Roof of The World

Ten days on the Garden Isle.

"Holoholo" - to walk, drive or ramble around for pleasure.

In the April 2006 issue of Backpacker Magazine i read an article called "Love on the Rocks" about a newly wed couple's experience hiking the Napali Coast of Kauai. At the time, I never imagined I'd visit Hawaii with the opportunity to hike Na Pali (the cliffs, in Hawaiian). But then, i guess it worked out. Who could have known?

So here I am in Hawaii and in an ironic twist of Cupidless-fate I explore Kauai on my own. But there on the luscious garden isle I discovered love. I discovered beauty, truth, nirvana, and perfect bliss in my solitude. The answer to life's eternal questions is Ryan Hamilton barreling down the coast in his PT Cruiser blasting Everclear into the gentle Hawaiian breeze.

My first night I slept in the car at Spouting Horn on the south shore. Back a single lane road past resorts and parking lots. Picture perfect dead end street. I woke up to a spotlight shinning in my face. Luckily the officer didn't seem to care, turned around and drove on. Here, I'd like to note that camping permits can be obtained from the Lihue State Park Office (808-587-0300). $3 for non-residents and free for those who live in state. I picked up on this later.

I woke early and drove up Waimea Canyon. Mark Twain is falsely credited as naming this "The Grand Canyon of the Pacific". He was in Hawaii, but never visited Kauai. And the actual Grand Canyon wasn't named until just before Twain's death. Nevertheless, it really does look like a little grand.

The sun was just breaching the mountains ahead of me while i started down the Kukui Trail towards the canyon floor. I knew I was the first on the trail this morning as i passed through fresh spiderwebs across the trail. The sound of my footsteps accompanied the farm yard melody echoing across the canyon. In the 80's and 90's two large hurricanes caused the unintended release of Kauai's fighting cock population. Chickens roam the island. The crowing feathered squirrels known as Kauai's broken alarm clock.

After picking up my camping permits in Lihue I drove up the coast towards Hanalei. At Anini beach park I passed the grassy area for camping and continued down the road. A the end of the road (roads are always ending on islands) i found an empty stretch of white sand curving around clear blue shallows. I sat beneath the trees hanging over the beach and waited for sunset. As darkness settled over my little plot of paradise, I quickly learned that my tent stakes wouldn't hold in that soft sandy beach. The stars above seductively suggested clear skies and I laid back on the unfurled tent. Halfway though the night, I learned of my mistake. Rain pelted down through the leaves as I stubbornly cursed and wrapped myself tortilla style in the tent fly. About 4 am, laughing and wet I begrudgingly trekked back to the cruiser.

Writing this now feels cliche, but time began to loose meaning. Sunrise and sunset where the most important events of the day. I set up camp at Ha'ena county beach park. Tunnels reef, within walking distance, kept me in excellent snorkeling every day. A little bakery/cafe in Hanalei kept me supplied with awesome Portuguese sausage breakfast burritos and coffee. Every night I fell asleep to the sounds of Ha'ena park regulars jamming with saxophone, ukulele, and booze under the pavilion. I hiked up to Hanakapiai Falls one morning. At the falls I looked around at a few other hikers as I stripped down to my skibbys and prepared to jump in. Hoping to convey in my look the suggestion they save me if it looked like I needed help.

And then it was time to tackle the hike out to Kalalau Beach. To reach this beach you either need a boat, a helicopter, or the desire to hike 11 miles along the beautiful and treacherous cliffs of the NaPali Coast. Past Hanakapiai Beach, a permit (obtained in advance from Lihue State Park Office by post) is required to hike and camp. I hiked for hours without seeing anyone. Though, there were a lot more people on the trail than I imagined would holoholo out along the cliff hugging switchbacks and talus slopes dropping into a raging turquoise pacific. I spent three days and two nights exploring the caves at Kalalau Beach, Big Pool, Hanakoa Falls and the deep lush valleys where Hawaiians once grew taro on man-made graded levels; the remains of which are still a prominent part of the landscape.

After 22+ miles, wild boars, rain, goats, powerbars, stream crossings, a few close calls, and some serious time to think, I near the trail head. I'm covered in mud, sunburned, sweat pours off my body, I'm still wearing my pack and maybe even a big grin. Two steps from the parking lot, a woman stops me to ask about the trail conditions. Seriously? Go hike! Stop talking to me. A scraggly girl about my age standing nearby overhears our conversation and asks if I liked Kalalau. Then she tries to sell me a DVD about a bunch of hold-outs playing music, hiking, smoking pot, and living in tents on the beach I have just returned from. I can't even really respond. Is this an amusement park? What just happened? Did she really just cheapen my entire life altering religious-like outdoor excursion? Pretty much. But you know what...such is life. Writing about it might do that too. And I really enjoyed my holoholo Kauai.

Check the hikers for scale, bottom left corner. v

so i had to bus in to kapolei this afternoon to buy my housemate a bicycle tire tube. i may be indirectly responsible for his flat tire. but my thoughts begin on the bus ride home. i've wedged myself next to one of those old men who don't like to share seats. so i end up half leaning off the edge of my seat with a backpack on my lap. and i'm stumbling through the library's copy of "The Portable Nietzsche". Some gold, "What, then, is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms - in short, a sum of human relations, which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten..." he continues. but i stop reading to watch the elderly couple seated in front of me. she leans away disgusted and he keeps glancing at short shorts in the aisle. every bus ride is an adventure and an education.