Take Shelter!

After collectively concluded that getting drunk and hanging out in the farm house again for the weekend sounded boring, the farmily decided to pack up and try and camp out for a night in Hana. Hana is only 38 miles from our front door, but the highway to get there is so twisted, steep and narrow, that the journey generally takes about two and half hours. And naturally it would take us around four hours because we’d be hitchhiking with multiple rides. So after work, I packed a flannel, clean knickers, a can of soup, a head lamp, and stuffed my sleeping bag into a pillow case. Claire and I were meant to be the second to last team to leave for hitchhiking, but lucky for us, Chancee (who was in the last team) had a friend with a old volo who was headed to Hana anyway. So Claire, Chancee, Everett and I and our minimal gear piled into Chase’s car (our new friend). The Volo, our salvation from hitchhiking, did not look like it would make it to Hana. I chose not to worry about it. Five minutes into our journey, Chase hit the brakes hard, and instead of screeching to a stop, the car slowed, squeaked and then finally stopped.  Chase was way to juiced when he said “That’s all the brakes we got guys!”. Forget sharks, spiders and drowning, my death in Hawaii is guaranteed to be vehicle related.

            Our journey was nauseating and terrifying, partly due to the road and our lack of functional vehicle, and partly due the fact that Chancee is less than my favorite person and makes it a point to aggressively flirt and coerce every “new friend” she makes on the island (they are always male…). The sun was setting just as we were getting near to Hana. At this point, Chase needed to make a stop. We had to drive deep into the jungle, off road, to visit a hippie commune of sorts. Chase’s brother used to live there, but recently got the shit beat out of him by his ‘brothers’, fled the commune, and Chase was there to sniff out the situation and collect the remainder of his brother’s personal items. It was really beautiful, deep in the jungle with a path that led to cliffs with a view of the whole ocean and the jagged coast line. The jungle was cleared only for the make shift kitchen and outhouse, and then through the trees we could see tents and strange little shrines and clearings. Chase went about his business, talking to people and collecting things, and the residents of the jungle habitat left us alone for the most part. We walked around their land and looked at the view, dodged the many chickens, cats and dogs that ran wild and observed from the distance the massive bamboo structures that had been erected around the clearing and the shines that were dotted between the trees. Chase had warned us to ask the ingredients of anything anyone offered us to smoke, drink or eat while we were there, because most of it was laced with ‘special stuff’. One girl informed us that they did yoga three times a day and that there was an on site yoga instructor, masseuse, and therapist who led their ‘morning ritual’. Claire and I decided that we were intrigued by their way of life, but that we would refrain from joining for the time being.

            By the time we found the rest of the farmily on the beach, the sun was down, the mosquitoes out, and the booze flowing. Camping, drinking and everything else we were doing was illegal on the beach, but luckily enough, the farmily had met a native named Hoku Loa, who worked for the resort that managed the beach. He decided to be our friend, gave us permission to sleep there, contributed to the festivities and even made us a bonfire. Now, at this part of the story, any reader who is older, parental, protective, a future employer, or particularly judgmental needs to take a deep breath. I don’t want to censor this blog because when I look back I want to remember Hawaii for how it actually happened. So, there may or may not have been people under 21 drinking. I may or may not have been one of them. It may or may not have been the first time…or the last time. Whatever makes you feel better.

            Meeting Hoku Loa was really interesting because of the relationship between many of the natives and white people, or haoles. A risk we were taking by attempting to camp out on the beach in Hana was that we could get beat up and mugged by natives. All over the island there are spots that are unspoken native territory. If you go to certain beaches after sundown, you can almost guarantee getting in some real trouble. Hoku Loa explained to us that he was raised to hate white people, because of what they had done to the Island and to the Hawaiian people. But he had decided on his own that he could not hate our generation, because it wasn’t us who came and killed and conquered. It was our ancestors. But he was the minority with that view. Had some other natives found us on the beach, we might have been in for a bad one. But they didn’t. Hoku did. He drank with us, made us a fire, and told us how his name meant red star, and mapped the constellations for us and pointed out his star. He told us Hawaiian ghost stories as well as history lessons, and as the evening progressed, we sat in the sand around the fire as he sang to us. He sang us a song that got him through his worst days, when the love of his life left him and then aborted his baby boy. In the end, we were all singing.

            In effort to pack light (no one picks up hitchhikers with big bags), none of us had really brought anything. I was wearing a swimsuit and shorts and shirt, and hadn’t really brought much else. Unfortunately, that also meant no one had really brought any food. We cracked open some cans of cold lentil soup and shared power bars. The soup improved when we through it in the fire for a bit. In between songs, stories and soup, I took walks down the beach, with my feet in the water. In Hawaii, you can see the whole milky way stretching across the sky. There is something about the ocean at night, when the dark sky and water seem to meet seamlessly, that makes you feel like everything that will ever exist in right in front of you. And humor me, it’s not just because I may or may not have been under the influence.

            When the fire had died down and the booze was just about gone, Hoku showed us where to lay out our sleeping bags and one by one, we flopped down into the sand and went to sleep. I was having a dream that Romney was spitting in my face when I woke up and realized it was raining. Not raining, pouring. Someone in our crew yells “take shelteeeeer", we’re dramatic like that. Our stuff was everywhere, we were everywhere, and in a wet, sandy frenzy, a line of sleepy people grabbed their sleeping bags and stumbled under the wooden picnic pavilion. We made a few trips out to get our packs and towels and other junk, and Chancee had refused to be woken up and so slept in the rain for a bit before I finally went out and got her to move. The situation could have been miserable, but for some reason it just felt so awesome. One by one, the farmily set out their wet sleeping bags on the concrete floor, on the picnic tables, and Claire and I decided the tiled bar top would be a good sleeping place. Worst idea ever. Tile is not good for sleeping on. Drenched, slightly drunk still, and ever so sandy, we all went to sleep in what was to be described as “the most uncomfortable thing ever”. Oh well.

            I woke up at 6:40, and an accurate way to describe my condition is thus: I felt like I had been hit by a truck full of ceramic tiles and bottles of tequila. It was terrible/awesome. But all of that was irrelevant because the sun was rising over the ocean and I pulled off my clothes and went swimming in the most beautiful sunrise of my life.

            We had one can of soup left which we ate cold while laughing about the adventures of the night before. After the ladies hitched into town for food, we spent the day on the beach. Hoku was back at nine for beach maintenance and such and was still our friend when sober.

            We started our hitch back early because we knew it would be long and hot and tiring. Claire and I made pretty good time, and when we were waiting for rides, I danced on the side of the road. Ask her to see the video; I’m like a Broadway star.

            All in all, our Hana trip is one of those things that you tell your parents about, and if they’re as cool as my parents, they’ll just say “hey, while you’re young right?”