westwestwest: August 2009

So here I am, about to leave America. It's been almost 2 months since I've left home but I feel like it's only now that my trip is beginning. Now I'm truly on my own. I apologize for the lack of updates here, but I've bought myself a new computer and no longer need to rely on other peoples computers to spend hours uploading hundreds of pictures to photobucket. So we'll see if I do a better job now.

This is what I've been up to:

Back together in Seattle. Six hours later we were in Lihue, picking up our car.

Sunrise, 1st Morning, Kitchens Beach. We camped right there on the beach. People kept driving around all night on the beach and in the dunes. Hawaii has a big meth problem.

Exploring up Wialua River and Loop Road.

Swimming under a Opeaka Falls. Two lesbian lovers jumped to their death here. 150' high.

I found a coconut, broke it open and ate it.

Two worlds. Far up on loop road. Camped here too.

Multi-Brittany.

An interesting tree in Kapaa.

Best breakfast: bannana, orange, apple, other fruits, all in coconut milk. mmmm

Tunnel of trees. On our way to Weamea Canyon and the west side.

Red Earth. Slippery when wet.

Fun Roads

Wymea Canyon.

Can't be in Hawaii with out a Hawaiian shirt.

Cool tree, rental car. Polihale State Park.

Polihale Beach. My favorite beach in the world.

Thats west, where I'm going. View from our "tent"

Queen's Bath

Sand is a part of your life here. It gets in your hair, it gets in your ears and nose, you get it in your food and stuck to your body. After a while you don't even care anymore.

Shipwrecks Beach. Guess this cliff was in the movie Fools Gold? I took like 10 minutes to swim back to shore. I can see how so many people get pulled out by the crazy currents and drown. Sorry it's sideways.

Canopy. Loop Road.

Tell me what movie has a part shot right here?

We got our freinds Alex, Summer and Crystal to drive us up into the mounains to this irrigation ditch.

Which turns into an irrigation tunnel.

My floaty popped in the dark.

Finally, daylight, after about 10 minutes of pitch black.

Almost out.

Our friend Kevin told us a story about him doing a different tunnel higher in the mountains during high water and almost drowning when the tunnel started filling with water. Imagine being in a completely dark tunnel about 4ft by 4ft filled with fast moving water up to your nose. He's a real good story teller and one hell of a tour guide.

The wettest spot on earth. 426 inches of rain per year, for real.

Hiking in the mountains and working on my beard.

Lots of frogs in Hawaii. If you pop the sack behind their ears and lick it, you can have a trip, or so I've been told. Dogs eat them sometimes and then act real funny.

Polihale mission II. Kevin took us in his truck to cruise on the west side for the weekend.

Ramblin'

Beach Party. Two mile long beach full of underage kids drinking around huge fires, doing drugs, and driving their huge trucks through the dunes and on the beach. Don't sleep where you could get run over and don't sleep where the sun will come up and fry you before you wake up, or don't even worry about it because most people don't remember where or when they went to sleep anyway.

Big waterfall (out of frame) in the middle of the jungle. Not to be found in any tour book. Koke'e State Park

Back of the truck.

This is the best fruit I have ever eaten. Lilcoy also known as passion fruit.

And that was the last picture I backed up before my camera was lost (stolen), taken only after about one week on the island. I lost about 250 pictures from basically the rest of the time on Kauai, so I'll try to summarize what happen in that time.

After the first week we returned the rental car and put our thumbs to work on the side of the road. The first night without a car, we hiked a mountain call The Sleeping Giant and camped on the top. The moon was only a day or so from being full and hung over the ocean dodging rain clouds and shimmering off the water. The next day we hiked into a beach that is privately owned and as we found out is also haunted. It was a beautiful beach and we had it completely to ourselves since there were several no trespassing signs that kept out all the less adventurous tourists. We set up camp high up on a ridge above deafening beach. Felt real creeped out and then started to hear chanting and bells and drumming coming from an improbable direction. We put the fire out early and went to bed to try and ignore the sounds. In the morning we enjoyed a fresh coconut that washed up on the beach and hiked back out. Didn't really know what to think of the night before until we told someone where we had camped and they told us, surprised that we made it through the night, that the beach was notoriously haunted. And then he told us more specifically about the night marchers that chant and play drums and walk though the back country at night. As the story goes, if you see the night marchers you need to make an offering, like a piece of jewelry or food or anything of value or they will turn you to stone as they pass. In another version, you need to strip naked and bow before them or be turned to stone.

So after that we spent a couple days staying with our friends Alex and Summer at summers house on the north side. Our original plan was to spend two weeks cruising around the island and and then go to Kalalau valley to camp for the last two. So we started looking for a boat ride there since there are no roads that can get even close to the valley and the only other option was to hike 13 miles on one of the highest rated trails for difficulty in the country with overloaded packs. Finding a boat ride proved to be timely and frustrating and with the impending hurricane (which never materialized) we spent frantic days crossing and re-crossing the island following leads on boats going to Kalalau. After one particularly uncomfortable and rainy night only a day before the storm was suppose to hit we decided to stay with a new friend, Caylin who had offered us a detached room at her house on the south side. We stayed there for three nights waiting for the weather and more importantly the surf to calm down. This is where we went to the sea glass beach I wrote about previously.

After living in the lap of luxury, we returned to camping and chasing boat rides. We went back to the north and found someone more than willing to give us a ride the next morning. We camped on Hanalei Bay (the home of Puff the Magic Dragon) and in the morning had short phone conversation with Miles who assured us he would be there in about an hour. We never heard from him again. Discouraged and ready to give up, we got a call from a guy called Franz who had a boat on the south side but wanted twice the going rate for a boat ride to Kalalau. At that point I would have given my left hand for a damn boat ride just so I wouldn't have to look anymore so we told him we would be there at 6am the next morning when the ocean was calm and relatively safe for a 12 ft zodiac. It was a Sunday so there were no busses running and hitching was our only mode of transport. We decided to get back to Caylins' for that night and then it was only a couple miles from there to where we would meet Franz in the morning.

About an hour later, only half way to our destination we got picked up by a Philippino guy named Jim in an old, loud, Honda Accord. We could barely understand his English and once in his car, he proceeded in the wrong direction, saying something about a fish. Always up for an adventure I opted not to say anything and see what happened. A couple minutes later he pulled up to a house with a sign out front that said "Fresh Ahi Tuna". Jim got out and began bargaining with the guy who sold the fish and apparently lived there with his family and some other guy who somehow entered into the bargaining. After a couple minutes, a deal was reached and Jim paid the guy a couple hundred dollars. The fisherman then pulled two 40-something pound tuna from a cooler, cut one in half and loaded it all into the Accords trunk. Jim got back in and I offered him a milky way, which he refused. Still not knowing where he would take us next, because it was very clear that we were still not going in the right direction, we made small talk and tried to understand what he was talking about in his heavy accent. After another short drive, we pulled into his driveway and up to his modest suburban home where his friend Ruben was already cutting up another tuna. We got out and were given a couple coronas while we wondered when we were going to get taken to where we needed to go. Apparently this is what Philipino's do in Hawaii; they go buy about 100 pounds of tuna, make poke and sashimi (raw fish in sauce) and then cook the rest of it and sit around drinking and eating. Eddie came from across the street wearing a "grown here, not flown here" shirt and took over cooking while we ate the sashimi and Ruben pulled out a bottle of Capt. Morgan and began giving us shots. We spent the next several hours eating Philipino fish soup, grilled ahi, raw ahi and drinking beer and taking shots of rum and talking and laughing with these old Hawaiians. Finally we told them we had had a great time but needed to get to where we were staying that night. Jim had even offered to let us stay with him but we declined so Jim and Ruben drove us the last 20 miles to Caylins' place and refused to even accept a couple dollars for gas money. I have to say I was quite impressed by their hospitality, and their cooking. Caylin thought it was funny and we all had a good laugh about the whole thing. Little did we know the next day was going to be just as interesting.

6am. We met Franz, which was a fake name of course, and his freind. Its illegal to drop anyone off on the Na Pali Coast or even come within 200 yards of it with a boat, hence the pseudo name. We loaded into his boat and set out of the harbor in swells easily taller than the boat and anyone in the boat. Every 20 minutes or so we had to stop to pump more air into the boat, you know, so we wouldn't sink. I felt pretty helpless bobbing up and down over the swells but there was no turning back so I gave up my will to the ocean. Even by 7am the wind was picking up and the ocean was getting rougher. I just held onto the rope along the side and tried imagine swimming from where I was to the shore were I would surely be pummeled by waves against the jagged base of some impossibly high cliff. Dolphins were swimming alongside the boat and that helped to ease my worries. About an hour into the trip, Franz pulled up to a cave full of deep blue water that opened up to a ceiling-less hole in the side of the rocky coast. Franz drove the boat though the cave, clearly not sure about what he was doing, and into the cavernous opening. I snapped some quick pictures and admired the geological oddity we were illegally floating in. Not long after, we pulled up to Kalalau beach. The Valley was still far out of sight but it was time to get on dry land. Franz told us to jump out once we hit the sand and pull the boat up onto the beach. 30 seconds later a huge wave took us from behind, spun us sideways and rolled us and the boat like a piece of drift wood. Everything went into the ocean. All four of us scrambled over the beach trying to save anything we could from being swept away, which was almost pointless because no matter how far you would through something up onto the beach, a wave would surely come and sweep it back out. After 30 minutes of this everything was high and dry or drying anyway. Snorkeling goggles helped recover everything that sank. Franz lost some diving things, Brittany I lost some clothes and my I-Pod and Phone were ruined. No one was hurt beside a couple scrapes and a bruise. Franz and his friend left, none too happy, trying to get the boat motor started for several minutes and then putting back out to sea and out of my concern. Later that day my camera was dropped on a trail (apparently at the feet of an unsavory native called Coloni) and never seen again.

Despite the bad luck experienced on that first day in Kalalau, I spent the next 6 six days in absolute paradise. Words can't really describe being there. I know I have seen some incredible places all over the world but nothing can come close to Kalalau Valley, nothing. I can’t really explain it, it’s something one would need to see and experience on their own. And I’ve never eaten so well on a camping trip.
I hiked out on the legendary trail known for constantly killing inexperienced and ill-prepared hikers while Brittany swam out to a boat which brought her back to civilization the safe way. We spent the next two days with our new friends Dario and Trevor fighting off a staff infection and eating large amounts of food. Last night I left Kauai and Brittany. westwestwest I go.

HNL waiting for billon real.