Product Details
Paperback: 432 pages
Publisher: Mariner Books; 1st Marine edition (May 15, 2002)
ISBN: 0618219153
Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 1.0 inches
Shipping Weight: 15.0 ounces.
Amazon.com Sales Rank: #202,684 in Books
Another book by mister Paul. Rob was nice enough to let me borrow his copy. I'm enjoying it thus far. As I'm reading it though I can't help but reminise about my own experiences in hawaii. The two people that stick out most in my mind when I think of my short time there are the crazy local boy who was a personal trainer/musician/maseusse/christian nut and the even crazier owner of the Ka'eleku Caverns.
Near the end of the Waihee Valley Swinging Bridges trail I passed a group of locals that had gone swimming at the natural pool at the end of the trail. Tagging a long behind was a shirtless and yummy boy. He saw me and stopped to chit chat. Long story short later that night it was sex on the beach, and I don't mean the drink. We made plans for me to come back and go camping down at Waianapanapa State Park where they have the most beautiful black sand beaches. This never happened because he kinda wierded me out. He had recently broken up with his "girlfriend" but was very insistent on having our encounter. I teased him about bragging to his friends that he had nailed a mainlander. "Oh no! None of them know." The text screen saver on his computer that floated about the screen said, "Focus on God!". He had a crush on a male christian rock singer. He seemed like such a nice guy but my distrust of christians made me push him away. We stopped talking eventually, the planned camping trip never to be. I wonder if I rejected him unfairly? He had the most adorable way of talking. He had grown up on pretty much all of the islands and was a native to the core including his Pidgin accent, which he was embarassed about. He spent some time in southern california for college. In an effort to hide his pidgin he affected a southern california accent. Sometimes the two would bleed into the other. Sometimes he would call me "Benjie bro" and other times it would be "Benjie brudda". One time on my answering machine he even said, "Hey Benjie bro brudda. How's it hanging, ya?" He was a very intersting character, full of contradictions. I kind of wish I had stayed in touch and waded through the religion to see what he was really all about.
Ka'eleku Caverns is a lavatube cave off the Hana highway. The man who owns the land the entrance to the cave is on gives tours of varying difficulty in the cave. I had no reservation and was damn lucky in my timing. There was a tour scheduled but the people never showed. Another family showed but chickened out. It ended up being just me and the crazy cave owner. I opted for tour #3. The guy was nice enough and an attractive middle aged guy, but you could tell he liked this cave maybe just a little too much. He had discovered several new species of cave insect in the lava tube. We searched for some...with magnifying glasses. Even with the lamps and the assistance of the convex lenses the critters appeared no larger than a very small and meager grain of salt. This was my first clue that this guy might be a little unstable. Ok so it was very cool that he had made this discovery, but who thinks to press thier face against lava rock with a magnifying glass in the dark? My suspicion was confirmed when we entered a portion of the cave which served as the fallout shelter for that portion of Maui back in the sixties. I remember what he told me next to this day. "I've calculated the cubic volume of this cave and I have determined that if I seal the entrance here that there will be just enough air for myself and fifteen women to survive for thirty days if there is ever nuclear fallout." At that point I kind of started to be a little nervous but still had the nerve to point out that hawaii was an unlikely nuclear strike point and that it was far enough out in the middle of the pacific that even if Los Angeles or Tokyo were struck that fallout was not likely to reach hawaii with serious deleterious effects. He was of course undaunted by this suggestion and maintained that he had it all planned out "just in case". I wondered if he had planned out who the fifteen women were and whether they knew of thier uncanny fortune.
I recall another local who charmed me greatly. If I'd had the gumption, and a bit more time, I might have sought this woman out and tried to hang out with her. I was in Wailuku north of Kahului, where the airport is, and searching for the aforementioned Waihee valley. Actually I was searching for the office of the company that owned the valley so I could obtain a hiking permit, which was needed due to the tendency for flash flooding. I stopped at a gas station to ask for directions. Behind the counter was a Samoan woman in all her fleshly glory. She was quite large with a gas station work shirt and her black hair in a tight bun. She had no idea where this office was but smiled a great deal and tried to be helpful anyway. She also kept calling me hot stuff. Another local, a leathery middle aged caucasian woman in a big floppy hat, tried to help me but her pidgin was so thick I had no clue what she was saying as she bought gas and a mango. After the mango lady left in a cloud of cigarette smoke the laughing, smiling woman and I finally were able to figure out the road I needed to go to and I was sent off with a "Ladda hot stuff.".
After reading now one and a half of mister Paul's books I am realizing the great value to be had in simply talking to random stranger you encounter on your travels. Too often I have walked around foreign places with a "don't fuck with me" defensiveness. I have not often met local people in my travels. Waihee valley boy being an exception, but I was very deffensive with him at first even as any of you who have heard the full story of our encounter might recall. When I get to travelling again I hope to be more open and inquisitive in my wandering.
Gosh it was just a year ago March that I was in Maui. It seems like a much longer time.
Waihee Valley Swinging Bridges Rob
Ka'eleku Caverns