The pair were enjoying time together on their first vacation on Kauai

Cousins on their first trip to Kauai were identified by police as the two women who died Tuesday after falling 300 feet to the base of Opaekaa Falls.

Police identified the victims as Elizabeth Ann Brem, 35, of Encinitas, Calif., a lawyer and mother of two; and her first cousin Paula Gonzalez Ramirez, 29, a businesswoman from Bogota, Colombia.

The two were hiking along an unmarked, unmaintained trail, which is listed in a number of guidebooks, when they went over the edge. Two hikers found them about 35 feet from the pool at the base of the cliff.

The two women were just at the start of their careers and had a huge future in front of them, said Brem’s mother and Ramirez’s aunt, Anna Warke.

“You can’t imagine what we are feeling,” said Warke. “I’m just praying to God that I have the strength to live without (my daughter).”

Brem and Ramirez had come to Kauai a few days ago to spend some time together, said Warke. Brem’s husband, Monte, flew in to meet the two Tuesday night. Instead, Warke said she called Monte Brem just after he disembarked on the Garden Isle. She could not however, give him the bad news herself.

“The detective in Hawaii was very special,” she added. “He picked Monte up and told him what happened.”

Instead of a surf-and-golf vacation, Monte will be taking the bodies home to California, as family members fly in from Bogota and New York over the next few days, Warke said.

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(Source: Honolulu Star-Bulletin)