Big Island - Part II

Not one of my best pictures, took the picture out of the window of the car as we stopped along HWY 11 north of Kona. The point of the photo is to show the contrast of this island with Kauai. Here on the western side of the Big island (Hawaii) the land is flat and spooky barren. It looks as if Paul Bunyan and Blue just plowed up the land and left it barren. However, it is not black rich fertile soil that you see but hard hot lava rock.

This has to be one of the coolest memes I have ever seen. Remember that on this side of the big island the landscape is a desolate mix of rough lava and dried grass. Mostly bare black - dark brown lava rock. On this bleak backdrop people haul in old coral from the ocean and use it to spell out graffiti along the roadsides for miles. The messages range from the prophetic to the pathetic (enlarge the picture to see someone referred to as a 'skank'). My favorite images were a sea turtle and the ying/yang symbol. People obviously spend a lot of effort to plan and execute these little shrines along the roadside. It was impressive.

We stopped at the famous Pu 'uhonua O Honaunau National Historical Park south of Kona - better known as the Place of Refuge. Here is Ian showing little respect of local culture.  

A small but famous church, the painted church is as its name indicates decorated with amazing murals and decorations. On each wall to the left and right are various scenes from the bible which my children asked about forcing Etel to grasp at old Catholic knowledge buried deep in the recesses of her childhood church memories.

It was an overcast day that makes this picture seem almost like it is in black & white. The figure is praying to another figure of Mary out of frame to the left. Smothered by shell leis left by numerous souls seeking solace and salvation.

A closeup of the piles of shell leis wrapped around the neck of the kneeling woman praying to Mary. Most of the small shells you see here are momis and cowries (large shells).  

Black sand beach at Punalu'u at the south end of the big island. Since this island is constantly creating fresh lava, it gets eroded by the surf to create these dramatic black 'sand' beach, made from black volcanic glass. The true black sand beaches are only found on the big island, here and a few spots near where the lava is flowing into the sea.