Most Monday mornings at 9:30 if you go to the West Kauai Visitors Center [ http://www.westkauaivisitorcenter.org ] -- call at least by Friday business hours ahead to reserve -- you can join the walking tour.
Puna leads the walking tour, and she does it beautifully, in addition to being a living island treasure. Her life story is deeply entwined with Waimea where she was born and raised.
The tour begins with a brief introduction to some of the main displays in the museum section of the visitor center, showing native crafts such as tapa (cloth made from mulberry leaves), poi (pounded taro korm), and more.
From there the tour sets out -- at a brisk pace at times -- for historic points of interest including old churches, site of plantation hospitals, down town merchant shops, and much more.
All the history and cultural insights are interwoven with personal stores of Puna's childhood and life in Waimea, really brining it alive. Here and there she walks right into the yards of friends (with permission) to show off the lovely flowers in a back garden or sharing macadamia nuts fallen from a tree in the yard (everyone gets a few). We went out to see the beach on her land there.
After the tour some of us dropped by her house -- I'm pretty sure this is not usual for the tour -- to taste a few things she mentioned earlier. We had "V-apple" (not much like apple at all), saw the noni plant, and tasted and took home jars of her wonderful mango chutney.
Even without that last part the tour is a real treat & absolutely free. Mondays 9:30 to 12:30 (or a little longer). After the tour I reommend the Seared Wasabi Ahi tacos at Island Tacos right down the road from the visitor center.
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