Tacos Back in Hawaii?

Tacos to Hawaii?

Since we last checked in, Lilly and I have returned to the Big Island from Mexico. My son Giles is marrying Lauren in October, both of whom have visited Hawaii:

Lilly and I are in the midst of pondering a long wander in India but didn't want to be too far away for the big wedding day. The plan specifically was to return to Hawaii to sell our cars, re-charge the Mexican visa and generally close the chapter on Hawaii and then head back to the more affordable Mexico.

We wanted to wander around the ghost town of Kalani, visit friends that have stayed on the island and check out up close and personal what Fissure #8 had produced. During the eruption, the National Guard had closed off most accesses to the flow so it could only be seen from ~ a few miles away, which in itself was spectacular.

We soon realized that a couple of weeks was not going to be enough time to do these things in depth. Serendipitously, all kinds of offers rolled in for house sitting, short retreat jobs and things like....  

helping Dana sell tacos in the Seaview neighborhood on a Saturday afternoon (we sold out in a couple of hours). After seven months in Mexico, if not us then who?

After Lake Atitlan Lilly and I flew from Guatemala City back to Mexico City and landed on Castilla Street in the quiet neighborhood of Alamos. My daughter Caroline came to visit.

We have been doing the Airbnb thing now for almost six years and it was at this apartment that we had our second Airbnb surprise (the first one being when Don Carlos, the father of our host arrived to spend a few days with us in what we thought was our private Airbnb at Lake Atitlan, Guatemala).

Anyhoo, we were in this apartment almost a month and cooked almost all of our meals there. One night I used the owner's small comal, a flat metal grill that you put on top of the burner to heat up tortillas. Part of the comal touched the plastic counter top and left this scorch mark:

Gentle reader, when it came time to check out, you'd of thunk that I had set the whole building a flame. As much as we cooked there, and it was her pan, I claimed it was normal wear and tear; but in a gesture of USA-Mexico good will, I would pay for someone to come in and sand it and maybe put an exoxy down.This child wanted a whole new counter to the tune of 170 Euros!

Sweer reader, you have to live in Mexico a while to know how outrageous this amount was. What, with the minimum wage being~$5.00 a day, you could have the building super come in for 8 hours a day all week for $35.00.

So I balked and she took it to some kind of mediation program that Airbnb has. I later got an email that I didn't have to pay anything but they were going to pay her, although I never found out how much.

Basically, it was a pain to write the above details in a series of e-mails to the Airbnb Arbitration Committee, but it was a nice place and all's well that ends well.

Sonora Grill Steakhouse, our favorite steakhouse in the trendy Coyoacan neighborhood.

We relived a spring break trip with her brothers 14 years ago and took on some new adventures. Here Caroline practices the anthropological blah-blah-blah that I taught her so well.

We included a trip to Teotihuacan, where I almost passed out from the broiling sun and no shade, just like I almost did 14 years ago.

Lilly taking a break from the blah-blah at some Mayan wall.

An indigenous appearing *shaman* clears Caroline's energy space with copal and sacred herbs at the Zocolo one day....all energy related issues cleaned up for 5 pesos.

Old cathedrals are found all over Mexico. Snore.

Chef at a Japanese open kitchen restaurant near the Roma neighborhood.

Speaking of Roma, did you all see this? The film takes place in Roma, the director's childhood neighborhood and deals with the relationship between the director, (when he was a child) his indigenous maid and his wealthy parents.

Lilly and Caroline eventually went back to the *mainland* and I stayed on for a couple of weeks at
a far out there exburb called Estrella. Specifically 56 Lesbos Lane:)

This double gated community was a far cry (and many miles) from the hustle of the historic district and the hipster neighborhoods. Suited me fine but probably more suited for a long term graduate student studying at the near by hospitals.

I rented the third floor apartment. It was like $156 for 2 and a half weeks. After months of travelling, it was nice just to chill, watch all the rage Mexican telenovelas on the tube and do only limited tourist things.

The busy family were always rushing off to and fro, taking their teenage kids to soccer and private school events. I tried a couple of times to engage in small talk with the teenagers, but when they looked up with a bored exasperated look at being interrupted from social media on their devices, I shrugged and headed up to my apartment.

You hear a lot in the news these days about "the invasion" at the border. This family was totally unconcerned with it and were definitely not even thinking about making a dash across the Rio Grande with the dream of becoming someone's maid in the US.

The already spacious apartment also included this terrace, where the kitchen was located.

The terrace had a nice view of the still smoking volcano Popcatepetl 

Seems like there have been an awful lot of active volcanoes in my life recently, no?

i was checking out "El Popo" one morning while cooking breakfast on the terrace and this doggone bird done gone and photo-bombed me pic! Like a dinosaur bird too.

Somedays, in the spirit of Niksen (the Dutch art of doing nothing) my whole daily wander consisted of going to the market for supplies and fixing memorable pots of beef broth in my rooftop kitchen.

Of the dozens and dozens of types of tacos available in Mexico City, my favorite is tacos al pastor. I recently read an article in the LA Times about the best tacos al pastor in Mexico City and one of them was El Tizoncito Choula which claims to have created tacos al pastor.

My skeptic antennae went up as that seemed like a pretty bold claim, as there are thousands of restaurants, stores, carts etc, selling them everywhere.

So I caught the metro (25 cents) across the city to the leafy and always happening Condesa neighborhood to check it out.

The dish was developed in central Mexico and is based on shawarma, the on a spit grilled meat brought over by Lebanese immigrants to Mexico. Shawarma, being related to the Turkish doner kebob and the Greek gyro, led me to the conclusion that no one "invented" it.

Awesome though.

Wandered one day to the temple up on top of Cerro de Estrella (Huixachtécatl) and pondered the Aztec New Fire Ceremony that used to take place there in days of yore.

After huffing and puffing my way up the steep hill, elevation 8070 feet, I found great views of the sprawling Mexico City. The volcano in the background is El Popo and where my Airbnb is.

Don't see many hombres like this one in the middle of Mexico City much any more.

 It was time to decamp from Mexico and to fly *home* for a celebration of life ceremony for my step-dad in Virginia Beach,Virginia.

William S. Hubbard Jr. RIP

After a whirlwind visit to attend the ceremony, I met Lilly back in Hawaii. It was to be a short visit to sell our cars, close bank accounts and close a chapter on Hawaii for a while. However, there was an outpouring of offers for places to stay, jobs, house-sitting. We soon realized that we had a lot of catching up to do, a lot of exploring to do.

Once the eruption really began to roll, the National Guard had closed many roads that Pele had not already closed. So a year later it was time to check out up close and personal the considerable destruction/creation.

Pete from Calgary and longtime Kalani Canadian snow bird graciously gave us his Jungle Love tent for a couple of weeks to glam camp in.

Pete has a partially unimproved piece of property off Red Road, so we volunteered to help improve it a little more by planting shade trees and other tropical plants. Pete comes for six months every year to avoid the Canadian winter. When he returns next year we hope these plantings will be well on their way to creating a shady jungle hideaway.

Next to Pete's property, someone left a van years ago and a Banyan tree done ate it.

The shower house and kitchen area. We parked our library, Razorback One, close enough to a neighbors' wi-fi that we could horizontally check out the latest news.

Went over to visit the greatly diminished Kalani Honua.

I have written extensively in this blog about my experiences there since 2013. Now the Honolulu Herald Tribune is kicking a few tires and snooping around about alleged Kalani Shenanigans

 In an effort to pay back the greatly completely diminished guest and retreat deposits, people have been dismantling the various non-permitted long term staff housing in E Ho Mai village and selling them to locals.

With so many buildings gone, it was hard to remember where so and so used to live. As the jungle slowly takes over, I remembered wandering around in here in 2013 and sort of getting turned around.

But A3, where I lived for ~four years, is a little more dilapidated but still hanging in there.

"The Coop" where three mostly awesome meals a day, seven days a week were prepared. Just some old rusted pieces of junk in there now.

A broken table under a mango tree are all that remain at the site of the Upper Smoker's Tent. Some nights, there were as many as 30 guests, volunteers and hangers-on yucking it up around that table.

For years.

Now, no hint that the tavern, where everyone knew your name, ever existed.

The jungle attacks the Lower Smoker's Tent; compared to the upper's vibe, it always pleasantly negative, quiet and grim. Only the ghosts of Miss Lisa and Tony there now.

One house-sitting location was in the Beverly Hills of Puna. It involved watching a persnickety cat that sucked only the meat juice from the canned organic cat food.

Also, the use of lady's Dutch oven was prohibited. Since I haven't used a Dutch Oven in like 30 years, it wasn't a prob.

Our other lodging accommodations have ranged from Dana's newly constructed house. Dana was Kalani executive chef and now just our friend.

To this tiny house. When Lilly saw this, she said "you sure is good to me, pa!"

We are growing lots of veggies, herbs and planting things on this lot as well. Love living in a garden shack again. Recently found a place that sells macadamian nut compost and a cinder soil mix; add Hawaii into the mix and everything grows and thrives.

The 2018 Kilauea East Rift  Eruption cut off parts of the paved ways in and out of Puna. The other road one had large gas/steam vents open up in the middle of it. Roughly a year ago (first earthquakes and fissures opened up on May 3), the National Guard pretty much closed down Puna. I wandered off the reservation on May 15, due to the noxious gases amongst a dozen other reasons.

It was quite the show from ~2-7 miles away, lighting the whole sky up at night for weeks on end. The other day we returned a year later to snoop around and were amazed by the sheer volume of lava.

Sure, over the years I had seen lava blobs, lobes, rivulets, firefalls, glowing lakes, but this was really creating serious new real estate....really making the Big Island bigger. In anniversary media coverage I heard that at one point the winner of the 24 contestant lava fissure game went to what came to be known at Fissure #8: At it's peak, ~26,000 gallons of lava a second.

Above is part of the lava's march to the sea. As it went through jungle suburbs, orchards and farms, it set everything on fire, including those trees still laying about. There are some of the other fissures in the background.

Although they have now cut through parts of the flow, not all the areas are accessible to the ~700 homes that were lost. Not going any further here on Red Road either.

There she is, Fissure #8, still a smokin' and a steamin' and a smack dab in the middle of Lelani Estates.

~Around a year ago that fissure was erupting lava, splatter, cinders, strands of glass, sulfur dioxide, ash and lava bombs hundreds of feet in the air. Many homes are buried underneath it now. Right in this dude's front yard.

Of course we had to hike around the newly reopened Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and check out the changes at the mother source. During the eruption, the caldera collapsed and the released stored magma cascaded through underground plumbing to the Pu'u'o'o vent and the Lelani fissures creating 875 new acres of Hawaii.

The caldera today is unrecognizable to that of a year ago. Maximum subsidence was ~1600 feet. Small earthquakes continue as Kilauea begins the process of replenishing the inventory.

They say that the amount of erupted lava during the course of the entire eruption would cover two lanes of I-90, from Boston to Seattle, 70 feet deep.

Here we visit the once very busy Pohoiki Park and Campground. This lobe of lava stopped right before these picnic tables. Camped and chilled out here many times. Closed for camping now, but it looks like someone is still cutting the grass.

This was an oceanfront view of the surfing breaks a year ago.

Shower out of order for a while, maybe forever.

Lava crushed this picnic table but curiously didn't set it on fire.

This was the Pohoiki Boat Ramp, a popular swimming, surfing and boogie boarding spot for tourists and local everyone.

In 1983 the lava began flowing from the Pu u'o'o vent towards and into the ocean, creating firefall spectacle. Pu'u'o'o is located on the Kilauea East Rift Zone ~20 miles to the west. Lava viewing tour boats, chocked full of tourists, left from the boat ramp every few hours for years.

The boats, in an effort to make hay while the sun was shining, would come zipping up to the boat ramp, blowing air horns as to warn the kids to scatter. Always seemed like a real liability issue to me.

I felt sorry for one intrepid entrepreneur who bet the good times would never end and bought a second very expensive new tour boat. Pu'u'o'o suffered catastrophic caldera collapse in the eruption of 2018 and the magma from it traveled through Fissure #8 toward the ocean and thus ensured the destruction/creation/metamorphose of the park. And the tourists stopped coming.

 The boat ramp, once opening up the to ocean and surfing breaks, is now surrounded by a gigantic new black sand beach. Hot volcanic thermal springs now make it a tranquil hot tub.

Here we are looking towards the boat ramp from the new beach. When the river of lava from Fissure #8 hit the ocean, the lava exploded, creating this giant new black sand beach. Alas, Pele, part destuctress/constuctress/trickster, destroyed a lot of Puna's old favorites, but created a giant new black sand beach for the enjoyment of generations to come.

Take a little, Give a little.

Thanks for Stopping By