Ze Romp

             A few days ago Drew asked Claire and I if we were ready to romp. I was confused because during my high school career “romping” was when there was no house to party at, but the booze and friends were present and so a gang of hooligans would wander around Albany (making stops at various elementary schools and parks) and get smashed together. But this kind of romping is different. This is Maui romping and holy schmoly is it the best thing ever.

            It goes like this. We put on swimsuits and running shoes. Shorts and shirts were optional. And an up to date tetanus vaccination is highly recommended. Everything else had to be left behind, which is real challenge someone like me who suffers from ‘being unprepared anxiety’, but the back pack had to be left behind. The romp exists and continues only through tradition; you go romping and then some day share that experience with a new WWOOFer, there are no maps, instructions or pamphlets on romping. Drew was the only one in our team of seven who had been before and that automatically made him our fearless leader. The first timers were as follows: Pia, Claire, Whitney, Chancee, Lee, and Nick (former WWOOFer in for a visit). After we suited up and drank the last water we would get for four hours, we headed out the road in groups to hitch hike out to mile marker 7, the starting point of the highly anticipated romp. Claire, Lee and I weren’t getting picked up, so we shed the shirts and used bikini power to score enough rides to get us all the way there. The rest of the team was sitting on the side of the road and when we hopped off the romp was officially in play.

            An interesting thing is that no one who has done it will tell you exactly what you’re doing. They just say be ready to run, to swim, to climb, to trespass and that it will be awesome. No end goal or reward promised. Going in with blind faith. Drew took the lead, we crossed the road and I barely had time to blink before I was following him as he vaulted across and fence decorated with “NO TRESPASSING” into a pasture. The minute he hit the ground he broke into a dead sprint. No instructions, no time for questions, I made a made dash behind him. We weaved and ran across someone’s property until we got to a barbed wire fence. Drew walked up and down it for a second, putting a foot on the wire here and there, look for a spot loose enough to pull it apart. Found one, pulled the wires apart, and we each embraced a yoga pose to fit through.  The land was stunning, it was high up on the cliffs a few miles from the sea, with knee high grasses, guavas, wild flowers and large pines. We walked silently for a while, keeping pace with Drew. As we rounded a bend into a large grove of old growth forest, Drew suddenly took off running. Up ahead I could see a rusty farm shack, some pens and corals and some tools. Drew was sprinting along the fence line, staying in the shadows. As I ran behind him he said “Don’t let the farmer see you. Last time he had a shot gun”.  I ran a little faster. We get to place where the wire in between the wooden posts is bent, make like a pretzel and slide through. At this point I’m sweating and regretting all the days I told myself I was too tired to work out after work. But then I look up. We’ve come out of the trees onto a sloping hill that’s dotted with guavas. And it looks out on the whole ocean, the coastline, the steep cliffs and white-capped bays that surround that side of the island. At this point we get to stroll, picking strawberry guavas we go and keeping an eye out for cattle, because in Hawaii, those homies will charge you in an instant and run you down.

            After our leisurely stroll (which Drew claims we should have run as part of romping tradition) the rolling hills and guavas turn into a think, swampy section, with mangroves and monster mud. Our running shoes quickly turn black and each person takes their turn almost going face first into knee-deep mud. It proceeds like this: make it through the mud, hit a grass trail, Drew says he has no idea where we are, we keep walking anyway, get hot and tired, lose hope of actually finding the right spot, turn right and stop short because we’re on the edge of cliff, looking down at the ocean 200 feet below us and ogling at the coast line on either side. But it’s what’s right ahead that makes short of breathe even as I’m panting. There is a crystal clear bay, flanked by our cliff and the other side has a cliff made of volcanic rock that has a huge hole through the middle. You can see the open ocean on the other side and vines grow down from the top as sunlight streams through what is called “The Arch”. We slide down the cliff on our butts, clinging to vegetation here and there and constantly keeping an eye on the edge. We get to a flat part and here we’re told to shed any extra weight. We take off shirts and shorts and drape them over a tree, left only in running shoes and suits. Here the decent is too steep for sliding. We’re still a good 100 feet above the beautiful bay and Drew starts forward towards a thick rope tied to a tree. The WWOOFing legends who originally discovered the romp tied the rope there and we use it to repel down the side of the cliff. There are parts where the trail drops out completely and you just have to let your hands slide down the rope for a terrifying second before your feet touch down again. We go one at a time because the rope twists and your weight would throw the person ahead of you off in a instant. I go second after Drew and I think of nothing but holding on and not looking down. I finally make it down, yell up for the next person and then turn around. In that moment I was pretty sure I would see a triceratops because I had repelled into Jurassic park. The bay opened into a boulder beach, with the smallest rock no smaller than my head. That’s why the water was so clear though, no sand at all. Up the beach is a narrow valley, with our cliff on one side and full jungle and waterfall pouring down the other. Looking across the water, the steep volcanic cliffs lead up to the Arch. I couldn’t blink because I had just repelled down a cliff into a place that was so untouched by the outside world that I didn’t have enough eyes to take it all in.

            Once everyone had made it down the cliff without serious injury, we moved on to first the swimming portion of our day. You can’t get into the water from the boulder beach because the waves come in so strong that you would get sucked under and then your body would be smashed into one of the many multi-ton rocks. So we climbed out on the side of the cliff until we were towards the middle of the bay. At this point you say your prayers and jump into the water. Once  you hit you banana out and then start swimming as hard as you can so the tide doesn’t pull you back and smash you into the rocks. I hit the water and then struggled to swim with the added weight of soggy running shoes. Once we made it to the middle of the water, it became easier. We swam forward towards the cliff face that houses the arch at it’s center. This is where it got really scary. We swam until we were about 10 feet away from the rocks. Drew explained that you have to wait for the waves to go out, then catch the next swell and use the force and added height to get up on the rocks. You can’t pull yourself up with our the wave, but if you can’t get up while the swell is with you, you’ll get pulled off the rocks by the receding tide and then dragged under before it comes up and smashes you against the rocks. Reoccurring theme: don’t get smashed against the rocks. I waited for the swell and then swam like mad, hit the rocks hard and grabbled for hand holds, trying to pull my self up before the wave went out. I had about a three second window, and in that time I got two hands on the rocks, one foot and then wave went out. The undertow wrapped around my heavy foot, and then my waist, I lost one hand and felt myself slipping off. I threw body at the rock and pulled my body out like a walrus. That was nearly-smashed moment number one of the day, there are more. Everyone got up and we started our climb/walk across the front of the base of the cliff. Once round the corner, we could see the open ocean and some amazing blow holes and enormous tide pools. We went for a brief swim in clear one and watched the waves crash over the far end of it. Directly above us on the cliff was the Arch, with sun streaming through it and creating a disc of light on the rocks below. Our brief rest period over, we got out of the human tide pool and climbed the cliff face to the Arch. The whole deal is made of volcanic rock, which is crumbly in some places and very sharp in others. I’m resting my hands all funny as I type because they are still a little cut up from the romp, totally worth it though. After we cut up our hands and I managed to cut my head by bashing on a protruding rock because I was trying to watch my feet and therefore not watching my head, we arrived at the Arch.

            Saying it was a spiritual experience does not even come close to describing how it felt to stand in the center of the Arch. The Maui coastline (cliffs, waterfalls, jungle and all) lies ahead of you, and the open ocean lies behind you, all the while the wind rolls through, threatening to blow out you to sea. It was one of the moments where no one has words, but everyone is suddenly unquestionably grateful. On a silent cue we left the Arch and the sun, and headed back down the cliff and into the shadow. The final frontier of the romp is the cave. And so to the cave we went.

            The cave is a huge, black abyss that is in the middle of the cliff face and stretches around 35 yards wall to wall. Ocean flows into it and the only way in is in the water. We climbed in on the side as far as we could and then took the leap, hitting water running shoes first. We swam into the cave until the water below us was pitch black and the light around us was dim. Here we employed the ‘wait for the wave’ tactic, and used the on coming swell to hoist ourselves onto the rocks without getting smashed. In the dark, with the slippery rocks and the strong current, I waited for my wave, latched onto the cave wall, and then was promptly pulled off again and sucked under. I took a second to figure out which way was up, swam for it, and then found myself being thrust at full speed at the rocks again. Took the opportunity properly this time, and pulled myself up. We climbed up a rock formation on the cave wall, trying to see with our hands when it was too dark to see with our eyes, until we reached a ledge, about 40 feet up from the water. “This is where you jump” said Drew matter-of-factly. So one by one we stepped up to ledge, looked down at the pitch black water and then hurled ourselves off the edge. I may or may not have screamed as I went over…Lee may or may not have made the decision to do it naked and jumped with swim trunks in hand. Once we were all back in the water, we timed our swimming efforts with the tide coming in. It’s pointless to fight the waves coming into the cave, so we rested and were carried deeper when the waves came in, and then swam like mad as they went out so we could make more ground towards daylight than we had lost when being sucked back in. Finally out, we employed wait for the wave, got back up on the cliff side and then started our journey in reverse. I blew a kiss to the Arch as we passed under it, and then took another brief dip in the calm of the human tide pool while listening to the chaos of the open ocean as it battered the rocks, trying to get in. We jumped back into the back, fought the current to get across, waited for the wave to get up on the other side, walked across boulder beach, scaled the cliff using the rope and then once again found ourselves on the top off the cliff, looking out over a view that now had a whole new meaning to us.

            Let me tell you, going down hill is way more fun than going up hill. The trek back was really a test of stamina, there is no trail, you just head up hill and look for telephone poles. We hiked up, sloshing in our wet shoes, sticking to our dry clothes, cut up, exhausted and grateful. Within a matter of minutes, telepathy occurred and we all shared the same thought out loud: water. It had been three hours since our last drink and since then we had been running, mudding, climbing and swallowing large quantities of salt water. We kept walking, fighting the extreme urge to drink from the streams running down the hill and eating strawberry guava to distract us. However, we forgot all about water when a huge black mass charged across the forest in front of us. A full-grown bull was smashing about in the forest and we were in his hood. I picked up a large rock in one hand and a large stick in the other and told myself I was going to shimmy up a tree like a champion if my horned friend decided to charge. After staying still and quiet for a minute, we pressed on. Luckily, the bull had made his first appearance his final one, so I put down my caveman tools. Over fences, saw a wild boar, picked up another rock, dropped it to run for fear of shotguns, through the barbwire fence and then over the gate, and back to the road. Some tourists on the other side were opening a gallon of water, saw us dripping, muddy and ogling, and ended up letting us drink the whole thing. I met some great old people from Ireland hitch hiking home and tried and failed to explain to them what we’d just done and why it was the most frickin rad thing I’ve ever done ever. Think I lost them with ‘frickin super rad Arch!’.

            I wish I had pictures of the romp. But at the same time I’m really glad that I don’t. It almost feels wrong to have written a novella about it because part of what makes the romp so scared is the fact that is goes undocumented. You can’t find it on a map or in a guidebook, and you can’t do it after hearing about it. You need a leader, someone who knows how to do it only because they’ve lived it. And you do it, feel it, see it, and then hopefully one day, you share it. I can tell you what I did, but I can’t even begin to tell you how I felt. So visit Maui, go to Island Paradise farm in Haiku, befriend some WWOOFers, and then hitch hike to mile marker seven and see what happens from there.