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Published: February 10th 2007
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Dahna: A point the taxi driver failed to mention, when he was suggesting that we really needed a rental car to get about in, was that the public buses that go from most major towns/areas to most other major towns/areas are free.
So, on the 27th we found ourselves sitting at the Hilo bus stop waiting to be taken up to the Volcano National park village. The bus terminal felt pretty seedy. There were quite a few anti drug and anti alcohol signs up around the place, and fairly blatant drug deals going on near the pagoda, just behind the bus shelter. I was (probably totally unnecessarily) acutely aware of our laptop, digital video camera and fat juicy wallets as I sat purposely in front of the security video camera while projecting a very relaxed expression (I think). But all the locals have been nothing but friendly, and it's not like Wollongong, Batemans Bay, Sydney or Canberra don't have seedy aspects. I think there is something seedy about bus terminals in most cities and towns. I wonder why that is...
Locals here seem a diverse combination of native Hawaiins (only, I think about 1 percent), general Pacific Islanders, Filipino,
Chinese, Japanese, Thai and white Americans from the mainland. Mostly, from what I have been able to gather, the wandering type - the type that came here to travel and never went home. Aging hippies retiring here along with the broken hearted seeking new lives, the entrepreneurs, con artists and surfers. There are so many street profits and gurus. So many people professing to have found the way. The island is a bit of a lost and found for human beings.
Anyways, so we got dropped off the bus on the outskirts of National Park Village a couple of KMs from the hostel we were staying in, which we were sharing with a Canadian girl from Toronto and three European bird watchers that had actually driven past us on the road and were quite surprised that we'd walked "all that way" from the bus stop. Funny how people become so much more used to wheels than legs.
The Canadian girl dropped us off at the Volcano national park the following morning (which was yet another amazingly clear and sunny day, I recall, as I am writing this in retrospect from rainy Vancouver) and we walked the 11km Kilauea
crater rim trail which was OUT of this world. We took hundreds of photos, so I probably shouldn't bore you with them all. But it felt like walking over the moon, some of it just felt so alien and weird.
As we were passing down into Halema'uma'u crater, a group of hula dancers came up to make an offering to Pele, the goddess of volcanoes who apparently resides in that crater. The ritual was powerful enough to make me tingle, even though I was watching from behind a fence with a bunch of other tourists.
Amazing to be hiking over ground that felt so volatile, with the knowledge that only one or two miles below us were magma-filled voids and conduits. Frequently gasses would bubble out of this magma to percolate through what we like to think of as solid ground.
This place is proof, living active proof, that nothing is solid. Not even rock. Everything is in a constant flux between destruction and reconstruction.
Everything is created and destroyed by the fiery molten hot centre of our earth. She simultaneously swallows up huge chunks of earth and forest while creating more. The big Island grows
by (?) centimetres a year.
As destructive as it seems, volcanic ash and lava are apparently nutrient dense and ideal for growing rainforests on, except that they lack nitrogen/oxygen... but along comes this particular type of nitrogen fixer algae which has spores everywhere so that as soon as the lava cools and hardens, it gets to work preparing the forest bed, making it possible for ferns to grow out of the lava... and then trees etc etc. I have so much respect and admiration for this planet of ours.
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After walking the crater rim, we sat at the top of a 30km road that went down steeply to the waters' edge where there is currently lava flowing into the ocean. We were hoping to get down there for night fall, as that is the best time to see it. We stuck our thumb out and looked hopefully at several cars whose drivers either ignored us, looked through us, shook their heads scornfully or regretfully, and even, in one case laughed at us. Hitching puts you at the mercy of the world. It is a great way to get around- you can meet really interesting people, and
it makes space for unexpected things to happen. But it can also be tiring and, I guess potentially dangerous.
But danger is an interesting concept. Everything we do is dangerous to some extent. Getting out bed, crossing the street, driving a car... some of us like to live in fear, some of us like to challenge fear, and some like to live fearlessly. Danger is where we make it and what we make of it.
I think sometimes that people love to warn others of dangers that they themselves feel trapped by. We all love to warn of all that is ill in the world so we can all stay on a level playing field in a populated comfort zone. The more people 'we' can hold in this comfort zone, the less we will resent being trapped in it. There is also a lot of money to be made within the comfort zone prison. Tour guides profit from it, insurance companies, developers of locked gate communities to name a few.
Back in Hilo, we went into a dive shop from which our increasingly outdated Lonely Planet book informed us we could rent kayaks. The guy there told
us they didn't rent kayaks any more but they took out tours. They did rent snorkels, but, he said, it was impossible to get to any good spots without a car and/or a guide. I'd mentioned something about hitching and he said "oooooh, I wouldn't be hitching around HERE. Especially not YOU." Anyway, wooooah, I digress. Apologies.
So yeah, we were sticking our thumb out and waiting hopefully for a ride. After a few cars went by Jono said something about how we just needed someone who had done a little hitching before and believed in the hitching Kama. And I said, "yeah, a couple in a campervan would be perfect," and, I kid you not, a Canadian couple, about our age came around the corner in a beat up campervan literally as I'd finished saying that. I love it. I love life. You just gotta trust it a little and it gives you a lot. They were a cool couple, and the woman, Tracy, is working on Vancouver Island at the moment so we swapped numbers and will maybe meet up again. She said she'd done some hitching over the years and picked us up because she didn't
want her luck to run out.
So we caught a ride with them down to the beach, where we left them behind because they were celebrating their one year anniversary, and we felt our presence would take away from the romance slightly.
We'd timed the three mile walk over hardened old lava perfectly, so that it was getting dark as we were walking. The darker it got, the more we could see red dots and lines on the escarpment just behind us. Pretty exciting. I manically took heaps of photo's with my trusted little compact camera. Unfortunately they all look like photos of a pitch black something unless you have a magnifying glass, so I have not included them in here ;-)
Even the lava in Hawaii takes its time - oozing and trickling rather than bursting and flowing.
Nothing had quite prepared me for what it would be like to see chunks of oozing red hot liquid earth falling into the ocean and making the sea seemingly catch on fire before steaming and fizzing and going back to normal.
The meeting and merging of two opposites is a truly remarkable thing. I'd like to
see this again in my life time - maybe next time, closer and bigger! (I think I have become a lava addict).
We caught a ride back out of the National Park with a friendly 70 year old actor from New York called Bill, who despises Hollywood and president Bush and is planning to use up every penny he has on travel and adventure before he dies.
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Denise
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Dahna karma
Hey Dahns your good karma is still with you! Also. that was the 2nd Tracy from Vancouver that you have met and offered you travel assistance - Tracy must be a pretty popular name in that place!! Your pictures are coming out a little dark on our (old ) computer. Will check on computer at work!