Friday, September 9, 2011

Glutton for Punishment

We were up by 6:45 this morning!
We ate, were out the door, and at our bus stop by 8:30am. We were on a mission to hike up the side of Koko Crater, and we wanted to get an early start. Howeverrrrr, we waited and waited for TheBus to come. We waited for 45 minutes and eventually just hopped on one that was headed in that direction, but didn't stop where we needed to get off. And, well, because of that "detour" our bus ride to the trail took us longer than expected...but we made it!
We stopped, stood at the beginning of the trail and starred for a while, looked at each other, and said sayonara!
We knew it was going to kick our butt.

Koko Head Crater Trail Hike - approximately 1,100 steps. The steps are actually part of an abandoned railroad track that was once used by the military to transport supplies to a lookout shelter at the top.


On our way up, people came flying by on their way down. Some people were running down, others seemed to be dancing down, and you even had your barefooted thong-wearing crazies. 
Everyone was huffing and puffing , but still cheering each other on. We were so glad that we each had 2 bottles of water with us. I  had a guy tell me "You are probably the smartest one here today, you brought water", THERE IS NO WAY I could have done that and made it alive without water! 
As we climbed higher and higher, the view became more and more breathtaking. It was a little nerve wrecking to be huffing and puffing, trying to keep your balance, and take it in the scenery all at the same time. 
How did we know we were about half way? There was a dreaded bridge! Dun-dun-dun
And the bottom drops out from under the "steps". If you were sure footed, you walked across it, others chose to crawl it. After the bridge, the trail was very much the same, just steeper. 
At 1208 feet above sea level, we had  finally made it to the top! What a beautiful sight! We climbed atop an abandoned military shelter (covered in graffiti) and rested. We cooled off, drank some water, ate a snack, and took some pictures. Then it was time to head down.
Going down, we were definitely feeling good. We were proud of ourselves for making it all the way to the top. We really felt that we had accomplished something :) 
On our way down, we could her gunshots from the shooting range near by. We probably didn't notice the gunshots on the way up because of our huffing and puffing. But we both thought, "That would be one heck of a way to go down, A stray bullet to hit us as we are hiking our way down". haha
Before long we were back to the bridge. There was a path around the bridge (we learned after we already crossed it once) but we opted to take the bridge again. Kayleigh didn't trust her footing so she chose to do a crab crawl of some sort on the way down, and Bec managed to  remain standing. 
After the bridge, we seemed to fly down as well. And at the end, we were giddy and delusional haha 
That was a great workout/endurance challenge, with a beautiful reward :)
We made our way back to the bus stop, climbed on, and graced strangers with our stinky and sweaty presence. Next we stopped by our condo for a snack, and then ventured to WALMART for some groceries.  
We managed to catch the bus home from WALMART with the most people already on, and once again, we missed our stop :) It wasn't a terrible miss, but any unnecessary walking at that point seemed painful, and all we  wanted at that point was a COLD ONE. So we stormed through the crowds of tourists and made a b-line to the closest ABC store and then continued on our "walk with a mission" home . I don't think either one of us has been happier to be back in the condo or in the air conditioning after today's adventure :)
We had dinner and hoped to catch the fireworks from our lanai, but looks like we have to venture out for that so NEXT Friday you can find us on Waikiki  beach watching the fireworks. 
We will sleep well tonight!
And who knows, perhaps we will take on Koko head again before we leave...only time will tell.
Good Night!
<3 us xoxo


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