After spending a couple days lounging on the beach and living off on shaved ice, in denial of what was ahead of us, Ambika and I headed to the grocery store to buy our food and a couple missing safety supplies in preparation for our hike on the 11 mile Kalalau Trail. We spent over an hour in the unfamiliar aisles of the local Safeway gasping at the outrageous price of food, trying to get by with as little as possible. By the time we made it through the cash register we managed to spend a meager $136, with exclusive Safeway Club member savings of $11 dollars and .86 cents.
We knew there were a couple of rivers to cross along the trail so we thought we'd pick up some water shoes to change into when the time came so we wouldn't risk drenching our hiking boots. It was already 8:30PM and the variety store closed in fifteen minutes so we rushed over to look for the things we needed.
Grass mat to sleep on beach - $4. Sold.
Souvenir for boyfriend - Undisclosed cheap price. Sold.
Water shoes essential to cross rivers - $22. HA! I don't think so.
Going barefoot instead - $0. Sold.
After being rudely rushed out of the closing store we went back to the time share unit and spread out all of our new belongings. Holy hell, there was enough food to feed a family for a week. How did we manage that? I thought we were scrimping. No wonder our bill had come to just under a grand.
Our plan was to pack up that night (as we also had to be out of the unit the next day) but we were both too exhausted from our Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit Edition photo shoot earlier in the day so we decided to pack in the morning.
Packing in the morning when you're supposed to be starting the trail at 8:00 AM is not a wise decision because no one wants to wake up at 6:00 AM for any reason, let alone that reason be packing; ugh. Sure enough, we woke up at 7:00, got our bags together, did God knows what for two hours, and finally checked out by 9:00.
We raced to the trail head with butterflies in our stomach, literally asking our selves why we were doing this. "Don't people come to Hawaii to relax?" "Are we crazy?" The conclusion was yes, but that didn't stop us. We had already advertised to all of our friends and family that we were doing this, so couldn't not go and look like woosies, even though our mom's would have preferred it if we skipped the whole thing. [Side note: While still at home and explaining the hike to my mom, she searched for it on Google, and a link to a video on YouTube came up of a guy slipping down part of the trail because it was so muddy. "See! It's rated FIVE stars!" she exclaimed worriedly. "No, mom. That's the rating of the video, not how hard the hike is." In reality, if I were to rate the hike on a one to five scale, I'd rate it seven stars.]
Since there is no service on the trail, we parted with our most treasured devices and left our cell phones in the glove box. By 10:00 AM we were finally on our way (but not before we asked someone to take a picture of us).
Straight away the hike starts out up hill, forcing you to step carefully through large protruding tree roots. I remember thinking it felt like football practice. Not that I've ever been on a football team, but you know, like the ones you see in movies where they have to run while stepping though a line of tires? Anyway…
After hiking up hill for almost a mile we came around the bend where we could see the Na Pali coast. Ambika said, "You see that last bend? We hike further than that." Oh God. Before we started what we dubbed "the stairs of death" Ambika leaned down to tie her shoe for what would be the 2nd time of countless during the hike (double knot, Ambika, double knot). Some how when we stopped for water earlier we didn't secure her water bottle back onto the side of her bag. As she was tying her shoe, the water bottle fell out and rolled down the cliff, only stopping for split seconds to crash and bounce off small tree trunks. We watched in horror until we couldn't see the bottle any more, looked at each other, smiled, then nervously giggled and continued walking, knowing we were both thinking the same thing: what if that was one of us.
With only three liters of water left we continued to the first major obstacle, the largest river out of the three along the trail. This marked two miles into the trail as well as the popular Hanakapi'ai Beach, where most tourists see, then turn back. Next to the beach there was a sign advising not to go into the waves since the current was very dangerous for anyone who was not familiar with the water. Over thirty tic marks accompanied the sign, signifying the number of
visitor deaths. We took off our boots and left them on the side of the river and walked across using our hiking poles for balance and dropped our bags on the other side and returned to retrieve our shoes. It was about 11:15 and we decided we'd have lunch. We took out our hummus, pita, bagels, cream cheese, jack cheese, peanut butter, and feasted for an unnecessary amount of time. By the time we were packed up it was noon. This left us 6 hours to complete the next 9 miles. Keep in mind the sun starts to set at 6pm and it's totally dark by 6:30. We were cutting it close.
The first half the trail is very lush as it gets much more water and we were surrounded by large plants with elephant sized leafs that dwarfed our size. We named them "dinosaur plants",
secretly wondering if we might see any real dinosaurs. Parts of the trail already exposed us to the constant theme of the trip: danger. At times we'd walk on a path no greater than a foot wide with shrubbery covering the area in front of you, concentrating hard on where you put your feet, while you tried not to let the straight drop to your side divert your focus.
We passed a couple hikers who had gone far enough and decided it was time to turn back. They offered us one of their water bottles since they wouldn't be needing it and would just be extra weight on their backs. Since one of ours already decided to jump ship we gladly took it. They wished us luck on the rest of the hike and we went our separate ways.
We found a little spot between trees where there could have been room to put a tent about five miles into the hike. We decided it was time for a snack break and joked around how we could just stop here and set up camp; although we weren't really joking. As I was pulling out two Luna bars, someone was coming from the other end of the trail who looked like a "holy man" with long hair and a beard and no shirt. We giggled and continued to chat and devour our snack. It wasn't until the man had come all the way up the switch-back did we notice that he wasn't wearing any pants either. He was totally nude. Full frontal. No joke. Sporting only a small pack and sandals. We had heard the rumors about hippies that flock to the beach and live there illegally, but we didn't think we'd actually see any, let alone on the trail! "You girls sound like you're having a lot of fun. That's what the trail is for. I hope you enjoy your journey." Awesome. Alright. Peace love and happiness, dude. As we walked down the trail we wondered if he had something to wear for the populated area of the trail, or a car, or a friend, or money, or PANTS?! Sheet. I mean, I'm pretty open minded, but come on. Pants. Please.
After getting over our shell shock we picked up our bags and continued on. Along the way we kept passing a local couple who were really nice and were taking their friends who were visiting along the trail and going approximately the same pace as us. We'd stop, they'd pass us, they'd break, and we'd pass them, and so on. The four of them were very nice, and it was definitely comforting knowing there were other people with the same agenda as us, going as late as us. We were still very concerned about time, considering by 3pm we still had 5 miles left, two of which are the called the "hardest of the hike" since you're literally scaling rocky cliffs with no where to go but straight ahead, or, God forbid, straight down. After passing another river (this time we rock-jumped) we decided to go ahead and push through since we found out that the other group that was breaking there was going to do the same.
A couple things to worry about while walking along the rock (miles 7 and 8). One is not to roll your ankle on loose rock. That's risky because you can trip and fall off the cliff. You should also be aware of protruding rock, as it can hit the parts of your pack that are sticking out (water bottles, etc), catch you off balance and you can fall off the cliff. Another thing to worry about is feeling vertigo. This is risky since you must concentrate very hard on the trail as it is easy to loose your steadiness and fall off the cliff. Also, along the path, there are boulders that are higher than you can step on to, even with the use of hiking poles, causing you to hold the poles in one hand and literally crawl up and over the rock. This is risky because one wrong move and you can fall off the cliff. So, the common denominator here is the "falling off the cliff" aspect. This was really the only problem in this section. No big deal.
Mile 9 was interesting. It was down a red hill. When I say hill, I mean a straight drop. Ha, no, OK, not a straight drop. A straight drop would mean a cliff, and we've already had enough of that. But this red rocky hill was pretty bloody steep. And this was about the time my toes had had enough. They were really screaming at me, as were my knees, ankles, back and feet. But my toes were on fire. I'm not sure if it was just the constant pressure while going downhill, or if my shoes were just a fraction too small, or the soles were just not "hard core" enough, or what. Bottom line, I was essentially using my hiking poles as crutches. I was going pretty slow and at this point and Ambika was ahead of me. She turned back to make sure I was doing ok and asked if I was in pain. "Yeah, I am," I said solemnly. "Same here," she replied and turned back down the hill. It wasn't until after the hike that I found out she was on the verge of tears after our brief conversation. As was I. [There were several points along the hike where I was in borderline tears.]
We met our new trail mates at the last river, which marked the end of the 10th mile. Only one more mile to go. One more major obstacle to cross and we were pretty much there since the 11th mile is all flat and very easy. We watched one our trail mates jump over from rock to rock quite easily, however, he was a guy with very long legs. Ambika tried the same route and almost made it to the end but slipped on the 2nd to last rock and in the water she went. Ugh! Wet shoes, no good. I think my shoes had a little better grip on the rocks than hers did and managed to hop across safely. Actually, I'd describe it as freakishly cat-like since I couldn’t' really feel my legs at this point and I have no idea how it happened. All that matters is that I made it without falling. We just had to hope that Amibka's shoes would be dry by the morning.
Sure enough, by the time we were on the last stretch the sun was setting right on queue. At this
point it was safe to take out cameras out of our bag and take a picture of our prize: the now red and orange Kalalau beach. The way the green mountains jetted up around the beach was astonishing. It was like its own little paradise. But no time to absorb this beauty now, we had to rush and set up camp before it was completely dark so we weren't doing it blind. I don't know how, but we set up the tent in less than five minutes with a little bit of day light to spare. This allowed us some time to walk to the shower and wash off all the mud, sweat and grime we had acquired over the last eight hours. The shower is a constant flowing waterfall that you simply stand under. Boys, cover your eyes here, but since it was pretty much dark we didn't worry about any one seeing us, so we stripped totally naked and took turns under the shower. At this point being clean was top priority over decency.
Good thing we had brought out headlamps to the shower because once we were done it was pitch black. We went back to the tent we had pitched on the beach and ate as much food as we could handle. Ravenous, I think I'd call us. We didn't bring food that needed to be cooked since we were pretty sure we couldn't count on us making a fire, which ended up being true. We were too tired to find wood in the dark, so we ended up just playing with ambers, burning leaves and twigs for about an hour and watching the stars until we were too tired to keep our eyes open - we lasted until about 9:30 I think.
We passed out in our tiny tent on our grass mats from the variety store with no room for our feet since I wanted our bags in there too because I was paranoid it would rain. Now, I knew I had a little problem with claustrophobia, but it wasn't until I woke up at 11 PM and I had to get out of the tent as soon as possible or else I would have a panic attack. Trying not to wake Ambika (unsuccessfully), I made it out and sat on the beach for a few minutes until I calmed down enough to try and go back to sleep. An hour later I woke up again with the same issue. I kept trying to talk my self out of it, telling myself I couldn’t get up again. Nothing is wrong, go back to sleep. Didn't help. I felt really bad because I would wake Ambika, but I had to get out again, or else…or else I don't know what would happen, that's the thing with phobias I guess. FREAK OUT. Maybe? Anyway, Ambika went into problem solver mode and kicked the bags out so we had enough room for our feet and I guess that was all I needed because we didn't wake up again until 7:30 AM.
We mentally understood that we needed to get going pretty fast, but we still needed to at least explore the beach a little and eat breakfast. We first walked over to where the freshwater cave was. As we were approaching, we noticed a couple from a distance and it seemed like they were nude. Great. Again? Come on people. Oh good, the lady had the desire to at least put on a sarong to cover her "parts". Her boyfriend/husband/tree lover/hippie man, alternatively, kept totally nude, only holding a camera. They were walking hand in hand towards us. Closer. Ok. Um, where are we supposed to look?! Ooooo, pretty beach, wow, look at the waves, crashing, oh hey there! With kind eyes they approached us and asked, "Would you mind taking a picture of us?" Ambika took the camera, "Um, sure! This will be a first for me." The couple kind of ignored her comment, not really understanding what she meant by it. I just kind of stood there in shock. When the picture didn't turn out well, she handed the camera to me and said, "She's the photographer! Heh." Yeah. Thanks. I don't have experience photographing the nudies. Anyway, I got the shot, it looked nice, they smiled, and we smiled and went on our way to the cave. (PANTS?!)
The cave was cool. What was even cooler was the sand dune that was between the two walls of rock.
We played on it and took pictures. By the time we were done playing we were already running late but we still had to eat. So we did. Then we packed up. A couple other campers came up to us and said bye, one of which asked us to make a phone call for them on the way out. [Side note: Um, Ambika? Did you call that guys' friend? I totally forgot about that until just now.]
By 10:00 AM we were on our way. Yes, running two hours behind again. Oh well. All that meant was it was time for super extreme speed hiking. No time for pain, complaining, or even breaks for that matter, and especially no falling into rivers. Oops, right off the bat Ambika fell again in the same river. Except now she'd have to finish the hike in wet shoes. Ambika! She had a knack for being clumsy in the most inopportune times. Nine more miles to trek with soggy feet isn't a good motivator. But, what were we going to do? We had planes to catch.
Onward we went, first up the red dirt hill. This just plain sucked because there was no shade and we had the added heat factor since it was the hottest point in the day. I think we downed about a quarter of our water in this section. The cliff scaling was quite a bit more difficult while 100% coherent since you actually realized the extreme "riskyness" of it all. There was part where you had to turn the corner while crossing over a large boulder. I didn't even remember doing it the first time; I don’t know how it was done to begin with. Ambika was first, and she made it over just fine, but turned a looked back to me and said, "that was scary, be careful." I nodded. "I'm going to keep going," she continued. Which was a good idea since it was always quite windy on those ledges that jutted out (another risky factor). As I was coming down on the other side of the boulder, the water bottle on my right side hit another rock and fell out of my bag. I thought for sure it was going to roll straight off the edge so I closed my eyes not to watch, as I'm sure I'd begin to imagine horrible things if I did. I opened my eyes and found the bottle had stopped just feet in front of me. All I had to do was get all the way down to retrieve it and everything would be fine. [If it was out of the way/super dangerous, trust me, I would have had no problem leaving it behind. I'm not going to risk my life for a liter of water! Plus we had water treatment tablets since there's this crazy disease that turns people into rats or something if you don't boil/treat the fresh water.] Even though I got the bottle, there was no room to take off my pack on that ledge, so I had to feel my way into the side pocket. For some reason this is a very difficult task while your pack is on so it took an abnormal amount of time to turn the corner. Poor Ambika was left on the other side imagining all the horrible things of why the **** I wasn't coming around. After all of that, we crossed the most difficult part of the trail and we were on our way. Only 6 more miles to go.
Another little problem we had, aside from the whole hike, was that my flight departed at 8:15 PM. This meant that even if we made it in the same amount of time that it took us the first time, we'd arrive at the trail end at 6 PM, leaving essentially no time for error. The realization of this is what prompted "balls to the wall" hiking speed. We were flying, or at least it felt like it to us. No breaks except for water, and a power bar here and there, and we finally made it back to the lush side of the trail. But wait, errrr, STOP! Goats. Wild goats. We'd seen them off the trail, but never ON the trail. There was a family. Mom, dad, and baby. The dad looked quite menacing with horns so we didn't want to startle it. The best we could do was walk slowly towards them making "baaaa" type noises looking like idiot humans. What ever we were saying was probably translating as profanity or war calls in goat speak since they just glared at us, rolled their eyes, and hopped off the trail. The baby kind of liked us and stayed interested long enough to laugh at us as we passed. I'm not kidding. The baby was totally laughing.
Back to balls to the wall speed. It must have rained the night before because the same trail we'd hiked on the previous morning was now quite muddy had become very slippery. A lot of this part was down hill as we were approaching the Hankapi'ai Beach, and my poles (which I praise and love and will worship for literally saving my life countless times) were getting stuck in the mud so I was a little pissed off at them at the moment. By the end of it, I was whispering sailor talk like a pro schizo each time I had to yank my pole from behind me. By the time I had made it down to the beach I was covered in mud and found that Ambika had already been there long enough to take her shoes off and cross the river with her pack. She helped me with my pack as I took my shoes off. I found that my right big toe had a crack down the middle, starting from the base and almost reaching the top. Ha, no WONDER they hurt so much.
After we made it to the other side of the river with all of our belongings we stuffed some sweet bread in our faces for some last minute carb boost. 4:45 PM. Three hours and thirty minutes before my flight departed. Not a good scenario with the stairs of death in your very near future. Regardless, we blasted up the hill, brainstorming ways of how/where I would shower before I got on the flight since there was no way they could let me on looking/smelling the way I did. The original plan for showering was to go back to the time share unit's courtesy room area where they provided showers for customers but there was certainly no time for that. The last two miles felt like an eternity, a time warp, slowly recognizing turns, thinking that the next one was sure to be the last, but it just never came. Luckily two barefoot surfers carrying their boards from the beach, also on their way back to the parking lot, chatted and ran with us, convincing us that we wouldn’t make our flight. They were only good for two things: distraction from the pain, and they also told us where a fresh water pond was just a half mile up the road from the parking lot.
We finally made it to the car at exactly six PM with no time to relax. We changed our shoes and drove to the pond since it was our only option if I had any hope of making the flight. Ambika provided me with soap which she tossed down, then kept a look out by the car to make sure no one was coming, so I stripped down (seems to be a theme) and bathed in what was to me was a fresh water miracle. However, I later learned from Ambika that it had a bottle cap floating in it. Awesome.
I put on my clothes and jumped in the car and we were on our way. Keep in mind we were on the other side of the island so, if we sped (and we did, trust me) it would take us about an hour to get to the airport. Forty-five minutes later we arrived in the parking lot. Again, getting naked in public is now my forte so I decided to keep the theme of "balls to the wall" and got naked in the airport parking lot where I had to change into clean clothes, find all of my belongings in the car, and switch out all my non-carry-on items into my check in suit case. In the mean time, Ambika was making me my dinner with the left over food. When she was done, she looked at her watch and said, "its 7:30, we HAVE to go. Stop what you're doing and whatever we leave behind I'll figure out a way to put it in my bag." So I did. I zipped everything up and we ran to the check in counter of Go! Airlines. The same airlines I came into Kauai on. So it's only logical that I'd be leaving on them, right? The ticket counter was closed. There were no later flights except for the one that departed at 7PM. WHAT was going on?! Had my flight been canceled? We ran to another airline counter and asked about any cancellations. The lady asked for the airline name and flight number so I took out my phone and Ambika took charge and grabbed it from me since I was totally distraught. "OK, let me see, it's flight number…and on…SHEFALI YOU'RE FLYING HAWAIIAN!" Oh my god. We ran over to the Hawaiian Airline ticket counter and frantically asked if I could still check my bag. They said yes (surprisingly, looking back on it, since we're both brown, had a crazed look in our eyes and Ambika was still covered in mud -her flight wasn't until 11pm-). And that was it. I was lifted onto a cloud of stardust and carried over to the terminal. Or at least that's what going through security was like. Ha. Just kidding. But regardless it was a BIG sigh of relief knowing I was going to make my flight with all my things. I sat there inhaling my dinner Ambika made me until my seat was called and woke up in Seattle the next morning.
Moral of the story: Never underestimate the power of pants.
Judging by our surroundings, we were happily surprised to find the menu to be very reasonably priced. I ended up ordering from the tapas menu and got the vegetarian enchiladas since I was told by our waiter that it would probably fill me up since I didn't arrive totally famished.
