikoura, enjoying the views of snow capped mountains and ocean together. We spent a day enjoying the fruits of the Malbourough wine region, chocolate, Pino Noir, liquers, double-baked-blue-cheese-suffles and mussel chowder, then spent a few nights in Picton, a little port town where we stayed in a hostel with bikes, kayaks, and two cool cats. We took a ferry to Wellington, where Alix ran into a few friends from UCSC, small world! We relocated a car for a free ride back to Auckland, where we stayed with the same people we started the trip with. Apart from spending most of our time there in court, we were just happy to make our flight to Fiji!

Milford Trek

Us at the highest point of the pass.

Turquise blue glacial waterfalls.

The lake water is this color from glacial rocks rubbing together.

We flew to the south island to get to Queenstown to begin the Milford Trek. After a 10 hour bus ride through mountains and turquoise blue glacial lakes, we got ready for the 5 day guided hike. We have been ridiculing the tourist buses filled with old and/or Japanese people that we see everywhere, but before we knew it, we were on one! Being the youngest participants by far, we were regretting being on the guided tour, but found that having a hot breakfast prepared for us at 6:30am was well worth the cost. The hike was incredible, and night sky was brilliant, we saw galaxies and constellations only visible from the southern hemishpere. Our fellow hikers were actually very nice, and while the Japanese didn't speak English, Alix had fun stretching with them every morning before hiking. The rivers were crystal clear, we even saw a few big trout our first morning on the river. The first 3 days we had great weather, and on the last it poured night and day. However this wasn't too bad besides the wet hiking boots, the waterfalls started pouring down from everywhere. We saw more waterfalls than you can imagine that day, probably numbering in the thousands, it was the full Milford experience.

First Impressions of New Zealand

Simply put, New Zealand is awesome, and with the current enchange rate of 2 to 1, it is awesome, and cheap. Our first couple nights in Auckland we couch surfed in a house full of college students, who we will probably stay with again on our way out. We love Kiwi music, so we bought some new CD's a great music store so we would have some local music to listen to while we explored country. The next place we went was the Coromandel Penninsula, which we could have spent weeks at because of the beautiful beaches, including one ranked in the top 100 in the world. It was very nice but our favorite was hot water beach(above), where at low tide you can dig your own hot spring in the sand! We headed to yet another town that we could have spent weeks, Roturoa, where we had an amazing day of mountain biking on challenging but beautiful trails (Alix ran into a few trees). Our hostel had a geothermal spa, so we spent the end of our day relaxing in it before going to the local pub, Pig & Whistle, to enjoy some live music. It wasn't until we had a few pints that we remembered it was our seven year anniversary, (Sam remembered first by the way) guess we were having too much fun to be caught up in trivial things like that (subtle sarcasm). A little late, but at least someone remembered!
We arrived in Hawkes Bay to another couch surfing host, we didn't believe the house we were staying in at first, we had to go back to the car and double check the address because it was the nicest house on the street with the one of the best views of the bay in town, and it was inhabited by five guys in their twenties, all working at the one of the golf courses Sam has dreamed of playing. We had one day to spend in Hawkes Bay, we had a beautiful day planned out, golf at Cape Kidnappers, and a Fat Freddy's Drop concert at a winery. Of course, it poured rain that day. Golf was cancelled, so we spent the day indoors, watching movies and going bowling with our couch surfing hosts. They snuck into the concert with us and we danced in the mud, bottles of wine in hand, Sam ended the night in jail, nothing bad, we'll explain upon return.

Road Trip to Melbourne

After a lovely dinner in Katoomba of pizza and our favorite red wine, and a miserable night sleeping in a parking lot and freezing our butts off, we headed to to Woolongong. A bar tender at the local brewery told us it was the local basketball team's last game... ever! After a few jugs we decided to go to the game and had a fun night. We kept heading south working our way towards Melbourne, stopping in boring little towns that you've never heard of. One night our van was accosted by a big kangaroo, Alix was looking out the side window and didn't see it jumping across the road until it almost slammed into her window and she let out the most bone chilling scream... ever! We decided not to drive much further that night because the kangaroos were a bit jumpy. We stopped at the wetlands pictured above for sunset and some delicious canned chili... The mosquitos were fierce so we retreated to a parking lot in the next town for a good nights sleep. We headed to Wilson's Pomonatory National Park the next day, but we had to turn around because it was literally on fire, then finally made it to Melbourne to stay with Brigitte, a high school friend of Alixs' mom.We did the typical tourist track in Melbourne, Botanical Gardens, beaches, monuments, pubs, more pubs. Waking up in Brigitte's driveway was a glorious moment, stepping out into the morning sun, in our underwear, to be greeted by the shocked and awed stares of the bourgeois modernites that Melbourne seems to be full of. Our last few nights we spent couch-surfing with Tim the engineer in Sydney. We watched street theater and wandered through more botanical gardens, then hit the pubs before catching a train, which we fell asleep on, fortunately Tim lived at the end of the line so when the conductor jostled us we were right where we needed to be. Tim was a great host, and even made us pancakes at 4am before driving us to the train station to catch our flight to New Zealand.

Hunter Valley to the Blue Mountains

We headed south to Hunter Valley, the premiere wine region of Australia. We spent a couple days cheese, chocolate, beer and wine tasting, then spent the night in a rest stop. Now we are in the Blue Mountains, a region 2 hours west of Sydney. Katoomba is a quaint little village we are staying in, filled with Italian Bistros and local flavor. The vistas are spectacular, with one of the more famous landmarks in Australia, The Three Sisters (above), just at the southern end of town. We slept in a real bed and had a hot shower for the first time in nine days, and enjoyed it thouroughly. We were planning on staying here for several days but rain is hindering our hiking and outdoor activities. The brush fires have changed our plans for heading south to Melbourne, but we will still drive south along the coast where there are more mountain rainforest towns.

Surfer's Paradise to Byron Bay

Our second night in the van was on the Gold Coast at Surfer's Paradise, which reminded us of a very young LA, skyscrapers met beatiful beaches and high priced food. We camped in an alley between some million dollar condos and had the public shower all to ourselves in the morning. We then headed into the Hinterland and Springbrook national park which our Lonely Planet desecribed well as something like Jurassic Park. The Hinterland (pictured above) was a lush landscape that reminded us of a tropical California. Purlingbrook falls (right) was 105 meters tall and one of the most spectacular we have ever seen. We saw many waterfalls that day and headed back through the Hinterland to Byron Bay, buying some local organic produce along the way from a farmer who when we commented on how nice his store was replied "I wouldn't know whether it's good or bad I've been here me whole life", it looked like he had been wearing the same shirt his whole life too. Byron Bay was a very nice place where we camped out for 3 nights in a parking lot, cooking dinner behind our van. Drum circles set the mood at sunset and the surfers outnumbered the locals. Everything here has been reminding us of different places in California and Byron Bay, without a doubt, was a young Santa Cruz. We rented a board and surfed for 2 days straight, but got worked, rashes hurt!

On to the East Coast!

From Margaret River we headed south to Augusta, where we stayed in a hostel and cooked our first meal in two months, steak and beans, mmm. This was a sleepy town where the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean. We then drove to Perth to stay with Flavia and Eric, Uncle Nick's friends from Michigan who were gracious hosts who showed us around Perth. We went to Cirque de Soleil and visited the popular Little Creatures Brewery. We flew to the east coast and landed in Brisbane, where we picked up our Wicked campervan. Alix got butt naked to get us one free day of rental, naked special. Our van, pictured above, is the Wicked Pirate Yankee Van, all the wicked vans have quotes spray painted on the back, ours is "women fake orgasms because they think men care...", we get some dirty looks but more laughs. Some of our other favorite wicked quotes are "save the whales, guddle a japanese fisherman" and "death once had a near Chuck Norris experience." We drove north to the Frasier Coast to camp out in our van for the first night, decided not to go to Frasier Island because they were charging ridiculous prices for ferry rides, and we couldn't take our dear new ride with us. We're proud to say that we haven't paid for a campground since renting our van, we've been asking locals where the police don't ticket and finding secluded spots on the beach where we can watch the sunrise! Most recently though, rest stops have been our landing spots, as pictured below (about to enjoy a curry feast in the parking lot!)

Margaret River!

Sam golfing with roos on his 25th Birthday!
Beer tasting at Bootleg Brewery!

We headed further south to the premiere wine and surfing region of Western Australia, Margaret River. It's a cozy little town surrounded by hundreds of wineries, as well as breweries and chocolate and jam factories. We have been sampling our selves silly the last few days. For Sam's 25th B-day we went out for a morning round of golf, Alix was happy to come along because there were Kangaroos all over the course. After that we went to the beach at the river mouth which was beautiful and had a huge surf break where we watched surfers and wind surfers go at it. Then we headed back inland to do some more wine tasting. Now that we have stocked up on wine and chocolate we are ready to keep moving south.

Bunburry...

On our way south of Perth we stopped in a sleepy little ghost town called Bunburry, the beach was beautiful with good body surfing waves which we partook in, but the people in town dissapeared into their hollows at about 4pm. We decided to see a 9 o'clock movie and when we got back to our hotel we were locked out and had to spend the night in our compact Hyundai while fighting off mosquitos and eating left over starbursts all night.

Australia Day!

We happened to arrive in Perth on Australia day (Australia's 4th of July basically). It was a shock to be in a country with level sidewalks and where cars stopped for pedestrians. People were wearing Australian flags as capes and one man painted himself as such and sported only a blue g-string. We were in the central park where 100's of thousands of

people gathered for picnics and eventually a spectacular fireworks show that out-sparked any that we have ever seen in the states. We searched for a beer but there were none! Even after the festival it was hard to find a pub, and when we finally did they wouldn't let us in because we were wearing sandals! Sam went 4 days without shoes, or sandals in Bali!

Our last days in Bali

Our last days in Bali were very relaxed, just hanging out with the community of people we had gotten to know. We didn't mention that Dj is a great singer and Dan is a great guitar and drum player, and we got to see them perform at open mics on a couple occasions, great fun. Sam caught his first wave in Legian as the trash in the water clung to his board and body, disgusting, but good waves to learn on.

Gili Trawagan

The Gili islands are a small group of 3 islands off the west coast of Lombok, the island due east of Bali. Getting there was more painful than advertised. We choose the cheap option of transport on the sluggish ferry across a stormier than expected sea, one of these ferries capsized a week earlier claiming 200 lives, we would never choose this option again and don't reccomend it to anyone. One man wore a motorcycle helmet and prayed for his life, while Sam's projectile vomiting over the side amused some passengers but made others lose their grip on their tastier on the way down breakfast, proving that he still hasn't developed his sea legs. A bus ride through Lombok and then another ferry out to Gili Trawangan made it a nine hour travel day. The island is small enough to walk around in two hours, and there are no cars or motorbikes on the island, only a pony and carriage that runs up and down the main beach strip. We rented some bikes with Dan and Dj for a few days and biked around the island, which was nice for finding secluded beaches but the road quickly turned to sand paths so we walked our bikes here and there. We found some stairs up a hill into the jungle and discovered an amazing view point to see all around the island and watch the sunset. The island itself was full of drealocked balinese rastas with live reggae music every night, little kids who were always followed by a baby black goat, flying homemade kites, or playing in the surf, signs selling magic mushrooms, and mosques that went off a little loud for comfort at the most awkward times throughout the night. Also, cats and/or roosters would start a chorus in the middle of the night that filled warm tropical air. We ended up staying a few days longer than expected, partly because the fast boats back to Bali were full, but moreso because we were enjoying the small island vibes.
We are now back in Ubud staying in a beautiful room for $25 a night, hanging with Dj and Dan who are almost polar opposites, just picture a hyperactive squirrel and eyore. They have been showing us around Ubud, introducing to different open mic bars, restaraunts groups of ex pats who live in incredible houses and have potlucks everyday it feels like. We watched the inaguration on CNN live at 1:30am in a bar full of ex pats and inspired tourists. The next day we went to Dan's uncles house for an incredible Obama potluck, and we brought a deadly chocolate cake from the local bakery with OBAMA written on it. Tomorrow is our last day in Bali before our journey to Perth, so we are soaking up every moment!

Padang Bai

Padang Bai was our favorite place yet, a tiny port town with cheap accomodation and fresh seafood, nice people, a couple reggae bars and a few very nice beaches. One was a white sand beach that not many people know about with clear turquoise water, the other a black sand beach, and then blue lagoon (picture above) which was a decent snorkeling spot, but nothing to write home about. Here we met some interesting characters, Bobby a sailor from San Diego, who we met during a fresh baracuda dinner, has been sailing for 3 years down Central America, out to the Galapagos and the across the Pacific visiting many places along the way eventually landing in Bali which he says is his favorite place. We met Dennis, Chaz, and Tree who are nice, fun people. Dennis is a real character, always hugging and kissing every man and woman and telling them how beautiful they are. It's crazy how the room changes when he walks in! But, there are many characters in Bali. We have also been honing our skills of finding good Balinese cousine, babi guling or suckling pig has become Sam's favorite lunch, and Bak Su, chicken ball soup is a rainy weather favorite, just don't ask what the chicken balls are really made of. The fresh calamari has been another cheap favorite of ours. The last night in Padang Bai we met Dj and Dan at the Babylon who we traveled with to the Gilis the next day and have been hanging out with in Ubud since, they are lots of fun and we are enjoying everyday to the fullest!

Bali Adventures

We found ourselves back in Ubud again on a white water rafting trip through a canyon consumed by jungle, with waterfalls pouring down around every corner. The rapids were fairly mellow but a few good drops gave us some thrills. The highlight were the rock carvings along the river where local artists had carved intricate scenes into the rock walls for about a half mile stretch along the river. Later that night we went to a Kecak dance, which was 100 local men chanting and singing and using their bodies to tell a story. We journeyed down to Sanur, where the feeling was that of a retirement home, grey hair everywhere. We quickly departed and hired a driver who took us around southern Bali. We stopped at the Ulu Watu temple where monkeys played on cliffs overlooking the Indian Ocean. We stopped at Dreamland Beach, which is currently being ruined by massive hotel developements. We were swarmed by hundreds of children from Jakarta who all asked us for autographs and pictures (part of a school project) but it made us feel like celebrities especially when other people on the beach took the opportunity to snap some photographs with us. We had a delicious seafood dinner on the beach to end the day, fresh clams, prawns, and red snapper, all cooked to perfection. The next few days we hung out in Semiyak which was a more mellow version of Kuta, and then headed to Padang Bai, which has been our favorite place yet! More to come on that soon... we are headed to an Obama potluck now to celebrate!!!!

Lovina!

This past week we rented a jeep and drove around the island. Let it be known that driving here is nothing like in the States. Not only did we have to get used to driving on the left side with the steering wheel on the right, but people here are absolutely nuts. We would have someone pass us as we were passing with a blind corner ahead with a bus already coming at us, total chaos but somehow traffic keeps flowing. We headed north with our new friends, Bas, from Holland, and Naoko from Japan, who were on their honeymoon, to Lovina Beach, pictured above, which was a sleepy beach community that we grew to love. The main attraction is the dolphins, so one morning we woke up early to take a boat out onto the bay and spot them. The best part was being on the calm water at sunrise, because while we saw a few dolphins, it was ruined by all the boats chasing them when someone spotted the pod. The next day we went to a waterfall and hotsprings close by, we had a few unwanted guides accompany us to the waterfall who showed us the good mud spot under the falls and scrubbed mud all over us, nicer than it sounds. The next night, we agreed , was one of the most memorable of our lives (picture and short description below).

Loving Living Life in Lovina!

A tropical lightning storm, swimming in an ocean alive with the most incredible bio-luminescense* we have ever seen, and magic shakes, need we say more?

Happy New Year from Bali!

We arrived in Bali safely and found an overpriced cockroach infested room our first night in Kuta, everything is booked here this time of year because all of South East Asia is on holiday. Our taxi driver dropped us off at what he called 'ground zero.' We thought that meant it was where all the clubs were or that it was the center of town, it was both of those but what he meant was that it was where the terrorists had bombed a nightclub in 2002. Our hotel was literally right next door to the club that was bombed where now there is momument dedicated to the victims of the attack. Kuta was a cesspool of tourists and very pushy salesmen. We are happy to be in Ubud now on new years day, an artsy town surrounded by rice paddies where yoga classes are highly available (Alix is stoked). Last night we celebrated the New Year by first having an incredible buffet of traditional Balinese cuisine, which was made by a sweet balinese family who taught us about their culture. We were sitting at a table with people from all over the world including a couple from Santa Rosa (small world!). After dinner we all headed down to the center of town where a traditional Gamelon band was playing (really loud). The pyrotechnics went off at midnight, right above our heads, and the tourists all laughed out of utter fear. The rain started coming down right at midnight and we danced late into the night, or early morning. Happy New Year 2009!