Day Eight: Happy Hippie, Zippy Day!!!!!

I loved it in Costa Rica, and I LOVED it in Kauai! We did our Zip lining tour today and it was amazing. This was Carl’s first time, but I don’t think it will be his last. We started off our day heading up to Wailua Falls. Now if this sounds familiar, there is a Wailua Falls on Maui as well that we saw on our Hana day. Wailua means two waters and represents the convergence of two rivers, creeks, etc. (Interestingly enough, that is the derivation of the Amoth (Aamodt) name.) Anyway, the great thing about Kauai is that everything is close by. We went half way around the entire island and it only took about an hour. Tomorrow, we do the other side.

The falls were very pretty and a rainbow was in play as well which made the view even nicer, however, I have to admit, it is true, after awhile you do get waterfall fatigue. There are just SO many of them and they are SO beautiful. How many superlatives can you come up with?

We still had time left before our zip tour after visiting Wailua Falls (I told you everything is close), so we wandered on up to see ‘Opaeka’a Falls – I know, I know, more waterfalls. They TOO were beautiful, glorious, spectacular, amazing, awe-inspiring ;-). Just kidding, they were pretty far away and a bit hard to see, but they were nice. We continued on up the road heading towards the wettest spot in the world, 440 inches average annual rain fall although they have had years with much more, for example, 2002 had over 800 inches! (huh, and I always thought that was Portland, Oregon….who knew?). We didn’t quite make it there but did cross the Wailua River and took a good shot of our jeep and us in the river.

By then, it was time to head to the zip line tour, which is done by Kauai Backcountry Adventures. They did an amazing job from beginning to end. There were just eight of us (was supposed to be 11, but three didn’t show up, much to our benefit). We had two guides and one driver. Pono, (no, not Porno) was our main guide with Azure (female) as our “hook us up gal” (her parents were hippies, hence the Azure name. As a young girl, she was the only blue-eyed blonde hula dancer….). There were 7 zips in all and the first one is very short, just to give you a feel for it. We had this one couple from Tucson (parents that were traveling with their daughter and her husband) and the dad, Prymus, who was not too keen on heights. The second Zip platform was pretty high and he was not at all convinced he was going to do it. He was moaning and groaning and truly scared. Now, understand this is a very fit, younger looking gentleman probably about 60 ish years old. We all finally convinced him it was going to be ok and away he went!

True to the lure of zip lining, once you go, you are hooked. By the end of the day, Prymus was having a ball. Carl loved it from the very beginning, not surprisingly. He was a pro, taking video while zipping through the rain forest. What an amazing, thrilling day. Check out the view from up above!