A Hawaiian Experience

Each day thousands of tourists arrive in Hawaii to vacation, honeymoon, celebrate a divorce, or just plain relax.  But their "Hawaiian experience" seldom goes beyond those famous white beaches, ocean sunsets or the made-for-tourist luaus served with fruity cocktails speared with colorful miniature umbrellas.

What a pity. At least that's what I thought running along a trail into Moanalua Valley, just a couple of miles north of Honolulu on the island of Oahu.  Plucking wild strawberry guava from trees crowding the path, I squeezed the sweet juice into my mouth as I labored further and further into the tropical forest crossing over the same stream a dozen times as it meandered inexorably towards the ocean. For anyone, tourist or local alike, this was truly paradise.

Moanalua is just one of hundreds of deep valleys etched into the volcanic islands of Hawaii, eroded over the millennia by incessant rainstorms. Drop by drop, year after year, the hard substrate that was once the equivalent of molten iron gives way to the erosive properties of water.

The erosion is so complete that the ridges separating the valleys are sharp as razorblades with steep, staggering cliffs on both sides. The Polynesians that eventually came to live in these vales became distinct tribes with their own chief.  Each valley became a unique reflection of the tribe, even long after they passed away.

The gentle rain is not nearly as breathtaking as the pounding surf tourists observe on the shoreline of Kauai, Oahu, Maui, Molokai, or the big island, Hawaii.  But while not as dramatic, the degradation of the land is still quite effective.

So effective that most don't realize Hawaii is a chain of islands, or archipelago, stretching over 1200 miles northwest of Honolulu. These "older" islands to the north no longer reign like they once did with the majesty of mountains like Haleakala on Maui or Mauna kea on the Big Island.  They exist now, if at all, as nothing more than a shell of their former existence.

The evolution of an island's birth and demise is constant and inevitable.  As the North Pacific plate moves northward, lava pours through cracks in the ocean floor. Over millions of years the lava dome builds until becoming a mound, and then a seamount and eventually breaking the ocean surface.  Coral attach themselves to the cooled lava, forming a ring around the new atoll.  Fish begin to aggregate around the newly formed land mass and floating larvae of lobster and other crustaceans find a new home.

Rain sweeps gently over the hard molten crust. Ever so slowly delicious top soil is formed.  Coconuts wash ashore and take root. Animals floating on debris or flying from other islands begin to arrive. Seeds once dormant in the intestines of animals find their way to the fertile soil and begin to sprout. Soon, at least on the geologic clock based on millions of years instead of seconds, the island becomes a lush vegetative forest with animals evolved into species that would have surprised Dr. Moreau.

The volcano is dormant now, and millennium after millennium the rains continue.  Each drop carrying a precious speck of dirt down a stream to the ocean.  Eventually, the island will wear down to nothing but a nub, a rocky outcropping for monk seals to rest and warm themselves.  Finally the island will complete its death throe, sinking so far below the surface that it will no longer be recognizable nor remembered in history books or on navigator's charts.

Such is the temporal fate of these islands. But as some die, new ones erupt into new life and the tectonic plate moves on.

But this day, I'm not thinking about what will eventually happen to this beautiful island. This is a carpe diem day, a day to be enjoyed just for itself.

As I turn at the end of the valley and head home, a breeze catches me by surprise and the hair on my neck stands on end. I feel a profound menacing presence watching.  I decide to pick up the pace, thinking I can outrun whomever, whatever, might be lurking in the foliage spying on me.  The feeling doesn't pass as I rush past a rock with ancient petroglyphs known as Pohaku Luahine, or old woman.

 My nervousness turns into a dull paranoia as I run out of the valley.  I am jogging downhill letting gravity speed me along.  Splashing through streams now, brushing the guava limbs away from my face as they try to slow my progress.

            Finally I reach the entrance of the valley and slow my pace as the uneasiness passes and I begin to wonder if my fear had just been an overactive imagination of a scared haole.

            When I return home the Sunday Honolulu Advertiser is on the kitchen table. I take it onto the lanai to relax and recover as the refreshing trade winds wash over my still perspiring body.

            Now the sweat is cold. On the front page of a family section I see a small story. "The Winds of Moanaloa Valley."  The author of the article is a guide who leads groups on walks back into the valley and writes about the winds that cause the hair to rise on the back of the neck and the sense of always being watched.  The writer recounts the valley's history of human sacrifice and human despair.

There was definitely something there, I felt it. But not all valleys held the same hostile feelings for me as Moanalua.  Manoa was sacred and welcoming, as evidenced by the most expensive real estate prices on the island.  Makua, meaning parent, was loving and endearing.

Each valley, carved by raindrops from the same sky, sent rushing torrents of water to the same ocean.  Yet isolated from one another they developed their own spirit, their own cosmic language.

Could religion be the same I wondered?  Life that falls from the same God rolling through different streams to the same sea. Muslim, Christian, Jew, Hindu, all originate from the same building blocks of life, from the same sky, evolving differently as their stream ultimately runs into the same ocean.

What a tragedy if that were so. All the wars fighting over whose "valley" was right or wrong, or whose race is smarter, stronger or better suited to rule the entire island, when in the end, we end up in the same ocean anyway, waiting for the human hydrological cycle to begin anew.