Wild Dakshina

I craved being outside… i miss the familiar wilderness all around me, the one i grew to know intimately, its every flow, its seasons, the tree i could stand in and feel surrounded by an unspeakable peace, the cool waters and the hot sun on rocks.  I felt something similar with him.  A familiarity i’d never experienced with someone before, it accentuated every feeling, every thing surrounding me, it made nature more awake, and intrigued me.  Now i’m in love, but don’t know what he thinks.  I’m so scared it meant much less and nothing in the future for him.  Today, i rode in the wind…. hardest gears on, i flew on British Racing Green and flashes of silver, ducked beneath dark leaves of Rainbow Shower trees, not in season, blowing in the ‘iniki, and Black Mountain roared large in the distance, calling me as it has been.  I miss being able to roam around freely.  Tall brush and grasses hinder me, I want to be in Greenland and France at the same time, or in my ‘hawked friend’s strong arms.  I want him to love me back, to understand what i want and want it too.  The more experience i have, the less i know what to do— it’s as though being innocent, even ignorant, giving us less possibilities, is simpler in its mind-boggling overwhelmingness at the time….  instead of that, i feel a dull ache or wanting but being afraid to say so, afraid it’ll be rejected.  Oh, that fear!  why?  Is it because we haven’t known each other for 6 months?  Is it because we’re connected in more ways than i could’ve created… I am torn.  My soul wants to soar free, and it wants to be connected with you.  because you’re cool, way too cool, and you seemed to like me back.  I try hard to get people to like me, but all this niceness…. yes, people like me, but.  they’re not the ones who make me nervous, blush, make me shy when you surprise me… with a visit, a phone call.  I am obviously smitten, as others have observed.  but you have no idea of it, probably. except for that facebook note i wrote to you.  of course it was too long and like a block of wood as far as juice to answer to— is that why you didn’t answer? or you just didn’t want to?  or…  i scared you off, you don’t know what to say.  At this point, the timeframe is becoming clearer… it’s not all in my head? or is it.  i can’t tell with you.  maybe time will tell things i cannot know now, but damn this patience gene i never got… i’m the world’s most impatient girl, and obsessive when i love something, and maybe a little spoiled too— i’m not used to not getting what i want.  and yet i’ve been shocked several times lately, and i don’t want to be again.

When i returned from China, there was this ebullience in me I can’t explain!  It was bright, so big it didn’t fit on Kaua’i and i felt it strongly!   I had to make myself smaller to fit here again.  It would be so nice to be back on the road, backpack on, walking free.

11:25 PM in Shanghai, Beijing time.  Astor Piazzola playing crazy Argentinian music in the background, one dim light in an apartment on the 9th story of the middle ring road of the most metropolitan city in China… I have returned from a massive exploration of this beautiful country, and am soaking in as much of it as possible.  The goal:  to understand a vast and ancient people who seriously have a different idea of themselves than the rest of the world does.  But that’s common, isn’t it?

I haven’t updated this blog in months… or at least weeks.  I essentially exist where I am, though this trip has been surprising in that I’ve gotten these little gems of letters from Johan on Kauai Island making it seem like I am missed, which warms my heart and bewilders me… I have never been made to feel quite this way before. 

But now it’s time to talk about China. 

I remember being lost in the late night in the beautiful desert city of Xi’an… the British boy from Manchester and I had stayed at the muslim night market long after Bubba had returned back to the hostel by the city’s ancient North gate, a big, black stone rampart difficult to scale even to this day save for the handy doors that are left open generally.  The air was warm and dry, occasional golden dust would swirl in the night air, the lights from the ancient bell tower and drum tower, in the city’s center, were glowing bright yellow, the trees all alit with brilliant white lights, alike to Christmas in the Spring.  As we walked, the moon glowed ethereally in the black sky lit slate grey and as we walked up and down stairs, around and through walkways and tunnels, past stores, near people selling kite and kebabs, i was taken aback by the severe beauty of these incredible “kites”, essentially perhaps 100 foot long strings with disk shaped stretched paper with print on them, print of dragons or Chinese opera masks, birds, etc… strung like well-separated beads on this incredibly long string, and the string blew in the wind steady and still towards the moon, many were out on the large tiled areas near the roads where people enjoyed the evening, gazed at the moon, laughed and spoke…

We wandered around, Wes and I, in this ethereal city…. lost as all hell because so many of the areas looked the same to us and the Drum Tower and Bell Tower, both in the city’s centers, required us to take underground tunnels under the streets to cross and reach them, and it was only hours later that we finally, exhausted and dusty by the sudden exhumation blowing in the encroaching sands from the Taklamaklan desert into the city causing the night musicians and food sellers and strolling couples to clutch scarves and clothing to their eyes and mouth, casting bashful faces to the side as the dust devils swirled up and up in mini tornadoes only to settle soon down onto everything…

Eventually, we found the South Gate where, past brightly colored and well-carved buildings with dragons and other creatures looked at passersby, our rounded gateway proclaimed in golden charactered caligraphy that we were in the right district, and it wasn’t long until we reached the old heavy doors of the ancient building which was our hostel, the stoop of which we had to step high over pushing a door with big brass knockers on it…. stepping into a tiled room, open to a slate open court which led into another open doored building and finally, up the stairs to the dorm room we crashed out in….   the next day, i found a bamboo ladder leading up on the roof and, after climbing it into the bright sunlight, found myself looking at beautiful hand-tiled roofs all around me and the old city walls soaring at the backside of our hostel…. tourists strolling its expensive entry fee to the top whilst I could see all around them and  myself from the roof top.    Later that day, while Bubba lay feverish and sick in bed from the same cold I’d carried around for 2 weeks previous, I strolled the streets into a park lounging the old city walls.  More on that later. 

Ok, so when I was invited a few days ago to join the newlyweds Nadira and Kristofer-kiteboarder, Johan’s mainland friends, on Makai’s awesome boat around the Na Pali of Kauai, i handily forgot how freaking sea-sick I seem to have always gotten on the small boats and choppy waters around Kauai—-  remembered, instead, how amazing our trip to Ni’ihau (dun dun dun, the Forbidden Island!) and Lehua had been… (still forgetting the sea-sick part)….  and so, off we went, along with Ed, a random kiteboarder of Korean descent, from Oregon….

So to fill you all in, Johan and Makai had been talking of kiteboarding the Na Pali, Kauai’s 11 mile sheer cliff coastline, for as long as I could remember.  Makai can’t hold up on an adventure very long and I know that the seed had been germinating for a while, so I wasn’t too surprised when they said it was happening.  I also happened to not be guiding that day, so off I went.

We left Kikiaola small boat harbor in Kekaha as the sun was warming up the morning, past the caterpillar on a barge that was dredging the new harbor from the mud brought in by the tsunami…   huge, beastial piles of mud 20 feet high, 30 feet wide, i was glad not to have that job.

and as we lept to sea in the small fast boat, myself in my favorite seat at the front of the boat, i remembered the feeling of being completely in awe of the majestic blue ocean, ever changing horizon before me….  dolphins dove up and down before us gracefully and back into the deep, i screamed with delight as the waves pounded and we caught air and our stomachs swooped…. Makai, ever calm, looked out to sea like a captain should.

We rounded the bend, passing the longest beaches in Hawaii— stretching 17 miles along the western coast to Polihale— the military base with its odd looking, few and far between, buildings… the coral, exposed by low tide, and pointed at whales spouting, whales gracefully and slowly coming out, dipping their tails back in… beautiful.

And the Na Pali in view, as we passed Polihale beach, a familiar territory for us West-siders, we started being at the bottom of the gigantic cliffs that are so famous.   I’d kayaked here before, though not the entire length of the coast, but somehow, going fast on the water and seeing them without having to work made it so much cooler.  Makai and I would view the un-inhabited valleys with fresh waters, all valleys whose tops i’ve looked over on numerous hikes, but that I haven’t been in, and considered going in for a time.

The gorgeous green cathedral like eroded mountains became so insane I could hardly comprehend, the ocean was vividly turquoise, sand bottomed, deep… reflecting the awesome sun.  It looked like a rugged Carribean with 6 million years of mountain erosion.  Much more up our alleys!

And on and on we went, leaping with the boat, past the other tour boats that would turn around before the beauty of this place can really sink in….  we passed them, we stopped longer than we did, and I understood something I couldn’t from land:  regardless of the number of boats in this place, it is truly spectacular, and despite all the people, we can all feel like this place belongs to us alone.  Amazing.

When we got to the opening of Open Ceiling Cave,  I gazed at the volume of dark blue molten glass looking water seizing up and down, pounding the sides of the cave and swelling back and forth, imagining me in a kayak in all this….  it sounded sketchy— and yet, as Makai drove the boat through, as usual I trust him and his ocean…

This is what we saw:

As we went through that arch, we we gazing up at a gigantic open ceiling over a cave that had once been, parts of the collapsed roof were in the middle of the surgey, blue ocean, and sheer lava rock walls surrounded us—

Freaking beautiful!

The other boats, probably with tourists who saw us going in here and were now begging their captains to bring them in too, motored to the entrance looking expectantly:

Now, as I’m writing this blog, I’m eating my favorite food, but my Hawaiian alternative to it: Somen noodles with cheese, olive oil, tomatoes, pepper….  in reality, Spaghetti and Adventures are on par with one another, and I often will substitute one for the other in my life.

Meanwhile, I listen to my favorite:  J J Cale

and back to the cave…  As we lurched in the cave, appreciating the closeness of the cliffs to our little fiberglass boat that moved with every wave, closer to those same, Makai offered to take a group photo of us:  The rest of them eagerly painstakingly found their way to the front of the boat where I’d been, and grinning in excitement, Makai stepped back far from the controls, backing towards the cliff with his super good camera…

From left to right: Ed, Kristofer, Nadira, Me with the Bug eyes wondered when Makai will notice the boats heading for the cliffs, and Johan…. I don’t know how they all managed to smile.

In my experiences, Makai and my safety zones are quite different from one another, and on many occasions, I’ve been certain we would experience certain demise, and yet we did not on the ocean, with him around. It makes for a fun day… not dying, being scared out of ones wits, seeing delicious, electrifying beauty all around…

As we continued the Na Pali, I thought: would I guide this on Kayak?

And as we continued up the coast, I finally saw the valleys whose names I knew so well, having memorized the maps in and out, the valleys that I’d seen from above, from numerous hiking explorations of the cliffs, but that i’d never entered…. Amazing.  I was so close to packing stuff into a dry bag, taking my surf board, paddling in to shore and staying in these un inhabited valleys for days on end.  And I will. but the sea-sick ness, and good company post-poned these ideas for another day.

and when we got past Honopu valley, a beach I didn’t recognize came into view:  what was it?

The famous Kalalau.

As I looked on and on, in awe, my desires for going to China, going anywhere, all seemed rather silly.  I understood why hippies left everything and came and lived in here, I wanted to do the same.  I was prepared for it, planning it all in my mind… it took me hours to realize this was the same valley I had looked into countless times from the lookout high, high above where the road to Koke’e ends… west side of Kauai.  Unbelievable.

And then as we dropped anchor, the lurching got bad.  Wind swell wrapped around the North Shore where we now swayed on the water, and i began feeling the lurch in my stomach as well… as the waves broke high, sending cold water smacks in the face, i donned a hoodie and rainjacket, and not allowed to swim into shore which was what I REALLY wanted to do (even willing to swim into shore through the breaking waves, hike the 11 miles of the trail to the North Shore, hitch-hike back to the west side, to keep from being on this lurching boat…  but i curled up at the front of the boat instead, deciding not to risk losing Makai’s guiding license for the Na Pali by allowing a passenger off the boat into land– and in my efforts to equalize my ears to the ever moving boat, trying to relax, bundled up more like someone in a cold weather place than near the tropics, i listened in the distance to Makai, Johan, Ed, and Kristofer excitedly talking about the wind…

Earlier, Johan had straightened his kite lines on the beach so that it’d be easier to get them straight on the small boat for a launch.  As far as we know, this is the first launch of several kite surfers on the Na Pali, off a boat (and perhaps there’s a reason for it, as we were soon to find out!)

I trying to be passed out this whole time, but hearing everything that was going on.

Kite inflated, getting ready for an ocean launch… Johan’s going out.  I recalled this super kite as that’s the one I met him with.

Ed had bad luck…. his kite was missing the air cap, and his faux-pas on several occasions endangered him and others… but he’s out there, floating with a buoy and Johan’s kite, and we’re all wondered what’s gonna go down.

And off he went, zooming back and forth.

Gorgeous, huh?

What a wild day.

All morning, the wind’s been picking up….  almost to an annoying point!  As I was on my way to work, I dashed out the door (it didn’t close properly because of the wind) and sat down rapidly in my car—-  the wind was rattling my windows (which are normally quite nice and tight)— and next to me , in the passenger seat, was the half chocolate bunny (thankfully covered in foil) with the Lindor ball inside— all melted into a delicious good.   I decided to stick it in the fridge in order to perhaps salvage it, and snatching it up, i raced back to the house, opened the door and kicked it shut (it didn’t shut properly, again, because of the wind, and then started to bang back and forth) as i drank up some liquid chocolate…  but my hair was blowing all awry, into the chocolate! I annoyed, tossed it back, trying to drink my liquid treat, turned into the wind, managed it, and now the door and windows and curtains and trees and leaves and everything loose is blowing like mad out there…   !!!!