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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...
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