Despite being richer than other First World countries, the USA has a noticeably lower quality of life than these other countries. Much of this statement is based on subjective impressions and non-statistically-significant observations on the number of homeless people, junkies and sick people. However, the UN has published a report that seems to go somewhat in the same direction as my feelings.
I spent my first night in Honolulu in a hotel. The second night, I decided to go to a hostel to lower my costs and possibly meet some people. When I saw the freaks in the hostel, I opted against a dorm bed and for a private room instead. Destitute junkies actually live in hostels here because it's cheaper than having an apartment. Some hostels require their guests to be travelers (from at least out of the state) so as to keep indesirable individuals from their premises. However, these hostels are almost always fully booked.
On the street next to the shore of Waikiki beach, I met some Chileans who needed some help to make a phone call. They are in Hawaii on a working holiday visa and had just gotten there when I met them. After I helped them, we exchanged emails. It turned out beneficial for me because two of them went on the island of Kauai and hosted me for two nights in their newfound flat when I visited that island again. Although the room where they are staying is in a nice house, the people with whom they share the place are a bit shady. The owner of the house is a bisexual man with a penchant for young men and also turned out to be a drug dealer. The other people in the house are weed-heads whose relationship with the landlord I dared not find too much about. I hope the Chileans won't get to go through any crap because of the people in the flat where they live.
After visiting Kauai, I flew to the Big Island. There, I went to see the lava flow and went to a thermal oceanic pond where you can swim in naturally warm water (a bit like I did in New Zealand). I also went up a 14000 feet tall snow-capped, extinct volcano. At that height, the atmosphere contains about half the amount of oxygen found at sea level. Mental and physical effort becomes more strenuous.
I also went on the island of Maui. I rented an SUV with the intention of sleeping in it. It wasn't comfortable and I spent a bad night trying to find an acceptable position; trying to ignore people around and breathing increasingly humid and stale air. In the morning, I went to the town of Lahaina where many tried to get me to start the process of acquiring a time-share in Hawaii. Many tour desks will give you free tours or activities if you accept to attend a presentation on time-shares. But, all I wanted was to visit Molokini.
Molokini is a volcanic cinder cone that has eroded over the ages into a moon-shaped island:
Although it looks better on the picture above than when I saw it with my own eyes, it is still one of the best place on this planet to snorkel. On the way to Molokini, many dolphins came to play with the boat I was on. Also, whales swam towards and under the boat. That was pretty cool.
The crater is brimming with fish of all kinds and is carpeted with coral. I wanted to compare the inside of the crater to the outside so I swam up to its edge. Doing so brought me out of the sight of the crew of my boat. That would not be too bad if it weren't for the fact that, once I was outside the crater, strong oceanic currents starting sweeping me away. As hard and fast as I tried to swim in the direction of my boat, I could not fight the currents. For a few seconds, the germ of panic was growing inside me. I felt very small in the huge ocean. Then, instead of trying in a futile and brainless manner to just swim towards my boat and just wasting my energy, I decided to swim perpendicularly to the currents and reach the crater. From there, I could wait much longer than in the ocean for people to come for me. However, I was lucky enough that I didn't have time to reach the crater before a boat came to pick me up. Its captain said he saw me and thought I was in trouble. He also told me a few people never made it back after pulling similar stunts. I was quite grateful for his lift to my own boat.
Back on my boat, I ate some candy to get some energy back. I was exhausted. I didn't feel too freaked out by the whole situation. Even if the boat that came to get me had not been there, I'm confident I would have made it just fine. Still, I thought to myself that there has to be safer ways to brave death. That's when I decided to go skydiving. I'm jumping from a plane tomorrow at an altitude of 14000'.
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