5 posts tagged “hawai'i”

II.  So it Begins

We drove to the base of the hiking trail.  Actually we drove to a small road and then hiked to the base of the hiking

trail. The road itself led to a golf course and country club and they didn't allow smelly hikers near their manicured parking lots.  It was about a half mile over paved road to the actual start of the trail.  The first part of the trail was a simple walk through wooded jungle.  It had rained that morning and the mud was a little slippery but nothing at all we hikers couldn't handle.  This went on for a quarter mile or so slowly but surely the trail began to wind uphill.  This is normal if made slightly more tricky by the slick mud.  "Now this," thought I, "is hiking."  a little further up we came to a windswept area of evergreen trees where the ground was covered in a carpet of dead needles.  There was a break in the canopy and a lookout point where we could see far we'd already come.  "This indeed," thought I, "is hiking."  Not long after the evergreens, the trail narrowed significantly.  It also became steeper, did I mentioned the ground was wet and was really slick?  I was wearing honest to God trail shoes and was still slipping all over the place.  Rebar was not, and had an even tougher time of it.  "No problem," thought I, "Don said this was EASY and would only take 45 MINUTES.  How long has it been?"

It's worth mentioning at this point that I've become fond of a television show called "Man vs. Wild,"  This is a show in which the host, Bear Grylls, gets dumped off into the ass end of nowhere and is left to find his way back to civilization on his own.  It is similar to Survivorman except it has a better name and Bear is a better host than Les, in that he whines much less.  So I've been watching this show for a while and thinking to myself, "Bear is just dreamy I'll bet he's having a lot of fun out there not eating for days at a time, then having to eat bugs and live trout he just caught with his bare hands."  This is part of the reason I was so hell-bent on going hiking.  Because Bear went hiking in hawai'i too, and I wanted to be just like him. 

The path continued to get steeper and narrow.  It also became rockier.  Many places we had to use branches or the rocks themselves to get up and over them.  The idea of a trail was left some way behind us.  Now there were only sharp rocks and branches and vines.  All of which were wet because it had rained and thus made this much harder.  I found myself starting to wonder exactly what we had gotten ourselves into.  I also wondered how we were going to come down with the rocks as slick as they were.  The mud was caked in our boots, and by this point we were both puffing a bit.  Don asked us repeatedly how we were doing but I couldn't possibly show a sign of weakness.  I just thought to myself What Would Bear Do and soldiered on.

Then came the ropes.  The ropes that Don had apparently come to show us.

We reached a point on the trail where it went from hiking to rock climbing.  The rocks were too step to climb up using branches and what-not so someone had had the great idea of leaving some ropes tied off to various trees and rocks to get up this part of the trail.  "This," thought I, "isn't hiking anymore."  This was one of the hardest parts of the climb.  To be honest, I thought Rebecca was going to throw in the towel.  She had come to Hawai'i to lay on beaches and drink fruity drinks with umbrellas in them, not haul herself up the side of a mountain.  But to her credit, she powered through and made it up with us.  From here on, almost everything on the trail was very narrow, very steep, and really scary.  The trail was nearly vertical after the rocks that actually were vertical.  After the ropes, the climb was pretty much nothing short of torturous.  I cut my hands up climbing the rocks and had a few near falls that could have ended very badly for me.  Don said he remembered only one set of ropes and that rest of the trail should be a cinch.  Even weighed against what listening to him had brought us, we continued the ascent, a move hereafter referred to as FOIBLE TWO (2).

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I. Prelude to Sorrow

One of the things highest on my 'to do' list while in Hawai'i was that I really wanted to go hiking.  Hiking is an exercise that I enjoy and have been known to do my own free will.  This sets it apart from almost every other forms of exercise because, generally, I would rather put live bees in my mouth than walk to the fridge.  Hiking though, there is something exotic and wholly unexcersizemenly about it.  So hiking was foremost on my list of things I wanted to do.  This desire, herein referred to as FOIBLE, proved to very nearly spell the undoing of everything I hold sacred.

First let me explain something, I'm in rotten shape.  You know how some people who really aren't in rotten shape but they say they're in rotten shape and you just sit there and think, 'you are NOT in rotten shape.'  I'm not one of those people.  I'm more like one of those people who says they're in rotten shape and you think to yourself, 'tell that to twinkie no. 4.'  Please direct your attention to the visial aides at the beginning and end of this paragraph for a before and after comparison.  I think I need say no more.  Doubtless climbing up mountains is best left to people who are in a shape that is not round.

At any rate, upon landing in our host home we noticed a giant mountain viewable from the back lanai (that's Hawaiianese for porch).  It stood dauntless and proud like a giant, a big green triangular giant.  Little did we know that before the passing of a fortnight this giant would become our immortal enemy locked in a struggle that would take several hours and leave us wishing for death's sweet embrace.  It was called Olomana (which is ancient Hawaiianese for "big fuckoff mountain").  We called it many other things before the week was out.  Still, it makes for a nice view off your back lanai-porch.

Don, our host, on hearing us (read: me) talking about how I wanted to go hiking told us that it was a beautiful hike up Olomana and that it was EASY and WOULD ONLY TAKE ABOUT 45 MINUTES.  Even though it might seem I'm leaving it a little ambiguous, I am, in fact, drawing attention to these words that Don used.  We'll be referring back to them later.  He also said if we were going to hike one mountain in Hawai'i, we should make sure that it was Olomana.  He went on to tell us that the ticket price paid for the entire mountain but we'd only need the edge.  This went on all week and secretly I kept looking at Olomana when we would drive by it on the windward side of the island and think to myself, "I'm gonna mess you up."  So by the time Hiking day happened, we opted for Olomana over something easier.  Don even offered to go with us as a sort of taskmaster guide and to show us the ropes.  If I had any idea how true that would be, I probably would've tried to chew my way out of his house in the night. 


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The public transportation in Hawai'i is called (ceremonially and officially), "The Bus."

I'll be dropping these updates about the Hawai'i trip intermittenly over the next few... indetermiate measures of time.  Even though I'm starting at the begining I'll be doling them out in nonlinear form.  Pictures will accompany for those who visitors who may be illiterate.

We spent all of monday traveling so there's very little to comment on besides the interior of America's airports.  While that might seem to make for a very interesting coffee table book, it would only be suitable for the living room of a very BORING family.

We arrived in Honolulu at roughly 5pm.  Which to us felt like 11pm at night.  Interest in a new place and all therigamroll associated with getting off a plane kept fatigue at bay.  We got our rental car, and proceeded to get lost in Honolulu for roughly a half hour.  Funny thing about islands, not a lot of roads.  They road they do have are stacked on top of one another, something to do with limited space.  After missing several turns and seeing the same Buddist parochial school three times we finally made it onto the main drag that crosses O'ahu.  It's a pretty drive.  Of course, saying something is 'pretty' in Hawai'i is like saying something is 'covered in ice' in Antarctica.  We were soon to discover that taking lovely pictures in Hawai'i was like catching herpes in a women's prison.  Note:  The picture to the right was not taken by either of us, but stolen borrowed without permission from someone else.  It's just there to illustrate a point.

We met up with our hosts and got settled in.  Then we all decided to have dinner together.  Game for something local, we went out for a plate lunch.  This was new on me but I'd heard of such things.  For the uninitiated it's some form of meat entree served with two ice cream scoops of white rice and a scoop of macaroni salad.  So it goes protein, starch, starch, starch mixed with mayonnaise.  In retrospect, it's not hard to understand why the State hero is this guy.  The local version of the plate lunch is kalua pig.  This is basically just slow roasted pork, traditionally cooked in an underground oven using fired rocks.  As an original southerner and aspiring barbecue judge, this obviously appealed to me.  And I am here to report, without reservation, that slow-cooked pork is the undisputed King of All Foods. 

After dinner we visited with our hosts for a while, made small talk, and wondered at their amazing house.  Then we sacked out to begin our adventure proper the next day...

...but that is another story.

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We are both officially back from Hawai'i.  For those of you losers who've never been, HAHA.  For those of you losers who have: it rules, does it not?  We took some pictures while we were there.  There will be more pictures and stories of the island of O'ahu forthcoming.  Keep it locked.  'Til then, check these out:

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