I'm sitting at the Laughing Goat Cafe in Boulder Co ready to summarize my last exciting month. I have been all over the place since my internship ended. The Monday after my last day at work, I boarded a plane destined for Hawaii. The trip from LAX to Honolulu felt like days, but I eventually landed and power walked to find Bubbles waiting for me with a lei and a huge hug. We grabbed my luggage and skipped out. The humidity was unbelievable considering that I had spent the last 2 months in the desert. We drove from Honolulu to Wai'anae where Bubbles lives. Her apartment is about a half mile from the coast, with a fantastic view of the ocean and sunset. We spent the rest of the day at the pool and then enjoying company with friends for the breaking of the fast for Yom Kippor.
Then next morning, Bubbles headed to school, and like a good tourist I headed for the beach. I trekked downhill in my flipflops with a towel, a beach chair and some sunscreen. The sun was already hot, but I was determined to make it and stay the day. I opened my chair, laid out my towel, and laid back with a view of the open Pacific. About an hour passed when I saw a teenaged boy headed in my direction. Skeptical, I smiled but said nothing. He stopped to talk, and my skepticism increased. He told me that the lifeguard wanted to tell me that there had been an earthquake off of Somoa, and there was a tsunami warning for the area. What? Seriously? Yup. For a moment I thought maybe this is just the way Hawaiians try to talk to girls, scare the crap out of them, then say "just kidding!" When the punch line never came, I figured it was time to get the heck out of there. I started the long journey up the hill when a woman in a pickup stopped and offered a ride. I hopped in the bed, and let the wind and sun spread a smile across my face as I thought "this will be fun to blog about."
The next day I visited school with Bubbles. Wai'anae Intermediate is not like any school I've seen. And fittingly, Bubbles is like no teacher I have ever seen. I am impressed with her volition to facilitate a creative and imaginative environment in a place where nobody expects anything of the children and nobody expects a teacher to venture outside the box. The day was both exciting and frustrating as I witnessed my best friend working hard to break the cycle of the status quo, and yet the hammering law of the administration viciously fighting her retaliation.
With the tsunami warning and a day at school, I clearly needed another attempt at the beach. This time, I had bubbles drop me off at 6:45 on her way to work, and I planned on staying there until she finished work at 3:30. With my SPF 30, a towel, chair and umbrella, I was ready to go. I spent the first few hours napping, reading and playing in the sand. I drew all sorts of sea creatures and messages that live only in pictures after they were reabsorbed by the water. Around noon, I unpacked my lunch and began to much under the umbrella. A lifeguard doing rounds at the beach stopped by to check in, and asked if I had ever been snorkeling in Hawaii. I shared with him that unfortunately no, I've never had the opportunity. And then, you know what he did? He told me he was about to take a break and he had two pairs of snorkels. And he suggested that we go. Next thing I knew, I was paddling a rescue board out into the open ocean with a snorkel, my camera, and Abe. We paddled to turtle rock, about 300 yards out from the coast. It was hard to remember to breathe through the snorkel, because I just wanted to laugh and yell uncontrollably about how amazing this was. There were about 10 sea turtles on the underwater rock and they were swimming only about 10 feet below us. They had no fear whatsoever, just floating around and letting the fish eat the algae off of their shells. We paddled around, and found schools of tropical fish. I wiggled my toes to look like food, and they swam around nibbling my feet. I'm grateful for Abe and his suggestion, as well as my compulsive need to take any suggestion offered, because this is where it lead me.
As a gift, Bubbles had bought us plane tickets to go to Kauai, one of the more remote islands. It was really just a hop skip an d a jump away, as it took us longer to go through the check in process and security than we spent flying. The view of the island was spectacular as we came in. Enormous green mountains with fog around the peaks erupted out of the water, with a skirting of white beaches. We found a place to rent a car, and drove to the Coconut Festival. We spent the afternoon walking around sampling Hawaiian spices and looking at jewelry and local hand made crafts. From there, we drove to the north end of the island, via the road traveling east. There is only one main road, and it makes a semi circle around the island. The northern coast is not navigable by vehicle, only by foot because of the sheer cliffs into the ocean. The eastern side is much more tropical and lush than the west, because of the rain. Which is what we encountered on our drive. The mountains were covered in trees and gushing with waterfalls in the drizzle. We got to the end of the road to find a beach with a trail leading up into the cliffs. We blatantly ignored the hazard of hiking on a cliff in the rain, simply because we could not resist the opportunity to find where the path led. We hiked for about a quarter of a mile before we saw the potential danger, and snapped a few prize pictures before traveling back down to swim in the bay.
Our plan was to camp somewhere on the island, but we arrived too late on a Friday to be able to buy a camping permit. Rather than risk the $200+ fine of camping without a permit, we stayed at a hostel in Kapa'a and spent the evening dripping in humidity and sweat and singing disney songs alone in the dormitory. The next morning we rose early to head to the eastern side of the island to hike on the other side of the cliffs. Our walk started near a canyon, known as the grand canyon of the pacific. We walked through the woods until we came to a clearing that gave us the most spectacular view I have seen of the ocean. We were standing on the edge of a cliff that rivaled Angel's Landing, staring at the ocean. To put things in perspective, we saw helicopters flying tours of the coastline below us. The ocean was a spectacular blue, scarred with sporadic white lines of motor boats. We climbed a few risky rocks and took a few fantastic pictures before hiking back to the car. We napped for a short while, and continued on to meet up with a friend for the night.
Bright and early the next morning, or rather, dark and early the next morning, we woke up and headed back to Kapa'a for a kayaking adventure. We watched the sun rise over the ocean as we waited for the owners of the tour to arrive so we could purchase our spot on the trip. They arrived on Hawaii time (20 minutes late) and we headed out shortly after. As the only two with kayaking experience, we took the lead and journeyed upriver towards secret falls, our destination. The river narrowed and narrowed until we had to dock our boats on a root, lash them together and head into the woods to hike. Bubbles and I thoroughly enjoyed hopping from rock to rock, balancing on roots and humoring the other tourists with some of our stories. When we finally arrived, I wasted no time at all stripping to may bathing suit and board shorts and paddling up to the falls. The rest of the crew quickly followed suit, and we spent about an hour splashing and climbing on rocks. Hiking back to the kayaks, we took the long route, lost a few tourists but found them again, and made our way back to the boat launch. It was a fantastic adventure, and we completed our Kauai adventure at a beach where we tossed the disc in the waves until it was time to catch the plane back to the city.
Although our planes departed from the same airport for the same destination at the exact same time, we were not on the same flight, so we hugged and said goodbye late wednesday night at the airport. I spent the entire flight with a blanket over my head sleeping and arrived in LA at 5 the next morning. Taryn picked me up and we swapped stories and began our planning for our adventures to come.
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