This morning we went horseback riding through the Waipio valley! We met at the "Last Chance" store and headed down the one-car-wide path in a rickety van! Our driver was a Hawaiian version of Cheech Martin! He was hysterical, but he kept making jokes about us losing our breaks as we went down the mountain. Hilarious.

Once we made it to the bottom, he gave us a van tour of the valley. He pointed out a copper-roofed building next to a beautiful twin waterfall that was built by the Rockefellers. The only problem was that they didn't do their research first. They built the thing on top of an ancient Chinese burial ground! The place is curses! Rockefeller couldn't hire anyone who would care for the property longer than a week, because they would hear weird noises and chicken skins would be found throughout the place. Ah well!

Our guide also took our picture under this waterfall. He kept hopping out of the van and grabbing flowers and fruit (including a tasty star fruit).

When we got to the bottom (where there was no telephones and no electricity!) we got a quick riding lesson (because NO one has ridden a horse before). We mounted our horses: Hilary on "Studley" and me on "Allah." Studley was a horse that was considered "remote-controlled." She couldn't tell him where to go because when she did, he would bite at her legs. He also kept trying to scrape her off by passing under low branches and walking close to barbed wire. But if our guide called, he fell in line with the rest of the horses. By the end of the ride, Hilary had given up trying to control him (for fear of being bitten).

My horse, Allah, was pretty similar. He liked walking under low branches, but I didn't give up controlling him. By the end of the ride, he was responding to my guidance well! It's funny, though, because periodically, all the horses would stop and eat the guavas that had fallen to the ground. They looked good!

We would stop every now and then to take pictures in the valley, which was absolutely beautiful! It used to be called "the valley of the kings" because it was a lush land with waterfalls on either side of you at all times. Unfortunately, because of its low elevation, we still saw evidence of recent flooding and the 1942 Tsunami.

Oh! And Hilary was freaking out because Studley walked really close behind another horse and her leg ended up brushing up another horse's rear-end! Ha! You should have seen her! She was thinking of about 20 different sterilization methods at the same time! You could tell! :) I think she'll end up burning those jeans, just the same. :)

We got back to the chorale, dismounted, and instantly felt the pain of keeping our legs in stirrups for 2 hours! OW! :)

Our journey wasn't over yet! We still had to get up the mountain! On the way up, we picked up a local man who was walking up the road. He's one of the few men left who was born and raised in the valley and lived off the land. He looked like he was in his 70's!

We made it to the top and decided to spend the rest of our last full day in Hawaii on the 3-star beach outside our hotel. This is the most beautiful beach I've ever been on in my life! Walking on it was like walking on pillows! We went in the water, I wrote in this journal, and we relaxed.

Before sunset, we went poolside to watch it. We got our last tropical drinks of the trip, and watched the sun go down. After that, we tried out the pool and hot tub and then got cleaned up for dinner.

We ate the most awesome dinner! It was at Roy's, which is a chain in Hawaii and California. We had incredible meals and walked out of there stuffed!

We played a game of "Go Fish" and then headed to bed. We had watched the last sunset that we would see on the coast of Hawaii for a long time.

Day 0 Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 Day 9 Day 10 Day 11 Day 12 Lessons Learned