We're a Getting Warmer...

We have been staying at a farm in Pahoa for a meditation retreat, it's a free event that goes from Thanksgiving to Sunday. The yoga has been amazing and the free vegetarian meals and fruit trees have been excellent...more about the people here at a later time, Mike has some interesting comments about them.

Anyway, we all hopped in a van and participated in a yoga class at the local community center. The yoga was intense and an excellent workout! I thoroughly enjoyed it. When I took a momentary break to look around at the beautiful surroundings I saw something that I have been eager to find...Rainbow Eucalyptus trees!! I found them and they were exquisite! So much better then I could have ever imagined and of course I didn't have a camera...I hugged it and felt its energy, I'm in love! ....just got some new picture so here they are...

When I was coming out of the rainbow haze one of the guys said he was heading to the hot ponds for some swimming and if we would like to come along....ahh, yeah! It was a very long short cut that the guy took but I didn't mind, the scenery is interesting. In a matter of minutes we had driven past an old lava field, then a thick overgrown mango grove and past a house that had a small fruit stand, Mike got a hunch of plantains for free!!! He was super excited about that. Hawaii is so amazing. The hot ponds is a man made structure with natural hot water vents that they said was warmed by lava tubes. With a little searching you can find hot spots along the wall and enjoy some extra heat. The ponds felt so good and there were little tiger striped fish swimming with us.

We swam for about 45 minutes and then decided that we wanted to go to the boat launch for some
snorkeling, I got in the water and tried snorkeling but the waves were pushing me around too much
and I got kind of nervous so I got out and took some pictures and videos of the people and waves. Mike stayed in, enjoying the water and the fishies. It was such a great experience, I want every day to be like this!

Maholo!

Michelle