Hawaii Big Island Experience – Part 3: The Untamed Land

Have you ever driven across Highway 200 on the Big Island? You’re driving from Hilo to Kona in the pouring rain, blasting your favorite tunes on the radio to keep you company on the two-hour trip. Slowly but surely, the rain fizzles into a light mist while the sun dares to show its face. Mauna Kea is on your right, the tallest volcano on Hawaii. But it’s dormant. So instead of smoke and lava oozing from the top, you’ll see a blanket of white snow peaking above the clouds, causing quite the juxtaposition in the 70 degree weather.

Miles and miles of brown, sandy hills surround you, and you wonder if anyone inhabits these desert-like wastelands, or have they remained untouched for centuries? The sun bursts through the clouds, and suddenly, it’s like you’re in a completely different land. The road stretches long and far out ahead of you, down the mountain, presenting you with a view of the entire north coast. The blue sea, the white sand, the palm trees that speckle every corner; this is the Hawaii that you remember from the post cards.

The road trip I took to Spencer Beach Park on my 4^th day on the Big Island was quite informative in showing me how drastically the terrain can change from one side of the island to the other.

“If you’re going to Spencer, you may as well visit Hapuna!” I could hear my cousin Celica’s voice echo in my head from our conversation the night prior. But I knew she and I were planning to spend the long MLK weekend in Kona, and I wanted to preserve Hapuna, one of the largest and most popular beaches on the Big Island, to experience it with her. Spencer would fit just nicely for what I was looking for today – sun and a coral-sandy shore.

Spencer is a cute, classic and calm beach. I loved the sand because it was so soft – not softer than usual, mind you; I simply adored and appreciated the feel of sand between my fingers and toes since I hadn’t felt that sensation in almost three years. However, don’t let Spencer’s friendly face fool you.

I got in the water within minutes of arriving at Spencer, and almost immediately, right when I had gotten waist deep into the sea, I stepped on something sharp and felt the pain jolt throughout my whole body. The sandy bottom had transformed into a mixture of smooth rocks and jagged coral only a mere few feet from the coast, so it is probably best to wear swimming shoes if you’re looking to dip in these waters.

Aside from composing myself after stepping on the painful object, I didn’t think much of it. I continued bathing for a few more minutes, still getting my body used to the temperature of the water. But then the throbbing pain in my left foot just wouldn’t go away, so I waded towards the shallow end and balanced on one leg to take a look at my tender flesh.

And my heart almost skipped a beat as I watched the blood flowing freely out of the bottom of my foot.

“Damn!”

Five minutes at the beach and I’m already injured!

I’m not the type of person who is prepared for every situation, so I certainly didn’t have a first aid kit or any type of bandages with me. But I know how not to freak out, and I can think on my feet to find the best solutions.

I limped over to the showers and washed out my wound, as well as any foreign material, with fresh water. The thing about the beach, however, is that sand is frikkin everywhere. So as I limped back to my towel and belongings, I proved my rinse to be fruitless as my wound was once again covered in sand. I just shrugged, dusted it off, and applied nonstop pressure for about five minutes to stop the bleeding.

First official beach day. You sure know how to keep it exciting.

Thankfully, I did eventually stop bleeding, and I wasn’t going to let one little cut ruin my fun. But I also wasn’t in a wild beach girl mood either, so I spent the rest of the day sun-bathing, sand drawing, and splashing myself in the shallow waters of Spencer’s sea. Still a therapeutic event if I ever did have one. I even spent about 20 minutes talking to a sweet, older Philippine couple from Waimea, the nearest town to Spencer. They had been living in Hawaii since the 80s, and had even given me their number and invited me for a plate of food if I was ever in the area. They were so sweet and giving, I almost wanted to take them up on it.

Yes, despite my injury which would have me limping for the rest of the day, I had quite a lovely time at Spencer Beach Park. I stayed there about three or four hours before I left to get some shaved ice at a nearby shack.

Anuenue Ice Cream & Shaved Ice certainly makes some large and enticing treats. The shaved ice I got was almost as big as my head – and that was the small size!

However, a few bites into my treat, and I began to miss and further appreciate the shaved ice I had eaten a couple days prior at Kula Shaved Ice in Hilo. Kula uses all organic ingredients and you can taste the freshness in every bite. At Anuenue, I ordered a triple flavor of mango, ginger lemongrass and passionfruit, and 5 or 6 bites in, the whole thing tasted like a mixture of orange syrup, sugar, and chemicals. When I was halfway through, I found that I was forcing myself to take bite after bite, until I finally decided to toss the rest of it.

Bummer. You win some, you lose some.

By this time, it was early afternoon. I certainly could have started the 2-hour drive back to Celica’s house to get there at a decent time, but where’s the fun in being decent?

I texted Celica, asking her to remind me where I could get a good lookout of the island, and she recommended Pololu, or Waipi’o valley. I went with her first suggestion without thinking about, but it wasn’t until later that I realized I should have checked out where they were on the map relative to where I would be returning.

Waipi’o might have been on the path back towards Hilo, but Pololu was certainly almost an hour in the opposite direction. Who cares! I’m on vacation, yeah?

My experience at Pololu is one of my most memorable ones on the Big Island. I got out of my car and walked to the edge of the makeshift concrete barrier to marvel at the hills and trees as they dipped down the valley and into the ocean. The view out to the horizon was spectacular, and a camera can’t quite capture it, but I’ll let it try regardless.

Pololu was also the first place where I was successfully able to fly my drone. I still need to get better at my piloting skills to take more cinematic shots, but it was fun to get some practice in.

I don’t know how much of this stems from Hawaiian openness, or just human nature, but as I was flying my drone, a group of people who were also at the lookout caught interest in it and I effortlessly stroke up a conversation with them. They gave me the impression that they were locals as opposed to tourists, although I can’t say for sure. After chatting, we posed for pictures, and they offered me a drink from their cooler. I wouldn’t accept an opened beverage from strangers, but I saw no red flags in accepting the can of ginger fizzled water from them. I just love meeting new people from different places. The experience left me feeling energized, and that’s saying something for an introvert.

After taking a ton of pictures and hanging out for about 30 minutes, the sun was starting to set and people were beginning to leave. The friendly guys I had just met said their goodbyes and pulled off, and that’s when I realized that the parking lot held two or three cars other than mine when it was almost full when I first arrived. Granted, this parking lot can probably hold a maximum of ten cars, so perhaps that’s not saying much.

I figured I’d be leaving soon, so I took one last walk around the area before heading out. And that’s when I saw there was a hiking trail off to the side. It twisted down the side of the cliff and seemed to continue downward in a winding fashion.

Hmm…I wonder how far down it goes?

At first, I took a few steps around the corner just to see if I could spot the end of the trail. It looked like it reached a dead end several feet ahead of me, so I walked towards it to gague how far it would go.

I just want to check this out for a second.

Turns out, what I thought was a dead end was merely a sharp curve to go deeper down the mountain. That’s when I realized that this hiking trail was going to go all the way down the valley to the roaring shore below, which seemed like a hundred miles away. The facts of the situation settled over me and I chuckled to myself as I pondered what to do.

Do I really want to take this hike in the dusk with everyone leaving and an unbandaged cut on my foot? Should I at least return to my car to change into my tennis shoes, instead of these flimsy sandals? But that would take longer. Either I return to my car and go home, or I go down the mountain and see it through to the bottom.

I didn’t think that hard about it as I continued walking down the trail, now committed to reaching the end. What kind of story would I have to tell if I turned around and went home now? Oh yeah, I went to Pololu Valley and started to hike down the mountain, but then it got dark, so I went home instead. No, I want to say I reached the bottom and hiked back up alone, in the dark and with an injured foot. Much more epic that way.

I kept walking down, admiring the view when the bushes thinned out enough to let me see through, and being mindful of the warning signs of falling rocks and breaking cliffs. As I continued down the winding path, I became more and more apprehensive and unsure of my decision. Going down is the easy part. How was I going to make it back up? I’d be exhausted. What if my wound reopened? But I couldn’t turn back now. Look at how far I’d come!

Then I began to think about the psychology class I took in college five years ago, and the concept of effort justification. Simply put, it explains how people would justify an unwise task due to the effort they’ve already put into completing it.

“I’m so stubborn.” I grumbled to myself and continued down the trail without a pause.

The hike may have taken me about thirty minutes, but finally reaching the bottom was fantastical and immensely fulfilling. The land was flat with a lake-like pond which spilled into the ocean. I could see the towering hills surround me – one of which I had just hiked down – that composed the valley where I stood. The grassy field transformed into sand and rocks, then to smooth black stones at the shore. I got as close as I dared to the black waters, and watched them roll and roar and tumble and fold over themselves before crashing at the coast.

Standing there alone in the twilight, watching the force of nature recede and return to the land, made me think of how insignificant my presence there was. The waves didn’t care that I was admiring them right at the edge of safety. They weren’t putting on a show for my entertainment. They wouldn’t “turn off” when I let. Even as I type these words, at 10:52 PM central, the waters at Pololu Valley are fierce and vivid, creating beautiful and terrifying torrents at the shore, and I can almost guarantee that, as dark as Pololu would be at this hour, there’s currently no one present to stand in awe of them. They literally couldn’t care less.

My presence in that spot was completely irrelevant and unnecessary, and the thought of that frightened as much as inspired me. “It’s relevant to me.” I whispered so softly that I couldn’t even hear my voice over the rumble of the sea. “I’m glad I’m here. I’m glad I came.”

I could have stayed at the shore all night if shelter and warmth weren’t a necessity. But I only spared a few minutes at the bottom of the valley before I sized up the huge giant of a mountain that I would have to scale in the dark. “This is not going to be fun.”

The sun was fully set by now. Only scatters of fast fading white light seeped through the sky when I started on the hike back up. Several steps in, pulling myself up and over the large jagged boulders, and I’m already feeling the fatigue creep into my bones. I may have a slim build, but I’m not athletic by any means. I have sickle cell anemia, a condition that can come with a verity of health issues, so I’m always careful not to over-exert myself. As long as I hiked at my own pace, and took frequent breaks, I knew I would make it to the top.

Or would I?

A few minutes into the climb, as I sat on a rock, sweating like a hog and nursing my throbbing foot, I thought about the possibility of not making it up to the top. Not in a worried manner, but rather in an objective, universal approach. People die every day, and some die for ridiculous, trivial reasons, less risky than taking a hike while injured in the dark. I pulled out my phone and as expected, I had no service. No one to call. No one to save me. Just me. And God. Under the stars. Heart of the mountain.

If I tripped and broke my leg, I’d be done for. Best case scenario, I’d spend the night passed out in the dirt until the first batch of tourists hiked down the trail early in the morning. Worst case, I’d be insect food. My body would return to dust, and the cycle of life would continue. Nature doesn’t care who I am. Nature would consume me. My friends and family would mourn my loss, and the world would keep spinning. In a hundred years, or much less time, no one will know or even care that I existed. And the most eerie thing of all? I was content with all of this. It’s not that I didn’t know this before. Being alone in this spectacular valley just made me come to terms with it.

Alright Heather. You can do this. Enough with the morbid thoughts. Just focus on putting one foot in front of the other.

Hike, hike, pant, pant, rest, rest, again. It was pitch black now. I could barely see what was a mere foot in front of me. I chose my footing carefully, cautious not to trip over the roots and rocks in my path.

I hiked. I rested. I hiked. I rested. All the way up the mountain until at last, I spotted the entrance to the trail. Climbing up the last few steps on all four limbs and panting like a dog, I saw my car, all lonely and alone, but it was my saving grace. Collapsing into the driver’s seat, I just took a few minutes to catch my breath and reflect on my physical and existential journey. “That was a trip.” Pant, pant. “Alright, time to go home.”

Luckily, it was just a few minutes down a straight path until the nearest town where I could get wifi and phone service. I put Celica’s address in my GPS, and startled at the fact that it was going to take me two hours and forty five minutes to get home. But of course that makes sense. Pololu Valley is almost at the exact opposite end of the island from where I was staying. I sent her a text so that she wouldn’t worry, and started on my way back. But it was only around seven PM, so it really wouldn’t be a bad trip.

Day 4 on the Big Island is a day that will stand out vividly to me for a long time to come. Hawaii is wild and untamed and alluring and addictive.

And we’re barely even halfway through my trip!

Part 4 of my Hawaii Big Island Experience will be coming out shortly. What did I get into over the weekend? Stay tuned to find out!

As always, thank you for reading, and stay classy!

Heather

Bonus Content!

It’s not nearly as dramatic as this post, but perhaps twice as fun. Watch Day 3 and 4 of my Hawaii Big Island Adventure in my vlog below!