United States: West Coast 2014 (part 3)

After two weeks of touring California, Nevada and Arizona with my dad, it was time to break up for a good time (we just met again in November 2014 in Bs. As.). He returned to Madrid and I took a Hawaiian Airlines flight from SFO to Oahu Island.

This island is the most populated of Hawaii, I do not remember well how many islands are in total but a few. Honolulu is the state capital and is a really important city considering it is on a set of islands in the middle of the Pacific, at least 4000 km from the rest of the United States. I knew that being part of that country I would not find precisely with three palms and two hotels of little category, I knew that there was a lot of infrastructure but I did not imagine so much. Especially in Waikiki, which is the most upscale area of Honolulu, one can easily feel like walking around Miami Beach. The next photo of Waikiki I took from the top of Diamond Head for which I had to walk more than half an hour up the slope but the view is worth every drop of sweat.

But the island also has a much more natural side by luck, less developed and almost field. And I by my way of being I prefer that all the life before the chaos and cement of the city. In fact in almost six days I went only twice to Honolulu, one night to the Ala Moana mall which is huge, with all the best known brands in the USA but a little old already in its architecture, for example the food court I found awful. And a second time during the day it was a failure because it took me so long to get parking spot that it put me in a bad mood. To top it all I got out of the car and it was so hot that I walked a few blocks and said "I'm leaving" and had little time left on the island and better options than seeing luxury buildings and restaurants.

I went to Oahu almost by chance. It was basically for two things: first by a post from @PosaosaereasAR where I remember explaining the advantages of flying with American Airlines miles and just that this allowed to get as far as Hawaii for the "same price in miles" as Miami. I was going to go miles with this trip so I got bitten by the bug. And secondly because in my family we have for many years the Disney timeshare system (which I plan to do a post very soon) and I just saw that a couple of years ago they had opened a new hotel in Oahu. I just needed to find a couple of YouTube videos to finish falling in love with that destination I did not know yet. The one that more times I saw and more marked me by its music and its edition was this.

So bingo! ... everything was accommodated and I went five nights to a spectacular hotel and without "having paid" (which is very in quotes, when I do the post I will explain why ...)

I liked Hawaii so much that next Saturday April 18 I will be landing again in HNL, with another ticket taken with miles and going back to the same Disney hotel, but this time more days. It is also for me a kind of revenge since in the first trip I think I lost a lot of time in something that did not pay good results. I'll explain ...

I went with the plan to turn the whole island around, where did I get that idea ?. In short, to give the return will be a little more than 200km of car but obviously when stopping in many places I easily spent three of the five days in that and was not very smart of me, but rather a whim I did not think too much . I think it was better to go to some spectacular places than see beach after beach like I did. Of course, they were beautiful beaches, but all very similar and I spent it driving between one and another and looking for place to leave the car. On this next visit I will go to new places and the ones that I liked the most and I will stay longer in each one.

I also plan to do some trekking as the island is ideal for that and I stayed on the first visit for this silly obsession to turn it around. My advice is to go straight to these places that are the most famous: Hanauma Bay, a bay formed by an old volcanic crater and very popular for snorkeling without the waves of the open sea. It is accessed from the top of the crater, with this view ...

A little further north-east of Hanauma there are several viewpoints on a curve route in which you can brake with the car and go down a little towards the ocean but the coast is rocky, I suppose lava was solidified (by the way it blasted) and The truth can be a bit dangerous, especially if the rocks are wet. There was more than one risking enough ...

In that same area is Kahauloa Cove where a scene of a film with Frank Sinatra called "From here to the Eternity" was filmed that I did not know but it seems that it is a classic, of 1953.

Continuing along the coast to the north is the residential area of Kailua and its Lanikai beach, which I understand is one of the top of the island and you could tell by the kind of people there were.

Obviously you can not miss Haleiwa (in the area they call North Shore), a historic town with all the wave and surf culture. It is full of places to buy clothes, souvenirs and also many foodtrucks to eat typical food and fresh fish.

Obviously it is on the north coast and very close are some of the most famous beaches in Hawaii, both for surfing and for enjoying a good sunset: Pipeline, Sunset Beach, Turtle Beach, etc.

Amidst these beaches is also Waimea Bay, another heavenly place, incredible, with a large rock that many climb and use as if it were a trampoline. In addition there is a river that descends of the mountain and mixes with the sea.

And to close this triple post of an unforgettable 22-day trip, a couple of sunsets from Oahu. I always say the same thing: the sunset is the most photographed "subject" in the world but there are not two sunsets in the whole history of the earth, they have the magic of being unique, lasting a few minutes and knowing that never again You'll see one like it, maybe you'll see better but never one just like the one who just left ...