And now, a rain forest!

So, just a couple miles from volcano craters and downtown Honolulu is the Manoa Falls Trail. It leads you through this lush, humid, bright green rain forest.

Near the base of the trail.

There are all these tall trees that we hadn't seen anywhere else on Oahu.

The tree density definitely hid the sun in parts of the trail.

This was the first walk we did on Oahu where the air had that warm, humid, kind of "close" feeling of dense, healthy plant life -- lots of ferns and plants with big leaves. It's also the only place where we experienced mosquitoes, but even then there weren't many.

It's a peaceful, easy trail -- nothing too strenuous, a mellow "staircase" here and there, mostly to keep people from walking on other plants.

Those skinny trees are bamboo!

The actual falls part of the Manoa Falls Trail were a little meager when we were there, however.

See what I mean?

I've seen pictures of this place, so I know the waterfall is usually a bit more impressive than that! Maybe during the spring and summer it'll be a real "falls" again instead of a little trickle.

The hike itself was very pleasant, in any case! Definitely a nice place to take refuge from the direct sunlight and see lots of greenery.