From Waipi'o to Kohala

After watching the moonrise, we watched the sunrise. Pretty oranges in the band of clouds that's always lining the coast here. We had cocktails for breakfast; it was that kind of day. We decided to hike down to the bottom of Waipi'o Valley and set off on foot from the house. We reached the top of the valley in less than 5 minutes, visiting someone's lawn mower, a goat, along the way. We talked to the ranger at the top of the road about walking and driving down....he suggested we have water with us and if we were to drive, the car needs to be in 4wd.

We started walking down the road, and at first, it didn't seem so bad. But by the not quite 1/2 mile mark down the valley wall, we realized what the locals were telling us, "One mile down, ten miles back up," was absolutely true. We turned back and went and got the car. Even in the car, the road down is insane....it's unlike any other US Hwy anywhere. It is a 25% grade! At the bottom, we first took a right towards the beach. We made it down the rough road almost to the beach before a huge puddle turned us back. With no insurance on the vehicle, we played it safe. While turning our Jeep around, we encountered one of the wild horses in the valley. They're pretty mellow, he came up to the windows of the car and looked in. He tried to bite our bumper in order to see if it tasted any good and stood in front of the car and refused to move as well. We next took the inland road towards the falls, but turned back at a spot where the falls' river crosses the road. We later found out that you can't drive to the falls at all, even though it looks like it. We didn't feel right about parking and hiking, being on private land, it's a sacred spot, and you can tell the locals aren't thrilled you're driving around down there.

We returned to the cliff house, did a bit of research and decided to drive over to the sunnyside of the island and hit a beach. We put our target on Hapuna Beach because Susan had read that it was the Best Beach in America. With all the beaches in our country, it would have to be good. It was just less than an hour's drive from our doorstep and we were marching down a well maintained, even though under construction, path to the public part of Hapuna Beach; white sand, mellow waves, turquoise water and lots of sun. We played in the surf for awhile, even attempting to body surf, which turned out to be really fun. We layed out in the sun as well, before having to get back in the ocean in order to cool off.

We got wise in time, before getting sun burned; packed up, used the public showers (it's so nice not to be salty and sandy when you have an hour's ride home), and cruised south down the coastline a few miles. This area is a desert. No rain falls here ever and everything was brown. It is a nice residential neighborhood where some of the wealthier island immigrants live. At one of the public access points, we stopped and walked down a short path to a rocky entry. A sea turtle was grazing on a rock in the gentle surf. He was about 10 feet off the shore. We felt lucky to pick this particular spot for a quick look. We turned back and stopped at a small market. From the outside, it looked like something you might find on NW 23rd, but inside it was more like one of those corner stores in the Tenderloin in San Francisco. We got some M&Ms and a club soda and sat at a table on their porch with our tourist books and figured out what to do next.

We decided to head up the coast to an artist community called Hawi. It's quaint, but a bit overrated in the books. I prefer Honoka'a, as the gallery owners are less pushy and more local. But we did come across a few interesting bits. After walking the main strip of the town, we spotted a "tiki bar" called Luke's. It's a nice place, with a local clientelle, but not a real tiki bar.

They do have a thatched roof, but so do a lot of other places on the island that don't masquerade as a tiki establishment. No tiki statues, a budweiser drinking crowd and when we asked the waitress for a couple mai tai's, she fumbled, pretended she knew what it was, and made us drinks with Dewer's, OJ, and Rum! Not very good, but they were very strong. We opted for the local Kona brew on tap for our second round. We traveled down the road a little further because I wanted to see the original statue of King Kamehameha which was in Ka'apu. And this did not disappoint. The statue was well lit, even in dusk, and was quite impressive.





There is something mystical about the Hawai'ian rulers and their gods, and this particular spot had it. We walked the grounds and laughed at the "Beware of falling coconuts" sign. Not because we didn't think coconuts could be a danger, it's just not a sign I am used to seeing.




On our way back towards Hawi, we stopped at a small Episcopal Church not far from Kamehameha's statue. It had a striking red door against it's all white exterior. This was also another mystical spot. The church was surrounded by an old cemetary and some of the graves dated from the 1800's. We enjoyed our stay, but made it short so as to not tread on the spirits' grounds.








We took the mountain freeway back to Waimea, over Kohala. It was a pretty drive and we pulled off to watch the last of the sunset by a farm overlooking the Kona coast. It was a very deep red color and only lasted for a couple of minutes before the sun is down and the world goes completely dark. In Hawai'i, I presume because of the ocean and lack of light pollution, it goes from daylight to dark in a matter of minutes.....less than 10. We drove back through Waimea and Honoka'a and returned home, exhausted again. As we pulled into our garage, our antenna must have clipped something....it started shaking, regularly, but almost violently. It was kind of spooky, and when tested later, it didn't behave at all the same way....Hawai'i is a mystical place.

Susan made us an amazing dinner of Ono, bok choy and vermicelli, with shrimp tempura as an appetizer....I don't know how she does it....I was so tired I was a zombie. We went to bed with the TV on, but passed out right away...the night was cooler and there were a lot fewer bugs.

From Mauna Loa to Waipi'o

We started our last day in the rain forest with another outside shower and soak in the furo. We concentrated on gathering our things quickly and getting out the door by 8AM and we made it. We headed straight for the park and returned directly to Kiluah Iki trail. We were immediately rewarded for returning this morning. Instead of the blackness of night and mountain fog, we were greeted with a beautiful sunny morning and a stunning view into the crater. We could see steam vents right away. We descended on a well maintained trail, running into very few people along the way (there was only one other car in the parking lot). After a 10 minute walk through jungle, we were on the crater floor. The sun was hot in the open and we made our way across the crater, stopping to view various steam vents up close.









One side of the crater is smooth, pahoehoe. The other side is rough, aa. They are separated by a ridge in between, where I would guess the fountains of lava sprung in the 1970's. Ascending the south crater wall was comparable to Susan's gym's stairmaster. We had both broken into sweats upon reaching the rim. We returned via the west crater rim, still on the Kilauea Iki trail, within the rainforest jungle. Somewhere along the trail, I was stung by a large black bee on the back of my left arm. It was one of the most painful stings I've experienced. First, two sharp pains, followed by intense burning. Once it swelled up to the size of a golf ball on my arm, it began to feel extremely warm. This was followed by cycles of pain for most of the rest of the day, decreasing in intensity. The following day, it felt like a mosquito bite. We also came across a small family of Hawai'ian pheasants, one male and two females, on the trail back to the car.


Upon completing the 4 mile loop hike in about an hour and a half, we drove to Jaggar Museum and checked out the huge Kilua Crater from the view point. We also went through the museum, which was very informative.


We left the park and preceded further down Hwy 11, just past mile marker 30, and up a road to Hawai'i Volcano Winery. We sampled their wines and found them surprisingly good, especially their locally grown Symphony Dry and the dessert Macadamia Honey wine.

Not wanting to waste one last opportunity to go to Kapalana, we drove straight from the winery to our favorite black sand beach. The sun was intense and the surf was a bit more rough, but we had a fantastic time sun bathing and swimming. On the drive back, we took a narrow, one lane road in order to return to Hwy 130. In the middle of the jungle, we ran into a small artist residence, where Eddy, a mainland transplant, made Easter Island style Tiki's. We talked to Eddy for 30 minutes before moving on down the road and driving to Waipi'o. We got caught in a bit of rush hour traffic in Hilo around 3:30PM. Susan was getting very nervous we wouldn't make it to Waipi'o Artworks Gallery in time to get our directions and entry to the Cliff House. The drive out was again, beautiful, Hawai'ian style. The highway crosses numerous small canyons where waterfalls tumble on your left and bays open to the ocean on your right. We made it to the gallery just in time, at about 10 minutes to 5PM. We picked up our directions and a garage door opener for entry through the secured gate. We were greeted by chickens, horses and a cute black cat. Susan and I ran into the house, used the bathroom, took a fast look around, and hopped back in the car in order to return to Honoka'a, the nearest town with services, so we could pick up groceries for the house. Once back at the house, we grilled grass fed, local Hawai'ian rib eye steaks, Molakai sweet bread, mustard cabbage (we never had this before), scalloped potatoes out of a box (for the convenience factor, but they were delicious) and fresh fruit cocktails made in a blender. We had pina coladas and papaya coladas. We retired after dinner to Dish TV.

The Cliff House deserves it's own description. It's literally on a cliff, 1000 feet above the ocean. Great views from the front room and kitchen, a deck viewing east and north, two full bedrooms and a full bath....I couldn't believe we were staying here and made Susan double check that we had the right place. And it even comes with its own black cat! There are lots of bugs out here, and bees have currently invaded the bathroom wall (we'll be calling Richard later today, just to let him know....even with my anxiety of being stung after yesterday, we aren't going anywhere!).




We woke up sporadically throughout the night, but not from lack of a good rest.....only so we could continue to check out the changing view. The moonrise this morning, a small crescent, was unbelievable. The dark side of the moon was very visible, as there is no, I mean zero, light pollution on this part of the island.

Driving, Driving, Driving

Today was an adventure in the car, but we did get to see a lot of the coast on the Mauna Loa side of the island. Our plan was to go to the black beach of Puna Lu'u, sit in the sun for the morning, and then return to Volcano National Park for the afternoon, evening and night.

Puna Lu'u was beautiful, but not as secluded or as inviting as the black sand beach near Kalapana that we enjoyed on our first day. In fact, we merely stopped there and viewed the beach and the ruins of the old pier which was destroyed during WW2 in order to prevent the Japanese from landing there. Since it was still early, we challenged ourselves and preceded south on the road, up the mountain through a beautiful little town untouched by tourist trappings, through a giant lava flow and around the southern tip of the island into South Kona. South Kona is pristine island farm land where they grow macadamia nuts and Kona Coffee. The views from the road, and the houses on the steep mountainside are spectacular and we considered making South Kona a destination on our next trip to the island. Be warned, the island is so young here, there are very, very few beaches. It's almost exclusively rocky shore. We stopped at a small and quaint farm on the side of the road called South Kona Fruit Stand that was selling fresh fruit.

We bought a dragon fruit and a guava as well as fresh passion fruit lemondade which was delicious.


We headed down the road and took the coastal exit to The Place of Refuge where we toured a park featuring the old Hawaiian king's palace, temples and tiki gods.




It was a very quiet and spiritual area on the coast, even with a tourist bus there. Mark Twain had visited the village and described watching the king sun himself on the rocks.





The park looked like a post card or maybe that Corona commercial. Even with all the people there, sea turtles floated in the bay. We headed back up the hill to the highway and proceeded down the road a few miles before stopping at the Kona Coffee factory for some of the best espresso I've ever tried. It had kick without any of the jitters.

There was also an amazing view of the coast and the factory below and I read up on what makes the Kona Coffee cherry so rare and special....one, it's round instead of flat. Also, a branch only produces one cherry that is this round shape and this is known as the peaberry and comprises about 3% of the total harvest. No wonder the coffee from here is so expensive. We could see the drying of the cherries occuring below us on a huge cement deck. We headed down the coast a bit further to Kulai where we attempted to find a beach where none really exist.



We ended up at the Sheraton, first at a public access bay and then actually in their swimming pool. Susan is great at pushing me to do things I'm a bit uncomfortable with at first. It's almost always rewarding in the end. We swam in the pool, which meandered through the hotel grounds with water chutes and water falls and also drank a couple of very refreshing and very expensive pina colatas. After swimming, we were getting hungry and thirsty and decided to head into downtown Kulai to get some food and drink. Once we arrived, we realized it was very developed and very busy with tourists. Parking on the street was impossible and this wasn't the vacation Susan and I were trying to find, so we headed out of town without stopping and up the road hoping to stop at a small town market for a snack and water. No luck there. We were well on our way to the junction with Saddleback road when we realized we would have to go an additional 10 miles on to Waimaia in order to get anything to satiate us. We weighed it out, along with the warnings that we read in our book about the desolation, bleakness and difficulty traveling the Saddleback, before finally deciding we were going to go for it and travel over the Saddleback, between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa and back into the Hilo side of the mountain. At the start of the journey the road was rough, steep and very narrow and I was a bit concerned. But after a half an hour or so, it plateus out into an army base and the highway opens up and is easy to travel on. We saw peacocks and a very rare Hawai'ian owl as we traveled over the pass. Upon reaching the top the vegetation changes back into the eastern side jungles and it's a nice yet windy drive back down into Hilo. We had a great and reasonable sushi dinner in Hilo. Our favorites were the ahi and salmon sashimi and the Bay City Roll which was scallop in a roll with their special sauce and melted cheese over the top....very unusual. We returned to Volacano National Park well after dark, hoping to see some glowing lava, but had no luck. We even walked down the Kiluah Iki trail for five minutes in the dark and peered over the lookouts, but could only make out mist and a small light on the other side of the rim. I was scared, Susan was disappointed, but we headed back home and turned in for the night, hoping to return and do the trail the next morning once the sun comes up.

Karmic Payback Ain't a Bitch

We woke up at sunrise. The light was streaming through the tops of the rainforest and the birds were singing. Peter's basket of fruit and pastries was delightful. We snacked on papaya and a Hawai'ian scone. Susan made us a bagel with banana and honey for later and we took the hard boiled eggs with us for the day as well. First stop was the village of Volcano. It's quaint, with just the basics; a couple of restaurants, a gas station and small market, and a few bed and breakfasts and arts and crafts stores scattered throughout the jungle. There's also a couple of workshops and schools. On Peter's recommendation, we went to his friend Ira's Volcano Garden Art Center.....and it was awesome. Ira curates the gallery which meanders through his outdoor garden and from room to room in the house. He's also done a fantastic job with the grounds.

There are large sculptures, hidden shrines, a "natural" room created by a grove of pine trees planted by the former owner (where weddings take place), and Ira's goat, Ernest, keeps the grass mowed.

Ira gave us carrots to feed Ernest, who seemed to really like us and wanted to play by butting us with his little devil horns, and standing up on two legs. There were also little lizards all over his yard, sunning on rocks. Susan picked out a beautiful platter that looked like lava with a leaf impression in it. Ira assured us it was not the real thing, that it was made from concrete to look like it. We're well aware of the curse of taking things from the island, and didn't want to flirt with any of that, especially after our adventure yesterday. Susan also picked out a small turtle carving and a small frog carving for us to take home. Ira's store is beautiful and his prices are very reasonable....and he's a very nice man.

We left from Volcano towards the park, finishing our bagel and eggs on the way. It only cost $10 to enter the park and your pass is good for a week. We checked out the visitor center, which had a lot of great educational displays on the history of the island, the animals and plants that have made it their home, and the volcanos. We were feeling a bit soar from the day before's hike, so we decided to take it easy on our first day in the park.

We first did the short Thurston Lava Tube hike. It's very interesting and spectacular. It's basically a tunnel running through the jungle for a couple of hundred yards. It's easy to imagine lava flowing through it. We were both reminded of Gilligan's Island. Maybe I'm being a total tourist, but I believe they did a great job capturing the look and vibe of polynesian islands for the show.

Next, we began heading down the slopes of Mauna Loa towards the coast. A short ways down, we took a detour in order to check out the Halina Pali Overlook. It's a striking 9 mile drive out to it.

You pass through forest, which slowly thins into vast lava fields. Meadows also dot the landscape and you have to drive slow in order to avoid the possibility of running over the endangered Nene. We were fortunate to see a pair of them.

Susan and I joked about the couple being on their own honeymoon. Time seems to be slowing while we're here and I have no idea how long it took us to get to the overlook....maybe 25 minutes, maybe an hour. But it doesn't matter. Rounding the last turn and seeing the overlook is an amazing experience. Easily one of the best views of the earth we have ever experienced. You're about 4000 feet above sea level looking out upon the ocean. The coastline stretches for tens of miles in either direction...I would guess that you can see 50 miles, maybe more of the shore. You can also see where the lava is entering the sea again. It's very isolated in this part of the park and we only saw one other couple and some tents at a campsite. We're definitely considering camping here on our next trip to the island. Plus, you can't beat $7 a day for a place to sleep on the island.

The drive back to the main road was slow and beautiful and we saw our friends, the Nene, one more time. Then we continued down the slope, passing lava flows from 1973 and 1974, more viewpoints (we stopped at most of them) and views of the new mountain, Mauna Una (1970!!). We passed on the petroglyphs, only because we needed to find a bathroom, and made our way to the end of the road. I recognized that this is probably the location of old footage I have seen where lava is slowly inching across the highway on the coastline. You literally walk right to it and then over the flow to a viewpoint where we could see the other side of the lava flowing into the sea. Again, very beautiful. You can also look up the slope and see steam rising out of fissures. At night, the hillside glows (we witnessed it the night before from the other side) and this is probably the better view to witness the side of the mountain "on fire."

We were getting hungry again and also wanted to pick up supplies for the room so we drove back out of the park and back to the town of Pahoa where we had noticed a couple of local grocery stores. There, we picked up some Trader Vic's Silver Rum (delicious), guava juice, ice, some macadamia nuts covered in chocolate and prepared to go get some takeout Thai food and have a romantic evening in the sanctuary. But on the way back to Hwy 11, we came across a young hitch hiker, maybe 16 years old, who had been standing in the rain for over an hour trying to thumb a ride. We picked him up, trying to return the favor to the island. His name was Stephen and he said he was going to Hilo. Susan looked at me and asked, "How far is Hilo?" I knew she was already thinking we should take him all the way home. It was only about 8 extra miles, a 15 minute drive at the most, and I felt we should take him there as well. We started talking to Stephen and asking about any restaurants he liked in Hilo. He immediately said his favorite was Garden Snack Club. Stephen was a little shy and got quiet after that first outburst for about two minutes, and then he got more excited and started talking about how Garden Snack Club was supposed to be Thai, but it really wasn't Thai at all...it was something unique to the island. He highly recomended the Thai Pizza. We were sold and after dropping Stephen off at his doorstep in Hilo, we headed straight for the restaurant....and Stephen wasn't kidding. Garden Snack Club is amazing! We ordered the Nut Salad and Thai Pizza with Opakapaka (not sure if I'm remembering the name of the fish right), which is somewhat like red snapper. The Nut Salad was a delightful mix of imported nuts from the mainland (I guess this is fancy to the locals) and local greens and fruits. Even though the nuts are cashews and peanuts and walnuts and hazelnuts, all things we get at home, I found the dish to be very hawai'ian tasting. The dressing included pineappe juice and everything was very fresh.

And the Thai Pizza was out of this world....It's nothing like pizza at all. It's more like a quesadilla mixed up with a crepe, except it tastes better than any crepe or quesadilla I've ever had. The crust is different than the middle and very crunchy. The middle was green and spotted and moist and filled with fish and something like a potato and other local vegetables and fruit. And the portions are giant and the prices very reasonable. Susan and I could have split either dish and have been full. Instead, we took a meal home for the next day.

We also began our sit down with their Thai Iced Coffee, which must be made from toasted coconut milk and fine coffee over ice....heaven on earth. We finished our meal by splitting a bowl of their handmade durian-macadamia nut honey ice cream, which also had shredded coconut in it. If Garden Snack Club ever licenses their recipe for this icecream to a company like Ben and Jerry's, they're going to make a fortune.


We drove back to Volcano Rainforest Retreat and made cocktails and soaked in the tub. The frogs were in full effect and again, and we slept very well. We woke up just before dawn, and noticed that it's the one time of day in the rainforest where there is silence....both the frogs and birds take a break. We're looking forward to another beauful day on the island.

Sunday Night to Monday Night

We flew out of PDX at 5:45 on Sunday, the 11th of October....we had a
nice flight to Honolulu, sitting next to a mother and daughter who had
lived there for 17 years. We took a shuttle to Castle Maile Skycourt,
our hotel in Waikiki for the night. We arrived at the hotel at almost
10PM, island time. We were hungry, but even more thirsty for a nice,
tropical cocktail. The concierge said most restaurants were closing
by 10PM, but we could get some snacks at the ABC Market across the
street. We grabbed a bag of chips and marveled at the $10 packs of
cigarettes for sale and then headed straight for the 5th floor hotel
bar. We had 3 Mai Tai's each, which were quite tasty, enjoyed the
rooftop deck with views of the city, and then headed straight back to
our room since our wake up call was at 4:30AM for our 7:00 flight
to Hilo. We had to call a cab in the morning since we weren't able to
give the shuttle 24 hours notice of our departure. The cab ride cost
$33!....but I guess that's the going rate for a cab in Oahu. Our cab
driver was a real treat. Before moving to Oahu, he lived in Rio de
Janeiro, and he was playing Astrud Gilberto in the cab. He also gave us
some great advice about a black sand beach on the Big Island. The sun
just started to come up as we arrived at the airport. It was the
first daylight since we had arrived and I was looking forward to Susan
seeing some of the sights, like Diamond Head. We piled onto our
small, but still comfortable plane and the stewardess said it was
happy hour! Susan had a bloody mary and I had a guava and rum, which
according to the stewardess is a Mai Tai....I'm not so sure about
that, but it was still one of the best cocktails I have ever had. As
we flew out of Honolulu, we saw the city, Waikiki and Diamond Head out
of our window. I couldn't locate the WW2 memorial. Susan's eyes were
huge with excitement, seeing Hawaii for the first time in daylight.
The sun, peaking through the clouds was religious. During the flight,
we passed over Molokai and Maui and landed in Hilo shortly before 8AM.
It was all mist, gray skies and overgrown vegetation everywhere...it
was beautiful and was no disappointment for us, being from Portland,
OR, we love rain. We had already figured out that everyone moves a
bit slower when on island time....everyone except for the baggage
handlers, who put our bags on the carousel for one round, took them
off before anyone on the plane could get their luggage and moved them
to a back office, where once again we had to wait for 15 minutes to
get our luggage as the person who was helping us was back on island
time. After reconnecting with our luggage, we headed to pick up the
rental car. When we looked at our Priceline confirmation, we noticed
that they failed to include which car company we had a car with....no
problem, there's only eight companies on the island and all eight had kiosks right in a row. I started at one end and began to
work my way down. When I get to the second company, Hertz, they tell
me I had a reservation, but it was cancelled on September 8. What?!?
She says, "Don't worry, Priceline does this kind of thing all the
time to get the best rate for themselves." I hit up Dollar and I get
the same thing, except they've actually re-booked and canceled
twice....I finally end up at kiosk #8, Alamo, and they have our car.
We decide to upgrade to a Jeep, which was a great move, and we wait
for about 20 minutes before the lady helping us realizes that the Jeep
they were bringing us had a flat tire and they took it over to the
mechanic, who won't be in until tomorrow. She finds us a second Jeep,
which has been parked 30 feet from us the whole time. We load our
luggage in and by this time, we both need to pee desperately and we
are starving, having not eaten a proper meal since breakfast, the day
before. We drive straight into downtown Hilo in order to find both.
After some trouble due to low blood sugar, we end up at a small, open
air diner, with only locals inside. We each ordered fish and eggs off
the menu. Susan had over easy, I had scrambled.



The fish was mahi mahi
and was so fresh and good, cooked to perfection with a green spice of
some type sprinkled over the top. All of this was on a bed of the
best white sticky rice I have ever had and only cost $7.25! We kicked
around Hilo for an hour or so, exploring some of the local shops.
Susan picked up a couple of Tikis and a necklace and we bought beach
mats. Still trying to get our bearings on the island, we decided to
attempt to locate the place we are staying, Volcano Rainforest Retreat
in the town of Volcano. It's non-stop rain as we head out of Hilo and
up Hwy 11 towards Volcano. It doesn't take us very long before we
find the town of Volcano, which seems to really be more of a
neighborhood and a few shops and restaurants in the middle of the
rainforest. We end up calling the Retreat and get directions from the
owner, Peter and arrive just a few minutes later. I can't even
describe how awesome and beautiful his place is: little gravel paths
meander through the dense jungle to outdoor tubs and showers as well
as cottages. Our cottage is an hexagonal cedar and glass cabin with
360 degree views of the jungle....

even though your neighbors are only
100 feet away, you can't see or hear them through the rain, frogs,
birds and other rainforest sounds. Peter gives us some advice about a
beautiful clothing optional black sand beach in Puna and where to go
to view the lava flowing into the ocean. He tells us to start out for
the viewing site at 6:30PM. We adventure down to the area he
suggests, going from Hwy 11 to Hwy 130 to Hwy 137, where we cruise
beside sugar cane plantations, papaya orchards, mango groves and a
very rough coastine.

We stop in order to get out of the Jeep and take
a closer look at the ocean and immediately spot a giant sea turtle in
the surf.

We also see several indian mongooses crossing the
road...which is pretty rough going, often one lane and not something a
mainlander would call a highway. We're also finally seeing some sun,
although a rainshower seems to still pass by every half an hour or so.
We eventually make our way to the end of the road to a small village
called Kapalana, where we pick up a six pack of Coors and some water.
From there we head back to the beach that Peter recommended along Hwy
137, just after mile marker 19. We make our way down a cliff to the
black sand where half the people are clothed and half are bare. We
hang out in the sun and play in the surf for an hour. It's raw and
beautiful and the black sand is a bit more rocky at the surf and
actually hurts your feet as the waves crash on it. Afterwards, we
head back to Kapalana, change out of our sandles into sneakers, and
head out to see the lava flow. Susan and I had asked the store owner
how far to the lava flow when we were getting beer and she said, "The
trail head is right there, just walk out!" We had also seen a sign
that said, "Lava flow 3 Miles" and since we could see the steam rising
out of the ocean behind a distant jungle, that seemed reasonable.
Even though it was only 3:30, we decided to head out to see lava
dropping into the ocean. We took the path out and it immediately put
us in the middle of a vast lava field that stretched from the mountain
above to the sea on our left. After walking for 10 minutes, the trail
seemed to disappear and we figured that you just had to scramble
across the barren landscape to reach the distant jungle in order to
pick up the path again...and since there was a group of 4 ahead of us,
we figured we were on the right track.

We remarked to each other how desolate and secret this place was...we thought there would be a lot more people out there to see such a natural marvel. After 30 minutes
of scrambling across sharp lava beds, we reached the edge of the
jungle. The four ahead of us decided to hug the coastline, but we had
spotted what we thought was a sign further away from the coast, on the
edge of the jungle...we figured it was marking the trail. Once we got
to it, we scrambled up a hillside to reach the ancient jungle which
had been spared from destruction by the flows. There was an ancient
wall which I later found out was from the 12th century that we walked
along until we found a little traveled path. We basically spent the
next 30 minutes slashing our way through thick underbrush on this path
until it brought us back to the cliff along the ocean.

Again, we marveled at how remote this was and that we expected to see more
people, but kept forging ahead along the cliff. Another 30 minutes of
hiking went by. We even climbed through lava tubes to reach the other
sides of barriers and again through more dense jungle, always
following the steam plume, before finally spying the end of the
jungle, still a mile away. At this point, turning back wasn't an
option. We realized it would be getting dark soon and we didn't want
to making our way along that cliff without daylight....oh, and by the
way, we didn't bring flashlights, cellphones, money or water.
Brilliant, eh? Being a very experienced back country hiker, I was
amazed with our stupidity. So we kept going and actually got pretty
close to the end of the jungle before we finally did come across a
sign, which read "DANGER! DO NOT ENTER THIS AREA! " But we were
blessed, there was an old road leading out of the jungle from the sign
and so we took it, briskly walking as it was getting darker by the
minute. After another 20 minutes, we reached a paved road, where I
guy in a huge construction vehicle passed us and looked down in
amazement...you could see him think, "What are you doing down here?"
But at least, in the distance we could see more cars and a guy
directing parking...now we realized, we had finally reached the
parking lot for lava flow viewing! It was like a Grateful Dead show!
There were thousands of people, vendors selling jewelry, crafts,
flashlights, food, photos and water (which we had no money for). We
asked the parking attendant, "How much further to the viewing point?"
He said, "20 minutes." We felt so stupid, realizing we could have
driven straight here instead of hiking for over two hours across
treacherous terrain and jungle, but knew we had to keep going...we
were not going to give up on this dream! The best part of our
experience earlier, was that we now had the ability to scramble down
the lava field to the viewing point at twice the speed of the other
tourists. We arrived at the viewing point in just over 10 minutes.
It was astounding. In the dusk, we could see lava flowing off the
cliffs and into the sea. The steam plume was glowing as well.

We stuck around for a bit before deciding we better start heading back
before it gets too dark...as we still had a 3 mile walk ahead of us
back down the road to Kalapana. On the way back, we began thumbing
for a ride and a gracious young couple from Seattle eventually picked
us up and brought us back to our car. The bar at the end of the road,
a little tiki hut, was open and we decided we needed a drink after
this experience. I had rum on my mind again. He only had two kinds
of beer and kava. Beer wasn't strong enough for the pain our muscles
were feeling so we asked, "What's kava?" The bartender said it's not alcohol, but it's a bitter, earthy tasting concoction made from the A.W.A. plant, a local traditional elixir, that functions as a pain killer, muscle relaxer and stimulant. Perfect! We split a glass of
that.

It tasted a lot like the opium tea I had 10 years ago...bitter
and earthy. It made our tongues and lips numb made us feel a bit
strange. Lights became brighter, but we weren't "tripping balls" or
anything like that. It also made our muscles feel warm. We headed
home, stopped for mexican food in Pahoa and then eventually back to
the Retreat where we had a nice, late night, hot tub. And slept
harder than I have in a long, long time.