Monterey, California

I love visiting Monterey. Not only is it a cute town with plenty of great hiking and farm fresh produce nearby, I get to spend time with two of my closest friends (and their dog!).

 

Pinnacles National Park was beautiful with a fantastic trail that took us high up to a gorgeous view of the California landscape.

 

We hiked through a couple of caves along the way.

 

We found a pair of juvenile turkey vultures preening on a rock.

 

I came upon a garter snake sunning itself on the trail. We were surprised it hadn't moved away before we were upon it, but as long as we stayed still, the snake didn't bother to move.

 

Over the course of the day, we also saw deer, lizards, squirrels, and this stellar blue jay.

 

The pine cones are so ridiculously enormous, they dwarf Mini Bear!

 

Another perk of visiting my friends is getting my own behind the scenes tour of Monterey Bay Aquarium, where they both work.

 

I saw the sea otters being fed and also got to visit two otters not presently on exhibit. There was a small window just above the water line on the tank and when I put my hand in the window as instructed, an otter came up and slapped my hand. My first sea otter high five!

 

Outside, a seal lay lazily on a rock while sea otters in the kelp forest peered at kayakers. Just that morning, two juvenile and three adult orca whales were spotted passing through the bay! I missed the whales by a couple of hours, so now I've missed orca sightings in two continents!

 

I checked out the psychedelic jellyfish exhibit.

 

From the top of the aquarium's impressive one million gallon tank, I got to watch hammerhead sharks and the odd looking mola fish (pictured) being fed.

 

Today I learned that a group of sea otters is called a raft and a group of sharks is fittingly called a shiver. I watched a short presentation about how wildlife have inspired inventors and learned that one of the designers of Japan's famous bullet trains was a bird enthusiast and, after watching the kingfisher bird dive silently into the water to fish, he modeled the front of the bullet train off of the kingfisher's beak so that the train would be quiet when emerging from tunnels.

 

The rest of my too brief time in Monterey was spent with my friends watching movies, taking the dog for walks, eating well, and catching up. As usual, my visit in Monterey has gone by far too fast!

 

Rapa Nui: day 3

Our guide yesterday told us about some caves on the island. I'm a sucker for a dark, enclosed, rocky space, so three of us rented bikes to go exploring.

 

As I've said before, mountain biking is not my forte. And I had conveniently forgotten that most of the island's hilly roads are dirt. Oy vay. (Fun fact: NASA came to the island several years ago and beautifully paved a few of the roads as the island's airport, which had a surprisingly long runway, was an emergency landing spot for past space shuttles. Some people think aliens created the moai. Perhaps paving roads and runways was just a cover for NASA? You be the judge.)

 

Our first stop was Two Windows Cave. The cave entrance was deceptively tight as it was a spacious cave. The Rapa Nui people often lived in caves so it wasn't long before the three of us started to joke about where we'd put the kitchen and the bed rooms, as if it were the latest house hunting show.

 

The next cave was the one that had us really excited. Yesterday's guide had told us about a cave that is so small, you crawl on your belly to get through and then have to rock climb up the cliff to get back. It took some time but we eventually found it. Ironically, the tiny cave was an offshoot of one of the tallest caves I've been in yet. Going through the cave was like evolution in reverse: first walking, then crouching, squatting, and finally crawling on your belly. Actually crawling is misleading: at the cave's lowest point, I did tiny push ups to inch my way forward. It was slow going to say the least and we had no idea how long it would take. After several minutes of mini push ups with just my head lamp and occasional giggles from my companions following behind to keep me company, I shouted, "I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!" Who doesn't love a good cliche?

 

As we emerged from the tunnel, there was a small ledge that was just big enough to support us but not big enough to inspire much confidence. We started to climb around a little to see how we get back without having to return through the cave and quickly concluded that our mothers would all be angry with us if we proceeded to climb the unstable rock face, so we turned around and went back through the cave.

 

After we emerged, we surveyed ourselves for damage. We each had countless scrapes and bruises and little cuts and were covered in rocky dust. We used my hand sanitizer to disinfect our wounds, laughing as the alcohol burned.

 

Back on the bikes, our trio grew by one. A dog started to follow us and happily stuck with us, patiently waiting as we stopped, for the rest of the day.

 

The banana cave was next up. Banana trees grew just inside the cave and proved to be good for climbing. Further inside the cave, a crew was filming a documentary and we all agreed that if we ever formed a band, we'd return here to film our first video.

 

Not much further up the road, we reached a group of seven moai. We took photos, had some lunch, and gave the dog some water. One of the great things about Rapa Nui is that you'd often find yourself visiting moai or caves or hiking all alone, free of massive tourist groups.

 

We locked up our bikes and started to hike up to the island's highest point. By now it was around two in the afternoon, but because the island is in an artificially eastern time zone, the sun was right on top of us as we walked through the shadeless fields. In the end, we decided not to go all the way to the top as it was so hot and we didn't want our adopted dog to get too tired. The views were gorgeous every step of the way.

 

We made one last stop to see what I called the hat factory. Some of the moai wore large, Russian looking red hats. This is where the red rocks were extracted and carved.

 

By this time, we were happily exhausted and headed back to town. We were thrilled to reach the paved road for the first time in hours!

 

I took a quick dip at the nearest beach, where the local kids made me repeatedly demonstrate the waterproof capabilities of my camera.

 

This in itself would have been an outstanding day, but we weren't done yet. In the evening, we attended Kari Kari, a traditional dance show. The women shook their hips, the men stomped around, and we were all thoroughly impressed.