We're back home now. Two of us and all of our bags.
When we left on this trip, I knew "Aloha" to be Hawaiian for both Hello and goodbye. But after this trip I really think there is something more.
Aloha is more than a greeting and salutation. It's used all over in naming and marketing. Before getting on the plane, we ate fish "served with Aloha." There was "Aloha" airlines and "Aloha" shaved ice, but there were couple of times when I really got a sense of what Aloha really was.
After our hike / crawl through the Bamboo forest we stopped at a roadside stand offering fruit and smoothies. As one guy was grinding Jen's smoothie in the blender, I started talking to another guy who was just outside the stand carving the pulp out of a coconut. We talked about our hike. (He could tell where we had been by the mud on our shins.) Eventually he asked if we were on our Honeymoon. I said no, we've been married 5 years. "Oh yeah, Aloha Man!" He said. These was a warmth and acceptance in what he said, something deep and genuine.
In Kalaupapa, the former leper colony, our mule guide, bus driver, and tour guide was named Keanai. He had driven the bus for Mark Richards (a former patient and current resident of Kalaupapa) until Mark could no longer continue. Since then he's taken over and runs tours. Every single person we passed in the village, he knew and gave a big wave to. Everyone recognized him and the rusty blue school bus. His wave was somewhere between a full hand and a hang-loose thumb-and-pinky wave. But in each wave, I could sense Aloha.
Its something about community, something about acceptance, and a little about love. Maybe like 'philio' - brotherly love.
Aloha.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Sunday, September 2, 2007
The road to Hana
It's interesting that this excursion for everyone is described as "the road to . . ." That's because once you get there, there is not much to see, but the road, oh the road.
It's 50 miles of twisting turning roads and one lane bridges with a spectacular view all along the way. The other thing about the "road to" is the stop that you take along the way. I'll highlight a few.
We'd heard about this first one from our zipline guide and in our guide book. 6.5 miles in we started down a trail into DENSE bamboo forest. Turns out this first trail was the wrong one. We came back up to road a few minutes later. It should have been a clue that my wide shoulder would only go sideways down the trail. Bamboo makes this incredible sound as the wind blows through it. It's like an entire orchestra of wood blocks. We did find the right trail and followed through the bamboo (wider this time) to our first couple of waterfalls. We had to crawl up a couple of rock faces, but stop short on the 12 foot rope climb to get to the next waterfall.
Our guidebook garunteed us a private waterfall if we pulled off at this unmarked stop and boulder-hopped up the stream for about 20 minutes. Well 20 minutes was a little more like 40, but we did get there and it was magnificent. We both took a couple of falls out of the deal and ended up muddy and bruised.
After overnighting outside of the town of Hana (and invading a family reunion going on below us) we headed out to the National Park. Now this is the same national Park that we were in while we were in the Crater, but on the otherside of the Volcano. This is the windward side, so instead of desolate and barren rock-scape we were in dense rain forest. We swam a little but in the bottom two of the 7 Sacred pools. (I think the kids peeing in them make them holy) and then headed up the volcano to Waikmu falls. This would be our last fall of the trip, and it was amazing. Water plumets 200 feet bouncing and churning and misting all the way down. The 4 miles round trip was well worth the time we got to spend beside this fall. The hike itself went through more bamboo forest, under a giant Banyon tree. All around us Mango and Guava had fallen and were bein consumed by hoards of fruit flys. They put this sweet smell in the air that makes me want a smoothie now that we're back down.
Alright. Only twenty minutes until we need to be at the airport. More pictures and stories after we hit the mainland.
Aloha!
It's 50 miles of twisting turning roads and one lane bridges with a spectacular view all along the way. The other thing about the "road to" is the stop that you take along the way. I'll highlight a few.
We'd heard about this first one from our zipline guide and in our guide book. 6.5 miles in we started down a trail into DENSE bamboo forest. Turns out this first trail was the wrong one. We came back up to road a few minutes later. It should have been a clue that my wide shoulder would only go sideways down the trail. Bamboo makes this incredible sound as the wind blows through it. It's like an entire orchestra of wood blocks. We did find the right trail and followed through the bamboo (wider this time) to our first couple of waterfalls. We had to crawl up a couple of rock faces, but stop short on the 12 foot rope climb to get to the next waterfall.
Our guidebook garunteed us a private waterfall if we pulled off at this unmarked stop and boulder-hopped up the stream for about 20 minutes. Well 20 minutes was a little more like 40, but we did get there and it was magnificent. We both took a couple of falls out of the deal and ended up muddy and bruised.
After overnighting outside of the town of Hana (and invading a family reunion going on below us) we headed out to the National Park. Now this is the same national Park that we were in while we were in the Crater, but on the otherside of the Volcano. This is the windward side, so instead of desolate and barren rock-scape we were in dense rain forest. We swam a little but in the bottom two of the 7 Sacred pools. (I think the kids peeing in them make them holy) and then headed up the volcano to Waikmu falls. This would be our last fall of the trip, and it was amazing. Water plumets 200 feet bouncing and churning and misting all the way down. The 4 miles round trip was well worth the time we got to spend beside this fall. The hike itself went through more bamboo forest, under a giant Banyon tree. All around us Mango and Guava had fallen and were bein consumed by hoards of fruit flys. They put this sweet smell in the air that makes me want a smoothie now that we're back down.
Alright. Only twenty minutes until we need to be at the airport. More pictures and stories after we hit the mainland.
Aloha!
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Lanai
Aloha again!
We spent the day today on a boat trip to Lanai. We got a van tour of Lanai City and had some time to snorkel off of the beach. Here's a picture of us on the boat. This internet conection and windoze machine has aggravated me more than I can take for today. Enjoy the pic and we'll write again soon.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Kaluapapa
Jen here... Writing my first ever blog... We'll see about this...
We were up for our 3rd consecutive sunrise today - amazing considering I normally sleep until 10! But it was totally worth it. Sunrises here are spectacular, as was our adventure today.
This morning we flew from Maui to Molokai, "the friendly island." We flew in an 8 passenger plane (much too small for me!) where they actually assigned people seats based on their weight. We flew right past the towering cliffs of Molokai (the highest in the world @ 3000 feet) - absolutely breath taking. Its here that they filmed Jurassic Park 2&3. It's also at the bottom of these cliffs where Kaluapapa, a leper colony, & our destination for today, exists.
There are 3 ways of getting to Kaluapapa - fly directly there, hike, or ride a mule. After hiking 13 miles over the past two days, I was awfully thankful that today we chose to ride the mules down these 1600 feet cliffs (a mere 300 ft. taller than the one we hiked up yesterday, I might add.)
We rode down these cliffs, majestically rising up on one side of us, and falling sharply into the clearest, most beautiful waters you can imagine on the other side. It took us 26 hairraising switchback turns to descend to the bottom of the cliffs. They tell you to "trust your mule," which is supposedly a sure footed animal. But let me tell you - that's a lot easier said than done. But after freaking out when the mule stepped too close for comfort to the edge of the cliff on the first couple turns, eventually I just started relaxing, & enjoying, & experiencing the beauty. And oh it was beautiful.
Once at the bottom, we toured the leper colony. That's right - this leper colony is now the #1 tourist attraction on Molokai. It seems somehow wrong & yet it was amazing to visit there, in the wierdest & best possible way.
It's strange, in teaching about Jesus healing the leper, I've often taught kids about leprosy - what it was like & about what an outcast this disease makes people. After seeing this place today, that doesn't even begin to cut it. I have a new appreciation for that story & for Jesus' compassionate touch.
Not only was this disease horrific (& still is - now there's just drugs that can arrest it), but the process of ostracizing people to this peninsula - found overlooking what has to be some of the most spectucular beauty on this planet - was equally horrific. Just outside of the peninsula where Kaluapapa (the leper colony) is located, which let me remind you is at the base of cliffs that rise 1600-3000 ft. tall, are two small islands. When a person was diagnosed with this disease, after their children were taken from them, they were given a one way ticket to this leper colony, which began in the 1860s & closed in 1969. (Today 30 former patients still live there & you can enter only with a permit.) This one way ticket got these patients a boat ride to Kaluapapa. The only problem was Kaluapapa is a difficult place to get to by sea, & so boaters, fearful of their own lives, refused to take people all the way to the shores. Instead, they would drop them off at one of these two off shore islands & then the patient would have to swim this hazardous ocean channel to the shore, where they were essentially condemned to live out the remainder of their lives. 3000-4000 people made it to shore this way... Who knows how many people died trying. Once at Kaluapapa, if a resident attempted to leave by hiking up the hazardous cliffs, they were either ordered back or shot @ the security checkpoints.
While at the colony - we saw pictures from the early 20th century of these patients with leprosy... What a horrific disease. The shame that these people must have felt, first from being ostracized, then from the physical defects they had, let alone the pain they experienced as they began to lose feeling in their extremities, lost their eyesight, & became more & more susceptible to other diseases.
Yet - heroes & hope emerged in this place by way of Father Damien, a priest from Belgium who later contracted the disease, & Mother Maryanne, a nun from New York, both of whom treated these patients with dignity & respect, showing them Christ's love in every way possible.
This place was one of such contrasts - tragedy & despair mixed with hope. Ugliness alongside nature's wonders...
And what an experience it was for us to see it.
On a fun note - we capped off tonight with the best fish I've ever eaten @ Mama's Fish House. Doug about choked at the prices, but after eating it & realizing that if you factor in the four freeze dried meals we've eaten in the last two days, it wasn't such a big deal to splurge - we thoroughly enjoyed it. Mahi Mahi stuffed with lobster & crab, encrusted with macadamia nuts; banana macadamia nut crisp for dessert... The food was incredible & even the presentation was excellent... And we got to enjoy it all while looking out at the ocean. Just perfect!
Kula Cottage, Kula Hi
From last (Tuesday) night.
Oh what an ass-kicking climb out of the crater. But first the good stuff.
The crater, solitude.
11:52Pm woke up for the lunar eclipse. What a once in a lifetime experience. Lunar eclipses aren't as rare as solar ones, but the timing. Us in the middle of the volcano with nothing to block or pollute the light and a lunar eclipse. Absolutely divine timing.
The moon went from streetlight-bright to red and dark. We sat out for an hour together and I stayed out another alone lying on the ground in my down bag.
5:45am Up again for the sunrise. Our Nene friend came back just after the sunrise. The Nene is the state bird that is the result of some wayward Canadian geese landing on the islands and like many Americans, never leaving. They've had a rough go of it, but a captive breeding program has rebounded their numbers and we saw them all about or cabin. They go around in pairs for the most part. We had one poor old lonely guy whose pair must have been lost. They were unafraid of us and we spent alot of the morning photographing and watching them.
Just a side note. Freeze dried chicken terriaki is much better than freeze dried scrambled eggs.
The valley floor that was yesterday quiet and deserted, this morning filled us with noisy birds. I wish I could have identified them all. I know for sure we saw the Nene and the ringed neck pheasant and maybe the elusive Pu'u.
The first leg of the hike from the Kapaloa cabin to the Holua cabin was fairly easy. Pele's paintbox was an amazing palate of red, yellow, silver, and green minerals laid out like swatches on a paint pad.
We walked into fog as we descended into the second cabin (Holua - just a pit stop for us today) and it stayed with us the rest of the day. . . all the way up the switchbacks. all the way up the 1300 vertical feet over 3 miles. Was that all? The number doesn't sound like that much. . . but let me tell you how it feels. Even the super-buff ex-military dad climbing in front of us was collapsed against the tire of our rental car when we got to the top. (We gave him and his daughter a ride to their car.) The last few miles were a sheer test of will. Our bodies had long ago given out and it was just grace and muscle memory the rest of the way.
This trail was but into the mountain by the Civilian Conservation Core in the 30s. They cut into the solid rock by hand. These were the same people who dug the Skokie lagoons. (Our last preparation hike was around these lagoons)
The alternative exit would have been back our the way we came. This trail is called the sliding sands trail. The name isn't symbolic. It's 4 miles of volcanic sand that descends from the summit at 10000 feet to the crater floor at 6500 feet. That nearly 3 times the elevation that we had to reclaim on the switchback trail. And as we learned on one of our weekend hikes in the Indian Dunes State park, for ever 2 foot stride you take uphill in sand, you slide back 6 inches. All that's to say that the switchback weren't all that bad. Okay they were bad, but I'd do it again (after my muscles stop aching).
We checked into the Kula cottage after coming down off of Haleakala. It's a small one bedroom cottage just down the road from where we stayed on our first night. There's no view, but there is a washing machine! We were happy to make that trade as we threw all of our dust + mist = caked-on-crust clothes straight in.
Aloha for now.
Oh what an ass-kicking climb out of the crater. But first the good stuff.
The crater, solitude.
11:52Pm woke up for the lunar eclipse. What a once in a lifetime experience. Lunar eclipses aren't as rare as solar ones, but the timing. Us in the middle of the volcano with nothing to block or pollute the light and a lunar eclipse. Absolutely divine timing.
The moon went from streetlight-bright to red and dark. We sat out for an hour together and I stayed out another alone lying on the ground in my down bag.
5:45am Up again for the sunrise. Our Nene friend came back just after the sunrise. The Nene is the state bird that is the result of some wayward Canadian geese landing on the islands and like many Americans, never leaving. They've had a rough go of it, but a captive breeding program has rebounded their numbers and we saw them all about or cabin. They go around in pairs for the most part. We had one poor old lonely guy whose pair must have been lost. They were unafraid of us and we spent alot of the morning photographing and watching them.
Just a side note. Freeze dried chicken terriaki is much better than freeze dried scrambled eggs.
The valley floor that was yesterday quiet and deserted, this morning filled us with noisy birds. I wish I could have identified them all. I know for sure we saw the Nene and the ringed neck pheasant and maybe the elusive Pu'u.
The first leg of the hike from the Kapaloa cabin to the Holua cabin was fairly easy. Pele's paintbox was an amazing palate of red, yellow, silver, and green minerals laid out like swatches on a paint pad.
We walked into fog as we descended into the second cabin (Holua - just a pit stop for us today) and it stayed with us the rest of the day. . . all the way up the switchbacks. all the way up the 1300 vertical feet over 3 miles. Was that all? The number doesn't sound like that much. . . but let me tell you how it feels. Even the super-buff ex-military dad climbing in front of us was collapsed against the tire of our rental car when we got to the top. (We gave him and his daughter a ride to their car.) The last few miles were a sheer test of will. Our bodies had long ago given out and it was just grace and muscle memory the rest of the way.
This trail was but into the mountain by the Civilian Conservation Core in the 30s. They cut into the solid rock by hand. These were the same people who dug the Skokie lagoons. (Our last preparation hike was around these lagoons)
The alternative exit would have been back our the way we came. This trail is called the sliding sands trail. The name isn't symbolic. It's 4 miles of volcanic sand that descends from the summit at 10000 feet to the crater floor at 6500 feet. That nearly 3 times the elevation that we had to reclaim on the switchback trail. And as we learned on one of our weekend hikes in the Indian Dunes State park, for ever 2 foot stride you take uphill in sand, you slide back 6 inches. All that's to say that the switchback weren't all that bad. Okay they were bad, but I'd do it again (after my muscles stop aching).
We checked into the Kula cottage after coming down off of Haleakala. It's a small one bedroom cottage just down the road from where we stayed on our first night. There's no view, but there is a washing machine! We were happy to make that trade as we threw all of our dust + mist = caked-on-crust clothes straight in.
Aloha for now.
Kapaoloa Cabin
If I had a computer in the crater on Monday night, this is what I would have sent. . .
When was the last time I heard nothin at all? I feel like I have to whisper out here or else I'll break the spell. The occasional fly buzzes me, but other than that it's just us and the wind. It's not the creepy kind of quiet like bein inside the anechoic chamber at Shure, it's a peaceful, extraordinary quiet.
This place is a beautiful wasteland. Very little grows on the volcanic rock, dust, and ash. Only the ridiculous silverswords. These things bloom once in their 80 year lifespan, then die.
The sun bakes the porous earth. Heat waves rise off the ground, but the air is a cool comfortable breeze all day. Even now, my left side toasts in the sun, but my right shudders with a chill from the wind.
The dust, oh the dust - caught in crevices I didn't even know I had.
The coulds not above, not a backdrop, but a part of the landscape just as much as the hills or the colors in the dirt.
When was the last time I heard nothin at all? I feel like I have to whisper out here or else I'll break the spell. The occasional fly buzzes me, but other than that it's just us and the wind. It's not the creepy kind of quiet like bein inside the anechoic chamber at Shure, it's a peaceful, extraordinary quiet.
This place is a beautiful wasteland. Very little grows on the volcanic rock, dust, and ash. Only the ridiculous silverswords. These things bloom once in their 80 year lifespan, then die.
The sun bakes the porous earth. Heat waves rise off the ground, but the air is a cool comfortable breeze all day. Even now, my left side toasts in the sun, but my right shudders with a chill from the wind.
The dust, oh the dust - caught in crevices I didn't even know I had.
The coulds not above, not a backdrop, but a part of the landscape just as much as the hills or the colors in the dirt.
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