Celebrating 'Ohana

Monday morning was another fairly early morning for us.  Taryn, myself, Ryan and Amy, had reservations to take an ATV ride around Waipio valley with Ride The Rim.  We made ourselves breakfast, and then headed out for the days activities.

 

This is What We Call Socializing

Our launch point was roughly 50 minutes away from our house, towards the northeastern tip of the island.  When we arrived we were packed into a large van with about 12 other travelers.  A native Hawaiian man named Les jumped in to drive us to the actual start of the ATV track.  As soon as he got in the driver's seat, he tried to pump us up with excitement about the trek ahead of us.  One of the first things that he said to us was “In Hawaii, family is important.  You are all my family, right?  We are all family. “  As he drove us to where the ATVs were awaiting us, he stopped at one point to show us the house where he lived, and pointed out his son who was standing out front.  Les clearly had tremendous pride for his homeland, his family, his faith in God, and his Hawaiian culture.  I honestly felt bad, that our group was not reflecting anything near the level of excitement for the adventure we were about to embark on back at him that he was showing to us.

Once we got to the ATVs, they had us each do test run to ensure that we could navigate the vehicles without risk of driving ourselves off a cliff.  Most of us passed easily, with the exception of one individual, a twenty something guy on his honeymoon, who had to repeat the test several times, and almost was not allowed on the course…but after consulting with each other, the guides allowed him to continue.

The tour took us through trails through the picturesque Hawaiian forest, and had three stops throughout the 3 hour tour.  The first one was a lookout with a stunning view of a waterfall and the valley below.

The next stop was a pool between waterfalls, where we stopped for a (very cold) dip, and had a few snacks before embarking on the final leg.

Our final stop was another lookout over Waipio valley.  This point was roughly 2000 feet above a steep drop to the valley below, with a view of twin waterfalls at the back of the valley, that plunged to the valley floor.  The valley itself was flat terrain with several taro farms that led out to the coast where a black sand beach met with crashing waves from the Pacific.  While we took in the view, Les gave a remarkable speech about the Hawaiian culture of simplicity, taking care of your neighbor, and working hard to take care of yourself.  This was called ‘ohana.  He compared the traditional ‘ohana culture of everyone working hard to take care of themselves and the community to the current self-centered, and materialistic culture of today, and the sad fact that we've lost that connection to our family and community.  He discussed the farmers on the floor of the valley, who work very simple lives.  Most of them do not have electricity.  He pointed out that during the recent hurricane, when many villages lost electricity, and couldn’t figure out how to get by, life in the Waipio valley didn’t change.  They were fine after the hurricane.  Similar to Taryn’s comment the day before, it was another reminder of some of the many negatives that have occurred in our relationships today to our family and the community around us, as a result of our “advancement” of society.

Waipio Valley

Twin Waterfalls in Waipio Valley

After our ATV ride, we stopped at Tex Drive-in for lunch.  This was a restaurant as one of the top places to eat in the islands on the Food Network.  Their signature dish is their “malasadas” which are dough packets injected with fruit or chocolate flavor, and sprinkled with sugar.  Their menu is primarily burgers, and a few other dishes.  We found the food to be alright, but nothing spectacular.

After lunch, we went for a long picturesque drive along the northern coast, climbing high into the hills, providing a tremendous view of the entire northern part of the island, all the way to Mauna Kea. 

 

View looking South from hills on Northern tip of Hawaii

As we continued around to the west side of Hawaii, we could see a huge mountain towering over the ocean in the distance.  We looked at this wondering if it was part of the Big Island, as the mountain  towered above the clouds.  A quick check of our map however, showed that it was actually Haleakala on the island of Maui.  While we couldn’t see the floor of the island beyond the ocean, this mountain was just incredibly immense. What was even more amazing, was that the peak of this mountain is actually about a third lower than that of Mauna Kea, which we were set to ascend the next day.

We ultimately descended from the hills, and arrived at our next location which was the ancient fishing village in Lapakahi State Park.  The ruins of this village were 600 years old, and offered us a chance to wander around the ancient coastal town.  After spending a half hour here, RJ, determined why the village was ultimately abandoned:   the abundance of flies that liked to fly around your face and land on you….no indigenous Hawaiian could have ever put up with this for more than a few decades.

Meanwhile, as we were out exploring the northwestern part of the state, Jason and Michelle were back at the house having their own adventure.  Jason, who ended up needing to log into work, started typing away on his laptop in the kitchen of the house.  While he was typing, suddenly dozens of ants began streaming out from under the keys of his laptop.  After staring for a period of time in disbelief, and wondering if this was some sort of hallucination, he quickly began attempting to kill the ants that were fleeing.  After employing Raid, and a vacuum cleaner, he had thought he had eradicated the issue. 

However as he began to work again, more ants came out, now carrying eggs with them.  He determined his only solution was to dismantle the entire laptop and clean it out.  Upon doing this, he found that behind a hard drive dock, it appeared the ants had created a bit of a nest, and had a large amount of eggs stockpiled.  He proceeded to clean the entire inside of the laptop out, reassembled it and returned to work.

 

Jason's laptop: mid-extermination

Back on the west side of the island, the rest of us made our next stop at a beach, just a bit further down the coast.  We planned on spending an hour hear before heading back and cleaning up for breakfast. Unfortunately, as we walked into the park, Taryn slipped on a jagged rock on the beach, and sliced her toe open pretty good.  We all decided what she really needed was some vegan Beef Jerky to fix that right up (since via discussions of the recent days SCUBA diving adventure, we came to the conclusion that this must be the super cure for any ailment, from nausea to open wounds.)  She insisted we carry on with our plan to swim and snorkel in the ocean.

This was a good choice since, only 30 minutes later, Taryn ended up snorkeling alongside a large sea turtle with roughly an 18 inch shell.   The rest of us saw several other fish, including a spotted box fish. I as well, saw many variety of fish, and while doing so, somehow managed to step on two different sea urchins.

We headed back to the house, and cleaned up for a dinner we had planned at the Hilo Bay Cafe.  After taking showers, Michelle and Jason joined us and we headed over for our 7:30 reservations.  Each of our opinions of our meals varied in satisfaction from “meh” to “very good”, but nonetheless, we all enjoyed a couple hours of good conversation and camaraderie.  After the dinner was finished, Ryan and Amy ventured out onto the balcony of the restaurant, and several minutes later Ryan came back in and made the profound observation (perhaps slightly inspired by the drinks throughout dinner):  “I’m amazed by the stars out there, they are so different.  I know my stars in Texas.  They are not here.”  We all laughed pretty hard at this, and decided to head back to the house. 

Dinner at Hilo Bay Cafe

Back at the house, Amy went to bed while the rest of us sat around the kitchen table and talked nonsense for the rest of the evening.  During that time, we found a strange and obscure sculpture hidden in the corner of the kitchen sitting on a shelf, that we decided definitely needed to be the centerpiece on the table.  Therefore we decided to rectify the situation.

 

"New" Centerpiece (newly adorned with flowers and a Rambutan)