Aloha, Unknown Beauty!

Tags

beach, Hawaii, hiking, islands, misperceptions, Polynesia, sun, vacation

We put Hawaii aside in our minds years ago, dismissing it as a destination for people who didn’t like to be as active as we did. Old people, we thought. Maybe corporate conventioneers. Let’s use our fit and functional years to climb steep paths and take 15-hour flights and sleep in tents and apply for difficult visas, we reasoned. Hawaii will be there when we can no longer do all those things, when we want to go sit on a beach with an umbrella drink in hand.

What changed? I don’t know really; all of a sudden, we just got an urge to see Hawaii. It helped that our adventuresome son had recently raved about his trip, our lively parents had loved the place, and so many of our energetic friends had returned multiple times to the islands.

So, no, we didn’t get old or lazy, but we did have two big birthdays to observe early this year and had narrowed our celebration spot to Namibia or Hawaii (slightly different choices, I know!). Hawaii won.

We’re so glad it did. And we were so wrong in our previous thinking. Maybe some people hang out on beach chairs sipping tropical cocktails for a week in Waikiki, but we were able to find more than enough to do on two of the lush, green islands that make up this chain of volcanic dots in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

We started on Oahu. With the main Hawaiian airport, skyscrapered Honolulu, jam-packed Diamondhead, and yes, clichéd Waikiki on its shores, Oahu was routinely dissed by many friends who gave us travel advice. It’s too urban, too touristy, too congested, many tsk-tsked. But a close friend who knows Hawaii well convinced us to head directly out of Honolulu upon landing and hightail it to the quieter North Shore. A little research turned up more hiking options there than almost anywhere else in the islands, and we spent four days in an area with very little of the built-up feel of the southern shore or the other islands with strips of resort hotels.

We passed our days on a series of coastal trails, among them a long, sandy stroll to the northern tip, Kahuku Point;

a rough, windy walk out to far-west Kaena Point;

and a pine needle-laden path to a huge, old banyan tree and on to a World World II pillbox near Kawela Bay.

We ate from a shrimp truck, a local sandwich shop, and a 68-year-old shave ice stand in surfer-town Haleiwa while we admired the surfboards (and a few surfers, too – sorry, J) standing up against many a brightly-painted building. We watched those colorful boards in action, too, at the Banzai Pipeline, where young and old alike unfolded their tanned torsos in the curl of a huge wave pounding toward shore.

Our next stop was the Big Island, this one recommended by many who had found the land mass the most ecologically diverse and the “real Hawaii,” as we heard more than once. The first claim was easy to prove: in the next four days, we drove from lava fields to verdant gardens to ranch lands to desert scrub to one of the most serene and stunning beaches we’d ever seen. And back again, more than once, through these variations.

As we had on Oahu, we sought out some small communities, like Volcano Village, a street of about ten buildings near Volcanoes National Park, where we stayed in an old YMCA camp-turned-inn. After last year’s eruption of Kilauea, the world’s most active and dangerous volcano, parts of the crater rim drive were devastated and the breathtaking lava lake at Halema’uma’u crater collapsed and drained, leaving a vast field of dried-up, smoking lava.

The effects of Kilauea’s huge 1959 eruption are still eerily visible as well, making the visit to the park both mind-blowing and a little disappointing (in spite of our good fortune that its federal employees had kept it open during the government shutdown).

We also particularly enjoyed tiny Hawi on the northern edge of the island, where we caught an impromptu hula performance by a group of senior citizens and ate at a kitchsy restaurant that was part of Hawi’s rebound from ghost-town status in recent years. Near here, we took our steepest hike of the trip, picking our way slowly down a pitched, root-strewn path into the Pololu Valley that started with this panoply of warnings:

We felt secure enough in our footwork (and stayed hard to the non-cliff side!) and were rewarded with a misty, black sand beach … and then the long climb back up and out. It was the workout we were looking for, and the views may have been the most remarkable of the trip.

A shorter down- and uphill trail took us through the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden just outside Hilo. Given its internet presence and lofty name, I expected a major tourist attraction but was very pleasantly surprised to drive in on a 1½-lane, S-curve road and find a magical oasis that was the result of one man’s 8-year effort to clear and replant this Onomea Valley hillside in the late 70s.

We had our nicest dinner of the trip in crisp and cool Waimea, Hawaii’s higher-elevation ranchland that felt a little bit Outback, a little bit Texas in its look and spirit. We made the drive from sea level to 3000 feet and back a couple of times, never tiring of the vistas in either direction.

On the Kohala coast, we happened upon the Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail, a 175-mile network of seaside walking paths that ran near our hotel. After hiking the section nearby, we re-joined the trail twenty miles down the coast toward Kona a few days later, where we wandered through Kekaha Kai State Park one morning.

We picked our way through clots of hardened lava for several long, hot slogs, rounding a corner every once in a while to a new viewpoint where, I must admit, I found myself saying “Oh, it’s just another beach.”

Nine days in paradise may have made me sound jaded, but Hawaii is far from ho-hum. There are so many brilliant flowers, so much ambrosia-like pineapple and other fruit, and so many postcard-perfect palm trees bowing down to white sand beaches that I can barely imagine the days when I thought it would be an uninspired destination.

I never really thought about the fact that I could stay in the U.S. and be in Polynesia at the same time, surrounded by South Pacific motifs and visages, Aussie and Kiwi accents, and signs and menus in Japanese, to mention just a few of the cultural treats throughout our travels. We made a point to try and see the “real Hawaii,” on two feet as much as we could, and we think we succeeded. We ate breakfast with barefooted surfers on the north coast of Oahu, had to nix a hike when the only parking was in a seedy neighborhood crawling with cop cars, and missed getting some musubi at a 7-11 when a guy out front decided to take his pants off, scaring us off.

But we also stayed at a couple of beautiful oceanfront hotels, watched the sun rise and set over palm trees and limpid seas, swam in the ocean, and drank coffee in a warm and breezy open-air restaurant every morning.

We spent our last day in … yep, Waikiki, and we loved the whole loud, lit-up place. J wore the Hawaiian shirt his dad brought back decades ago, I wore more sundresses in a week and a half than I have in years, and one day at the pool, wearing the pink and orange flowered flip-flops gifted by the hotel, I ordered my own tropical umbrella drink with no shame at all. Mahalo, beautiful state – we will be back for more!

Beyond Baobabs

Tags

AFRICA, baobabs, Indian Ocean, islands, lemurs, Madagascar, sailboats, sailing

“Why Madagascar?” I ask Lisa when she suggests I visit during her four-month anchorage off the coast of this Indian Ocean island. I’m thinking I might wait until one of her next few stops, in South Africa or maybe Namibia, to parachute into her floating world for a brief stay. But baobabs, the thick, upside-down African trees I’ve seen once before, are one quirky draw, and I am eager to interact in the wild with lemurs, the tiny primates that live only in Madagascar. Beyond the unique flora and fauna, however, I know little about this poor island nation and am unconvinced I should spend thousands of dollars and many days of my time to get to it for a week or so this summer.

I let the idea languish until I try to explain to my sister one day why I can’t get the idea out of my head. By then, I’ve found flights both ways using miles, devoured all the links Lisa has sent on the country, and read her enthusiastic reviews of Nosy Be, the biggest island off the northwest coast of Madagascar. I hang up feeling I have convinced my sister I should go … and then wonder why on earth I haven’t booked it yet! I lock it down that afternoon.

A few months later, I land in Hell-ville, the only real city on Nosy Be, meet Lisa and The Captain for the first time (a story in itself), and am whisked to their sailboat for the next week. I tried hard to include parts of the main island in my visit, but even though I am a pretty brave solo female traveler, everything I read says it is a very bad idea to try getting around there on my own. Once on the boat, listening to The Captain relate his own aborted attempt to travel there with a friend, I am glad I elected to simply stay on the water and see the smaller islands in the Mozambique Channel.

I throw myself wholeheartedly into the life aquatic. I pop up jetlag-free after night one in my rocking boat-cradle, stuff myself into a wetsuit, strap on a mask and a snorkel, and topple over the side of the dinghy for my first Indian Ocean swim, this time with sea turtles off the coast of Nosy Sakatia.

Photo Credit: Lisa Dorenfest

My underwater camera does not do justice to these majestic creatures, who munch a while on the bottom plant growth, then breast-stroke to the surface in graceful slow-motion, all within inches of us humans.

I’ve been here less than a day, and I’m already in another world, lulled by the sea, by the creatures and coral below, by a patch of jumping fish flashing in the sun above. I feel extravagantly far from home.

A diurnal rhythm emerges in the following days – up with the sun and usually out with the local fleet in the morning and, later, drinks on deck as the same orb sets, igniting the sea and coastline. The local boats are things of great beauty and ingenuity. Often simple, wooden canoe-like vessels with home-made sails, the boats and their dexterous sailors skim the ocean in search of fish, as a means of transportation among islands, and even as small floating purveyors of goods like fruits and vegetables.

Day’s end comes earlier here, not too far south of the equator, and by 6 pm, we have front row seats for the sunset show in various anchorages. Whether it is illuminating the water, a nearby landmass, another boat, or just the shiny metal parts of ours, the sun is our nightly source of art and entertainment, a tangerine-pink glow that deepens in front of our eyes before our watery world plunges into darkness.

In between wake-up and a climb back into my cozy berth below-deck, there is a new kind of magic every day: the bestowing of gifts upon the mpanjaka (island queen) on still-primitive Nosy Mamoko. A hike almost the whole way around that rocky island with friendly local Thom, the epitome of patience as we scramble for hours over slippery rocks and I somehow snap the sole off my shoe halfway through.

More snorkeling, this time off Tanikely, where we spy vast schools of flat, round fish and a huge red snapper. On the more developed Komba, I play a one-on-one soccer match with a six-year-old while Lisa is busy taking and printing photos of the islanders, and there I also meet an enigmatic Italian man who has singlehandedly transformed life on one end of the island over the last twenty-five years. We hike along the beach and up into the hills, and miraculously find a crusty baguette (we are both bread fiends) at the end of the day on the dusty main street.

I seek out the lemurs, the bright-eyed prosimian primates that live only on Madagascar. I’ve been lucky to see lemurs in a research facility before, so I know the little imps will be friendly. I am not, however, wholly expecting to become their jungle gym. I should know that the little bits of banana I carry to attract them will mean lemurs on my arms, my shoulders, and my legs, with the capper being a lemur fight on my head, my hair snarled beyond redemption.

The country is achingly poor, among the top ten neediest nations in the world, and the markets in Hell-ville are busy but ramshackle, a shocking amount of litter covers the main city shores, and local officials have no qualms about asking visitors for “little gifts” at the docks or the airport.

At the same time, the town feels comfortable and open to outsiders, and the true treasures both here and on the smaller islands are the people. We are met with shy smiles and sincere attempts to communicate everywhere we go. They are a beautiful and reserved bunch in general, sometimes even wary, but we feel absolutely welcome everywhere.

It’s a surprisingly rich cultural experience for such a short time in the country; we even luck into a brass band parade on Nosy Komba one morning and just miss getting to attend a festival on Mamoko the day before.

By the time I leave, baobabs are but a backdrop to this beguiling series of islands that broke off from the African continent millions of years ago. Much of an African nature remains, but Hell-ville and some of the more established islets also feel distinctively Polynesian, vaguely Arab, certainly French, with a healthy dash of other Southeast Asian flavors thrown in. It’s a mysterious and heady mix, and our small but unhurried explorations make for one of the most absorbing trips I’ve ever taken.