life so far: a few days in hilo, aka, mars.
after landing on kauai on monday, i popped over to the big island early tuesday morning to meet up with SA. he took me up to mauna kea, where he does much of his research and where some of the world's largest telescopes live. this is a hawaii i'd never seen before.
here, the road to mauna kea.
at the top of mauna kea -- KH, this keck's for you.
the actual peak of mauna kea is holy ground for native hawaiians, who believe that their gods live on the peak, much like mount olympus was for the greeks. SA informs me that mauna kea is actually the biggest mountain on the world, mass-wise; it's apparently huge under sea level. and it's freaking cold at the top. freezing temperatures, 50-60 mph winds. i was unprepared.
the path to the summit, at 14,000 ft:
the view from the summit:
mauna loa, a sister mountain, from the summit. it is really pretty amazing to be
above the cloud cover. i can understand why the hawaiians believe this is holy ground.
the summit of mauna kea, and a temple erected by the hawaiians. it's beautiful. but brrrrr ... it's cold in here. must be some toros in the at-mos-phere ...
on the way down from the mountain. it's so windy, they poke holes in all the signs. i thought that was wildly amusing.
SA and i were very, very tired by 5pm the day of mauna kea. after eating some tasty food in hilo, i was asleep in our very rustic cabin by 8:30pm, at the latest. it's the darkest dark i've ever experienced. i was smashing my hand up against my face and i couldn't see it. pretty cool.
by 5am on tuesday, we were on the road to volcano national park, and at sunrise found ourselves at halema'uma'u crater, the home of pele, the hawaiian goddess of fire. the ground steams where the lava flow is active underneath. goddess of fire. i get it.
the crater used to be home to a lake of lava at the heart of kilauea, an active volcano.
goddess of fire. totally.
on the other side of the crater, on the makai side, are the lava flows. this is pretty fucking crazy shit. CRAZY SHIT i tell you. there used to be a resort town here, nestled between the volcano and the ocean, which was completely destroyed in an eruption. you know, when hot lava flowed out of the very active volcano next to the resort town. nobody was hurt. i guess when you know that piping hot magma is coming in your direction, you get out of the way.
but i guess not everybody is that smart. apparently, many hikers are actually boiled alive when they get too close to the shelf of lava, because the shelf often breaks off into the ocean, where the lava flows are going. boiled alive. it took me awhile to understand the concept, but now i get it. boiled alive. CRAZY SHIT.
a view of the active lava hitting the ocean. it smells like rotten eggs all around this place. sulfur. lava. ocean. CRAZY SHIT.
me, in a lava field. the stuff is nutty. there are striations of different colors, and sometimes you can tell it just oozed over everything, like the lava you expect, and other times the lava looks roped and braided and is in little crinkles everywhere. CRAZY SHIT.
a parking sign from aforementioned resort town. SA and i both had the impulse to try to pull the sign out of the lava, as if we could just nudge it out of the way. it didn't work.
a bit of road that was spared in the flows.
the sulfur started getting to us, so we hiked back out and found our way to an older lava field, where there is the largest collection of hawaiian petroglyphs found anywhere on the islands. there are 14,000 rock carvings on this particular patch on kilauea. some are pretty familiar images -- these little circles, though, have their own mythology. early hawaiians used to carve them and then drop the umbilical cords of their newborns into them. if the cords were still there in the morning, it meant the baby would have a long life. a whole collection of the little holes represents a family or a clan.
after all that lava, we were both ready for some green. so we drove out of volcano national park and walked a bit to find akaka falls, a 1,000-ft waterfall just outside of hilo. it was gorgeous, and back to the hawaii i know. sigh.
and now ... back in kauai. the rest of the week has been spent mostly just vegging. i had a minor health concern, but a trip to a hippie doctor bought me some peace of mind. i got a massage. more peace of mind. eaten lots of food. more peace of mind. read 3 books. more, more, more peace of mind. had a face off with a gecko in the living room, and the gecko won. peace of mind.
it's weird. i feel an odd loneliness here, but it's kind of a content lonely? i guess that's what happens when you find yourself on an island 6,000 miles from home. although i feel at home here. but it is a little bit lonely, and contemplative. i guess every time i come to the islands i am usually in the midst of some sort of difficult period, or healing period, and it's a good kind of intentional disconnectedness. now i just feel a bit disconnected, and it is healing, but also odd. odd lonely content good. sigh. mmm. maybe this is just what quiet feels like.
has it really been so long since i've felt quiet? is it possible i've actually forgotten what it
is?
i guess i have time to remember. 1 week down, 2 weeks to go before i have to return to new york ...
