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Friday |
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It was so fun meeting
all those people yesterday I branched out
again and walked
over to the Laulima Farm Stand, one of the local social hubs. It was a slow day at the stand itself but the neighbors started gradually showing up to congregate in the bucolic bamboo bower & sit around a massive table carved from hardwood stump. It's hard to imagine a more relaxed place or gentler conversation. People came and went, smokes were smoked, drinks were drunk. Three Czech tourists arrived and I was recruited to translate. They seemed to be doing OK in broken English so I hung back until the time seemed right, then I dropped some Czech on them so casually they didn't even notice a stranger was addressing them in their native tongue; they just responded in kind. Laulima used to be famous for its bike-powered blender until the bureaucrats shut that action down, but it's still a wonderful place to buy local organic produce and take a break from the usual daylong driving tour that brings cars by the score along this remote and winding road. If you take the trip, be sure to drop in on Laulima, just about a mile south of the Kipahulu entrance to Haleakala National Park. You can sip a coconut through a papaya stem, slurp coffee, or just soak up some local flavor. And if you see hitch-hikers, pick 'em up! Chances are they're not going far... |