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On first impressions Hawaii seemed to be a welcome break from the on-the-edge lifestyle I'd experienced in Fiji's mainland. Honolulu represents a rich hub of sun, surf and shopping. I enjoyed the atmosphere and the retail prices although I could only purchase the bare minimum. It was like seeing London on the sea-front.
The accomodation was a different story though. After booking in at one particular hostel and trekking to the room, I immediately turned round and got my money back. For a rich mecca, the backpackers accomodation sure didn't look too nice. After booking into another hostel, which was only a slight improvement, I walked up the main street absorbing the sun and the culture that made up this American state. The majority of Hawaiians had a whiff of undeserved self-importance about them. Luckily, the people I chose to talk to whilst in the city were the nice ones, which made the experience a better one.
On day 3, I decided it was time to travel to the North of Oahu in the hope of finding a set or two from the hit TV show, "Lost". This is where it all started going wrong. For a start, as I was approaching the end of this 3 month trip, my luggage load had increased dramatically. Getting the bus was easy enough but accessing information about the Northshore was harder than expected. After asking for the best place to stay after the 2 hour ride, our bus driver dropped us off at what seemed to be a campsite. Upon arrival, the office was closed and we could only see a few cabins and some tents randomly dotted over the shoreline. Jon went off to find the owners whilst I checked out the temperature of the sea; it was Cold.
"You don't go knocking on peoples doors"... After Jon had been told off for the 5th time in as many minutes, we decided we didn't like the owners of this particular campsite. I asked a young couple from Michigan who'd pitched their tent on the site, where we could find the Lost filming locations and more importantly, a place to stay. They tried their best to help us but it seemed the Hawaiian spirit had left our location for now. Apparently, we'd entered Hawaii at the wrong time. A big surfing competition was on, as well as the Hawaiian Marathon and every place on the island was practically full. Now for such a developed state, this news came as a surprise. We'd had less trouble in the under-developed island of Viti-Levu, Fiji. It seemed the Hawaiians didn't like tourists too much, especially backpackers. This called for some drastic measures...
The Plan; Bus it back to Honolulu then transfer to the Airport and change our Flight to ASAP!
Theoretically it was easy as ABC but thanks to the stupid Light Parade in the city centre of Honolulu all buses had been diverted including the No.19 - Airport Transit.
Remember, altogether my bags now weigh about 30Kgs. We must have trekked through town for at least an hour looking for the bus terminal before things really started to kick off; a No.19 zipped out of a side-road about 10 meters ahead of me and blasted down the highway. My back pain dissapeared as I ran down the main highway, determined to make it to a bus stop and catch the next bus. Upon arrival at the wrong terminal, we tried to find a Qantas representative so we could get the hell out of Hawaii. Apparently they'd shut up shop until 6.30am the next morning. It was 10.30pm the night before at this point. We were both hungry, p*i*s*s*e*d off and very tired.
After a lot of phone calls and admin, we managed to change the flight to the next available for free. Only down side was that it didn't take-off until 1.15pm the next day.
In a search for food, every pizza place I phoned had just closed 5 minutes prior. The closest food establishment was at least a 30 minute dark and dangerous walk away (the airport staffs words not mine). I then spoke to a staff member who was very helpful. She told me that her husband would come and take one of us to a local McDonalds. This seemed to me to be too generous, but low and behold 30 mins later Ron arrived. 15 minutes after that I was tucking into a McBurger of some sort, MMMmmmm. My thanks goes out to the couple. Although your offer of a shower and breakfast in the morning was incredibly kind, I'm afraid Jon left your phone number in his check-in luggage. D'oh!
After around 3 hours of sleep each, one of us keeping watch on the bags in shifts, we finally got through to the departures lounge with food, all be it very over-priced, everywhere.
To top it all off though, our flight was delayed by 2 hours and when we finally left, we hit some serious air-turbulence, the most fierce kind I have ever experienced whilst travelling in an aircraft.
Onwards to San Francisco, we're on our way to the Final Destination.
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