the ball starts to roll...?

Something incredible happened: one of my music heros (that I sent one of those fancy envelope/letter/CDs to) wrote back to me. I'm in SHOCK.

And, as if that wasn't enough: I received my first review! A good one.

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cacao nibs to save the world

Eden

Starfruit sliced fresh off the tree.

Cacao pods

White-rumped shama

Fireworks

Baby pineapple a-growing.

It has been hard to write much lately. Days are very full. I can't describe how deeply happy I am here. Have I said that already?
The Mother is tireless in her enthusiasm for seeing all that grows on Kauai. We have seen bromeliads and staghorn ferns, jurassic palms, ficas with roots taller than a man, cycads, vanilla bean orchids (truly where vanilla comes from), coffee and cacao plantations, starfruit, pineapple, banyans and monkeypods, eggfruit, lilikoi, black bamboo, chinese red bamboo... the list is endless.

Yesterday we visited a cacao farm. (And CB, Mistress of Cacao, this goes out to you.)
Cacao trees grow 20 degrees above and below the equator. They need a constant temperature of at least 60 degrees. They need shade, and they can't tolerate wind. Their flowers are so tiny that they can only be pollinated by gnats and midges, so you have to fertilize them with rotting fruit. The pods grow low to the ground, because to proliferate, they rely on animals to eat them and pass their seeds. A ripe cacao pod contains 30-50 seeds (beans). When they're ripe, you have to extract the beans, let them ferment for about a week, then dry them in the sun. Then you roast them like coffee beans, and voila, a ready-to-eat, pungent, bitter, but unmistakably cocoa-ey snack. (I think perhaps an acquired taste..) The Mayans and other clever folks used to eat them or mash 'em up and drink them daily, for their powerful medicinal qualities! Now, get this: to make chocolate, all you have to do is grind the beans in a super-powerful grinder for about 3 days non-stop. (Don't have to add anything at all.) You'll get 100% pure liquid chocolate. If you want it to be palatable, though, you should throw some other stuff into the grinder, like a ton of sugar. We tried 10 different chocolates made with just cacao, sugar, and vanilla. They were all so different - I was amazed. It was like a wine tasting. So many factors influencing the flavour. The soil and climate where the beans are grown, the bacteria present in the air when the beans ferment, the roasting time, the kind of grinder used, the length of grinding time, the cooling process, and the tempering process, the mood of the roaster, the angle of the sun, the alignment of mercury and saturn, etc. etc. Fascinating.

And now, a quick list of 10 things I've loved from the last couple days:
1. Slamming back cold beers with Ma on the patio. (That's right, Pa. Cold beers.)
2. The tree tunnel near our place - a long, dense corridor of towering Eucalyptus trees.
3. Mouth-watering rambutan!
4. Watching people line up along the beach and the sea-walls to wait for the sunset... a silent audience paying homage to the sun.
5. Listening to the palms rustling in the night, a sound strikingly similar to gentle rainfall.
6. Geckos on the walls. Little tiny ones, protecting us from any threat of cockroaches or mosquitos.
7. Hearing a new birdsong every morning.
8. Finding sand in my bellybutton.
9. The tiny little lime-green bird with the white-rimmed eyes who stands upside-down on the palm leaves beside our balcony.
10. Knowing I still have over a month left.

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Polihale

This is Polihale - the longest beach in Hawaii. It is west-facing, unbroken by land, completely open to the sea. There are sand dunes, and scarred cliffs. The roar of 2400 miles of ocean sounds like jet engines. It feels like an empty planet out there. All you can do is stare at the waves.
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no words

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undercover

The Mother is here, visiting for a week. She deserves a week in the sun (who doesn't?), and I'm glad that she has come while I'm in gorgeous Poipu in the 'sunny south'. The landscape here rolls gently down to the sea, with open fields of tall grasses, clusters of eucalyptus and banyen trees, the profile of a snaking mountain chain in the distance, and imaginary dinosaurs roaming freely. It feels vast, empty and luminous. And yet, people claim the North is even more beautiful. So yesterday being my day off, we headed out to Princeville and Hanalei, which, incidentally, are only about an hour and a half from the South. (Kauai is the northern-most island in Hawaii, and it's pretty cool to look out from its shores, knowing that there's nothing but water for about 2400 miles either west or south. About the same distance from Vancouver to Quebec City.) I admit the scenery in the North is pretty stunning. Its a rain magnet, green and lush. Houses at low elevation are built up on tall stilts - so tall that the 1st floor starts 3 stories up. There's only one road, and on one side you have the dramatic beaches, and on the other, crazy mountains, sheer rock walls and jungle valleys. And caves! I get pretty excited about caves, and as you can see in the pictures below, the cave we saw was no slouch. You could hold a concert in there with an audience of 500, I betcha. I think it will have to be made use of on an upcoming tour. The unfortunate thing about the North is that there's only 1 road to get in and out. So all the lookouts and features along the way are crowded with tourists. What you'd really need to explore this place properly is an overnight pack, good hiking boots, and a brave spirit of adventure and trespassing. Might not be something I get to do on this trip... We found some great trailheads though, so we'll be heading back on another day to hike inland on some legendary trails - exciting!

Back in sunny South, (which I have to say I still prefer) we had a lovely, long, leisurely and illegal swim in the Grand Hyatt pool. The surf has been really high last couple days - hazardous conditions, not good for Mothers. But I discovered this fantasy-land pool the other day... it's like a giant oasis, made out of lava rock and sand, built right into the landscape beside the ocean. It's for 'guests of the Grand Hyatt only', guests identified by their brown-and-white-striped towels. Well, guess who else happens to have brown-and-white striped towels? Mm-hm. Very convenient. We strolled about the grounds afterwards, checked out the palatial inner courtyard, the black swans and koi in the lobby's water garden, the luau shakedown in the outdoor activity room... yawn, how droll. Rooms are only $560-1299 per night. Maybe some other time.

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Cavin'

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the engagement

If Kauai was a man, I'd already have a ring on my finger. We're in love.

(As I was swimming today, I spotted a shadow in the water - a turtle. A wave came and I lost him. A few minutes later, his head popped out of the water, not 2 feet away from me. I don't know who was more startled. Another huge wave came, I was dunked and tossed around, quite possibly entangled with my turtle. I took it as a sign.)

When I am Mistress of this island, I will be just and kind. I will protect the monk seals and the endangered birds and the unassuming locals. I will also have to make a few new laws concerning tourists. There are a lot of resort-types here with avocados up their asses. They're rude and pompous and conservative and look down at girls who ride their bikes in swimsuits, with sandy feet and frazzled hair and bags of market produce on their bicycle handles. (Not to name any names.) They yell at said girls, "Get off the road!" They frown when these girls say "HI!" when cruising past them on their tidy walkways. They cluster around souvenir stalls and demand better prices on the freshwater pearls. They mob around scenic hotspots. They fill every corner of cultured lawn with their beach chairs and chip bags. It's a bit off-putting.

When I am Mistress of this island, all visitors will have to sign a form guaranteeing adherence to rules of liberal congeniality, environmental protection and respect of all life forms. Anyone who is caught breaking this agreement will be subject to penalties and fines. (For example, 48 hours without a car, laptop, iphone or digital camera.)

I wonder what sort of offspring I will have with Kauai? I'm sure there must be some kind of parallel in Greek Mythology that I could learn from. Maybe our children will be Gods of Pineapple, Goddesses of Lava Rock?

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The strange & varied inhabitants of Kauai

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who are you, bird?

the garden isle

going back to Sunday

I bet you're wondering when and how I'm gonna get dumped on in this trip. But I've tossed out the notion of 'too good to be true'. Why shouldn't true be that good? I don't take it for granted - I try to repay all gifts with all gratitude.

My worst complaint so far is this:

Why in the hell does this landscape defy me so obstinately to get a decent picture of it? Its beauty is protected by some magic shroud that allows the senses, but not a camera lens, to absorb it. Cameras are deceptive things. Use them too much, and you end up sacrificing experiences in the present for a bunch of ghost-like images. Like so many tourists. But I sometimes just can't resist. Want to hold onto something a little longer...

I'm on Kauai now - flew over yesterday.

I haven't told you about my last day on Maui yet. It's because I've hit a blogging wall...

ie. I've run out of adjectives. I have to scale back. Use a little newspeak.

So: On Sunday I went for a hike on Waihee Ridge. It was a long way to the trailhead and I stopped to say hello to horses and My Street, got sunburnt on my scooter. I hiked up and up. There were many good things to see, including good trees (Norfolk Pines), flowers, 2 waterfalls, and doublegood lookouts. As I gained elevation, views became gooder. And at the top, the views were doubleplusgood.

Proof of Danish ancestral pilgrimage to the Paradise Isles?

An apple for this lovely snout.

View from the bottom.

Ropey tendrils from Norfolk pines.

Waterfalls, poorly photographed.

Curlicue fiddleheads.

The Iao valley below, looking bland in comparison to real life.

Looking over Kahului beaches.

Sea urchin growing on tree (?)

More unphotogenic slopes, magnificent in person.

From the peak. Views were 360 degrees. DoublePlusPlusPlusGood.

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Conversion

It was another bloody amazing day. Maybe even one of the most memorable of all my travels. At some point, floating in the ocean over mountains and valleys, I realized something. I seem to have become a hedonist. Who would've guessed? A quick play-by-play of yesterday: a sweet morning ride on the scooter. A new beach, a snorkeler's haven - a couple hours drifting over a coral universe. Startled upon a huge turtle. Suffered heart tremors of joy/eruptions of awe. Followed him slowly around the bay, forgot about human existence. Later, woke up on another beach, this one packed full of children playing in the surf. Spent an hour there, jumping over full-Posiedon-force waves. Then onto the lava fields and bird-spying, and then the ranch. Saddled up for the first time, yee-haw. Rode up to the volcano vent, came down through the cattle lands at sunset. Sccoted my sore ass home, ate some trail mix for dinner. Passed out.




Can't really even touch on anything but the outline of events. My mind is just full to bursting with thoughts. ideas. ambitions. ridiculousness. Scribbling it all onto a little sand-and-water-crusted notebook. Maybe I'll get some of it into the blog one of these days.

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