Aloha, baveblog readers! Any time you travel twelve hours to get to your vacation destination, you should expect to encounter new things, gain insights, or just wonder at your mental state and/or the world around you. Hawaii has provided all of that for me.
Hawaii has never been on my list of vacation spots. For one, I sunburn easily, so whatever spiritual and psychological respite offered by the tropics would be offset by at least some physical pain. Perhaps I could frame my tropical vacation as some sort of quasi-religious pilgrimage. Anyway, my aunt had booked the hotel 1.5 years ago. Since then, she and her husband divorced. She kept the hotel room and invited my mother to come, and then impulsively invited me. If someone invites you to spend ten days in Hawaii with them, you don’t say no. And thanks to the interconnectedness of today’s modern world, I’ve been able to do my job from the balcony of my hotel each morning, while I drink coffee and take in the sunrise over the Pacific Ocean.
It sounds like paradise, but as I write this, my legs are covered with mosquito bites and a pretty rosy sunburn. Also, there are large flying cockroaches on Hawaii, and by definition, if there are large flying cockroaches here, then it is not exactly paradise.
Beauty abounds everywhere, and yet I do want to comment on my disaster-fantasizing frame of mind around various moments along my vacation path. It’s either inherent to my personality, or I read too many dystopian novels and watch too many disaster movies. Standing underneath the waterfall with my aunt, it was all I could do to force myself to not imaging a rock tumbling off the cliff above to knock me on my head. At least you can’t read my thoughts from the pictures! Sometimes you just gotta embrace life and take those leaps of faith that all will be well.
Things I’ve done while here: Visited a coffee plantation to see where the magic begins; visited a cacao farm to see the same; watched the sun rise; watched the sun set; gone out on a catamaran up the Na Pali coast (where we saw bottle-nosed dolphins and spinner dolphins); gone snorkeling; drove out to find a waterfall; went to a farmers market, where we picked up a bag full of things we’d never heard of; kayaked up a river then hiked to a waterfall; swam in the pool at the base of said waterfall then stood under it with my aunt; floated in the Pacific Ocean on my back; drove up and down the highway along the coast and marveled at the wild proliferation of dramatic and beautiful plant life.
In talking to the locals, I learned that the cacao farmer and the kayaking guide were both transplants from other states. It’s always interesting to speak to people who make dramatic moves (and moving to Hawaii is a pretty extreme step). You’re so isolated here, and it’s such a small space geographically. Kauai, the island that we are on, is 533 square miles, but of course a lot of the landmass is mountainous or otherwise not habitable. The population as of the 2010 Census is ~67,000. The kayak guide told me that people here speak about politics, but “in low decibels,” and they speak about it while looking the other person in the eye. The blustering and incompetence of Trump and all the chaotic protests feel very far away right now. There’s an obvious appeal to that.
That said, we have three more full days here, then we return to the mainland. Back to life, back to reality. From there, I spend two days in LA, then I fly back home.
This looks gorgeous. I’m extremely envious of your trip. That is one place I wouldn’t mind visiting one bit.
“I’ve been able to do my job from the balcony of my hotel each morning, while I drink coffee and take in the sunrise over the Pacific Ocean.” – That did it for me. Sounds like paradise, honestly. Is there anything better than a cup of coffee and a view that puts you at ease, all the while your mind races thinking about how such a thing is possible?
I can almost see and feel what it must have been like.