After a day of driving through Hamakua, we arrived to Kohala – the northern end of the Big Island’s west coast. Just as our book said, the rain stopped once we started descending towards the western side and we found ourselves in a rather deserty climate. The landscape was quite bizarre: the area got overflown by lava a century or so back and would have been totally inhospitable, if it wasn’t for the few giant resort hotels that managed to cut roads through it. It really must have taken some determination to built there. We spent a few nights in Hilton (at the conference rate) while I was attending HICSS events. We also took some time in the afternoon to check out the near beaches.