Before heading out for the day, we went to breakfast. Our first attempted stop, Paul’s Place, had only 3 tables - when we arrived, the maitre d’ looked at us, kindly asked if we were Kathy, and told us the next opening was at noon. I checked the time: 9:50am. Ok, onward - ain’t got no time for that.
We grabbed a mediocre breakfast at another highly rated restaurant, where Alex got the haupia:
It doesn’t taste as good as it looks - but no doubt this place earns its rave reviews for its unpleasantly large portion sizes.
Our second stop this morning was to Akaka State Park, which boasts a very nice and very vertical waterfall:
Near the park were some forbidden banyan trees. Banyan trees, as you may recall from yesterday's post, are huge trees that are very impressive:
But, as I said, these ones were forbidden:
After the park, we made an impromptu stop to the Hawaiian Vanilla Company, which is the only vanilla farm in the United States. The main cafe, kitchen, and gift shop is located in a building that, according to our tour guide (the son of the farm’s owner) was a spooky old house when his father won it in a card game in the 90s.
The owner of the farm, Jim Reddekopp, was a hobbyist vanilla farmer who expanded his backyard crop into a much larger operation. Our tour guide was legitimately the most enthusiastic-about-vanilla person I have ever seen, and talked at length about vanilla pollination, which must be done laboriously by hand during the unpredictable four-hour-window when the flower opens (there is a bee that is alleged to have pollinated vanilla, but it no longer takes an interest in vanilla — our guide thinks this is because vanilla really used to be self-pollinating, but scientists mostly think it is because vanilla has really let itself go over the years). Fortunately it’s not really desireable to pollinate more than 60% of the flowers anyway because the plant doesn’t have enough energy to sustain that many beans, so the growers don’t have to worry about catching every single flower’s four hour window. Our guide did mention that even sometimes if you catch the window, you catch it too late, and your hard pollinating work is for naught.
Another interesting vanilla fact is that while the price of vanilla is usually about $60/pound, it is currently at around $1600/pound, which means the little farm we were at sells out their annual crop within 6 weeks, at far below market rates. This is driven by several factors, mostly the destruction of the Madagascar crop by storms and a corrupt Madagascar government that makes it enormously expensive to export vanilla. Futures traders also hold large quantities of vanilla, discouraging farmers from planting more out of fear that the vanilla stock will be put on sale.
We also learned that the trend toward natural foods is sparking demand for vanilla, but only at the low end of the market — people are asking for real vanilla rather than artificial extract, but don’t really care about the quality of their vanilla. All in all, the economics of vanilla reminded me a lot of the economics of coffee, which shouldn’t be too surprising — they are crops grown in the same climate (so in the same places), have about the same duration from planting to maturity (~5 years), and require similar processing.
At the end of the tour, we were treated to some vanilla ice cream made with the farm’s own supply, and got instructions on how to make our own vanilla extract. Apparently the reason that vanilla extract tastes so gross is that flavoring agents are added so that people won’t drink it — by making your own, you can bypass this. The time Mom + I tried to make our own, we probably didn’t wait long enough — our guide suggested anywhere from 5 months to 2 years being a good time to let your vanilla sit.
 |
| I'm posting this photo of the vanilla farm mostly to show why we aren't posting any other photos of the vanilla farm. |
Onward! We headed toward our resort on the west side of the island, where our GPS took us on a traffic-avoiding detour that led us directly into traffic. Fortunately, this being Hawai’i, traffic means you wait for a few minutes at a stoplight protecting a crosswalk.
We finally arrived at our hotel, where we were greeted with hand towels and (non-alcoholic) drinks - though there is apparently a champagne toast at 5pm. (We did not attend.)
Alex insisted on taking a walking tour of the grounds, while Alex planned the the next day’s itinerary. Apparently you can rent out cabanas on the beach - which amounts to a sunshade above your beach chairs. (Still, better than nothing.) The resort also comes with a free daily paper, West Hawai’i Today, which we appreciate. (Front page headline: “Bird excrement annoying post office goers in Waikoloa Village”.)
In order to fully appreciate the resort, we decided to sit outside on our lanai overlooking the water (we got upgraded for free! It normally costs an extra $100/night to get a water view) and work on our blog post while thinking about dinner. (A lanai, in case you’re wondering, is Hawaiian for an outdoor porch or balcony. Hawaiian in Hawaii seems similar to Yiddish in New York — nobody speaks it but everybody knows a few phrases, which are more commonly used than I’d expected. For example, you never see a children’s menu at a restaurant, it’s always a keiki menu.) For free, you can also appreciate the view from our lanai:
Not pictured: The flying fish that are occasionally flopping out of the ocean.
Note that in case this photo makes you excessively jealous, we left out the part about how the place we stayed in Hilo — which we did not photograph — was a hostel where I had to kill a cockroach in the shower by repeated thwackings with a Birkenstock. (The last time Alex had to deal with a roach in the shower, he lost his big toenail.)
Anyway, our current plan for the rest of the trip is to sit on our lanai and blog about the things that we see passing by.
No comments:
Post a Comment