They welcomed us with real leis at the Wyndham Kauai Beach Villas - and a powerful sales pitch to attend the next morning's free welcome breakfast and a Wednesday sales promo at their newest and wonderfulest property on the North Shore. We almost were won over, but thinking about it later, realized that that is just not how we want to spend our time. They have pages and pages of planned, very expensive, tour and helicopter rides and boat rides and luaus, etc.(discounted a bit if we attend their promo) and that's just not our style. We'll be largely self-guided and Fodor-guided and independent-minded. Big surprise.
Our condo unit is great -a first floor corner unit, beautifully decorated and laid out, with the best equipped kitchen of any RCI unit we've visited. The wild chickens are interesting, crowing at all hours, and come right up to the lanai door to see if it's open, as do the 3 or 4 wandering cats. It's quite a walk to the beach, which is not wonderful right here, but there are nice pools and a jacuzzi available. And the grounds have very attractive plantings and incredibly fragrant plumeria blooms. The temperature is just so ..... perfect.....and it's an incredible treat to be missing some winter in Virginia.
Yesterday we drove north and explored some side roads up into the highlands, seeing lots of the neighborhoods where folks live - some pretty junky and some very nice. It's not the time of year for maximum tree and flower blooms, but still some gorgeous trees and shrubs. There are very tasty papayas (my main Hawaiian fruit craving) and some trees heavily laden with some kind of orange fruit (maybe oranges?). We will try to track them down at one of the farmers' markets this week.
Food is expensive of course, as in the 70s - grocery stores about 2-3 times the prices at home. One disappointment - the ones we've been in so far (Walmart, Safeway and a local chain) do not carry the true unprocessed poi that we grew to love in the 70s. They carry a red poi that is very thick and does not become sour with age - which is the part we like. So we need to research that further!
Drove past a large solar installation yesterday, which came on line recently and generates enough power for 300 homes, according to the internet. There are plans for a lot more solar in the future.
I think 5 chickens conversing outside our unit just woke up John, so that's probably good!
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