June 28 - May 18 2012 / Hawaii: Ancient Culture, Ever-Renewing Land
In Which We Visit Three Islands, and See the Transit of Venus Across the Sun
Part 2 - The Big Island, Hawaii, and the Transit of Venus
Two takes-offs, two landings today. How many of these have we done in our lifetime together? I keep thinking how wonderful and wondrous it would be to have a world map and draw our travels all over it. I have the map; maybe I will do that. They can post it at my funeral!
So mostly a day spent in transit; although lengthy, with two brief flights (one to Maui and then a four hour wait to get another to the island of Hawaii, called The Big Island), but it was quite painless. The airport here is virtually all outdoors, I love it. I love the smell, the sound, the casualness of it all.
The main thing, though, is the tumult of brand new rock. You can see its flows across the land from above, you can see that the airport is an artificially flattened affair wrenched from the surrounding lava—in the black and chaotic spaces between runways only an ant could walk and that not easily. By God we are landing on a damn lava field!! I find myself far more affected by this in-my-face sight than when I saw it in 1991—well, no, not more, but differently.
Now we are ensconced in our room at the Royal Kona Resort, In Kailua-Kona, into which the Transit tour group has been booked. It’s a firmly fake place. We can see the sea from our room but we can also look pretty directly into somebody else’s room, and hear the kids down below in the pool, and were chased off sitting on the sea wall by a fat security guy as we sat there to watch for the green flash—which, dutifully standing by the sea wall, we indeed saw, now that we know what to look for.
John asks, Is this still Hawaii? As we stroll down the road to look for the condo where we will move after we leave the Transit tour group. Yes, it’s still Hawaii but this stretch of road is probably the most tourist-ravaged in the islands, except perhaps for Waikiki Beach, which, I read in my airplane magazine, is pretty much all faked—they bring in sand from Southern California. Shame, shame, shame… Aloha Nui said, the way of life was ruined by two things, American culture, and money. Shame, shame.
The morning was spent in lectures by our two astronomy guides, one our friend by now after so many eclipses together, Alex Filippenko, he of the wild childlike enthusiasm and passionate knowledge, kind of a sort of a Carl Sagan, and another good fellow, editor of Astronomy magazine.
The editor talked about the history of the universe (requires some hubris to talk about this!), and then, switching gears, about meteorites which are his passion (as well as, it turns out, the Civil War about which he has written several books, an interesting pairing—a polymath no doubt). He brought a lot of samples and lovingly told us about each one. So now I have looked at, at close range (though encased in plastic) a tiny piece of Mars, and of the moon. This was all excellent for me because I love it when people are smart and love what they know.
And, of course, Alex gives himself over so fully and heartfully that it is a joy to be in his presence. He greeted us enthusiastically and we spoke of the eclipse trip to Mongolia a bit, and about his Buddhist brother Ivan who was with us on that marvelous trip.
So it’s a mixed bag, the folks on the trip. A young boy and his father. A pair of young Swedish men, college age, the one having won a youth science prize in his country and therefore getting to come to MIT for the summer, and he co-authored a paper which was published in a prestigious journal. They were inquiring about eclipses and I told them about Wilderness Travel. Lots of couples of various ages. Several single strange-looking men, one with an artificial arm, starkly shown, one with a truly gigantic gut, and several other assorted types. And us, of course!
After a sort of reception thing, with wine and cheese and meats (yukky ones) and crackers, and much more talk and Q and A with Alex and the editor, when they got into the “state of education today”, I left hastily.
Next a wee nap, followed by a long walk through the garish tourist row to a pier where we boarded a nice catamaran and went along the Kona coast.
There were drinks, music, and a fine lecturer on Hawaiian history. The latter was a kind of weird thing, because the guy is 7th generation Hawaiian but his forebears were from Scotland, and he had actually got a Scots accent of a sort. The history, with all the kings, kapus (rules of tabu), wars (only the royalty fought, not the folks, a great arrangement), and all the gods and things, was very complicated. But so is everybody’s history, really. He pointed out, along the shoreline, numerous formerly sacred places, some of them untouched, others, sadly built over or hopelessly altered. Since statehood, it seems, there has been a slow but steady revival of Hawaiian culture. Or are those places still mana-filled to some at least?
From the boat, one can see 180 degrees of coastline, one end of the mountain to the other, the slope, the rise, the clouded mountain top, the black lava, and its trails into the sea.
We sat for a while, in the water, by the place where Captain James Cook was killed, all a terrible misunderstanding (as these things so often are), but they saw, the Hawaiians, that he was a great chief, and so they accorded his body the ritual they would one of their own: removed the flesh from the bones, wrapped them, and returned them to his people for burial. Thus the Europeans thought they were cannibals. Ah well.
So now tomorrow to the high country, up Mauna Kea first to the visitor center at 9000 feet, for a bit, then, I hope successfully, to the telescope at nearly 14,000, for an hour or even less. I hope I can do this ok. It seems now that the telescope is mostly used remotely, even on the mainland. As Alex said somewhat wistfully, So some of the romance of it is gone.
It really is a horror show along the strip here. Scruffy types found in places such as this, kids hooking up, cheap goods made in China, and all the rest. But there isn’t too much of it, and I think it is just along this part. Our boat trip showed us that farther down the coast the hotels and condos cease, and the coast is undisturbed.
Don’t know what to think.
I sort of don’t feel like writing tonight, you know? I chickened out again today, about going to the summit of Mauna Kea, at nearly 14,000 feet. So I stayed at 9,000 feet, at the visitors’ center, but/and I stayed awake half the night worrying about it.
They are having a noisy “luau” on the grounds of this place at the moment, so we have to leave the door to the [very public] lanai (concrete, a clear view of everybody else and they of us) we have to leave that door closed since it is so noisy. Totally stupid, a travesty. We are supposed to go to it the day after tomorrow—it’s part of the tour package for the Transit--but I might want to pass. It bothers John even more than me since he hates all this kind of thing anyhow.
Well, I made some notes for today, maybe I will just transcribe them and try to make something of them later.
We were crammed into ratty vans (I mean, Jack’s Tours??) and drove through miles of high desolate and dry country, at about 3000 feet, with robust tufts of yellow-brown grass (and 300K acres of the Parker Ranch), amid a stark lunaresque landscape of black lava, from about 1801 (the idiot sitting behind me says, Oh, it must have wiped out this road). The lava flows to the side of sides of the road, the narrow road, and continues on the other side. There is a dead wild pig, about 150 pounds, dark brown, by the side of the road. There is a’a and pahoehoe lava, the sharp and clinkery and the ropy. Sharp and lethal, forbidding sharpness.
Our van begins to give out first on hills then on straight, till it seems doubtful we will even make it to the visitors’ center. The thing—the van--is pretty much a wreck anyway. The road flows up and down across the lava, now covered with dry grass. I begin to feel the altitude but not seriously.
It is dry in the extreme. There are some kind of military facilities, fenced off. There are wild turkeys, and some francolin fowl, and some sheep. Mauna Loa is seen to the right, with a braid of lava flows down its gentle slope. They are recent, 1984.
Pahoehoe right alongside the road on either side. So new, so violent, so deadly.
At the visitors’ center, the sky is clear, a pacific but strong wind. We eat our small bag lunch inside, out of the wind. Then everyone else loads up to go on to the summit, and I am left there, the only one.
As they drive off, I walk, so slowly and happily, along a tiny path to see the Mauna Kea silverswords, each surrounded by its circle of pale red volcanic rocks, to protect and signify. The leaves, the swords, scimitars of milky silver, a tall wide wide rosette of jewels, precious rare greeny silver. They must be 40 years old to bloom, and these are only young ones. There are also big rosettes of mullein, and by one especially fine one, I spy a tiny ovoo of three little rocks, one gently atop the other, undetectable unless you are alert and aware. I am so glad to see it. In Hawaiian these are called ahu, but the purpose is the same as in Mongolia: to mark a place of power.
Small brownish birds flutter about the modest landscape, the road above me to the summit switches back and forth in a gray tracing, and then vanishes.
A telescope is set up on the patio of the little gift shop; one sees sunspots in one viewfinder, and a vague but thrilling glimpse of solar prominences in the other.
The wind flutters in my ears, the birds chitter quietly, the sun is warm, I feel the 9200 feet but I am happy, and I am glad I stayed here.
I sit waiting for them to return and have a quiet but lively conversation with Shane, the ranger here. I see I could have done some small hikes, across the road, and up, but I’d thought they would be returning much sooner, and so do not set out. But it is fun talking to Shane here, who picks up my name from the tag on my pack.
Hm. So now I have chickened out twice, once not to finish the red trail and once not to go to 14,000 feet for the telescope (I could have done it. I think.). I—I want to be safe for as long as possible. But I see myself in the farmer and the window-box story—though I’m hardly at the window-box yet!
So then. Tomorrow Venus and the Sun have an appointment. It will not happen again until 2117.
To behold it we are here.
Here is a great parlay of reality and the virtual: I am sitting here in the hotel room in Kailua Kona, having spent several hours earlier today, in the fierce sun on a sort of beach in the north end of the Big Island, watching First and Second Contacts of the 2012 Transit of Venus. John is still there along with a bunch of others but I elected to return here early. So now, having gone outside with my faithful welders-glassed binoculars to see what I could see right from here, I came back to the room and, on my very smart phone, am now, in addition to typing this, watching a live feed of the transit from the summit of Mauna Kea, where we were yesterday. We are almost at 3rd Contact. Apparently there have been over a million viewings of this feed (from NASA) today. Yesterday, at the visitors’ center at 9200 (where I waited, ignominiously chicken), I had a nice chat with a couple of people who were running this NASA show today, and there are some images of them on my tiny screen.
This morning we geared all up, drove through a wicked, vicious landscape of multiple lava flows, but there along that highway were the white messages spelled out that I remember from our first visit. Let’s see which I can remember of the hundred: I [heart] Jesus. Realize. Margo RIP. Love the Erth. Numerous love messages. Finally after 25 years! Happy B’day Grama Aloha… So many. All in pristine, carefully arranged stark white coral chunks and shells against the implacable black. Sometimes several dozen all in one place, right along the road. Other times, way inward and how hard it must have been to get in there. Some of the lava was the a’a of dangerous sharpness, some the thickly viscous pahoeohoe.
The viewing site was ok; we had rented some folding beach chairs since there was not really anywhere to sit, and I hustled off the bus fast in order to get a place in what shade there was. Telescopes sprouted like small aliens on the dirt by the sea. I taped up my binoculars and went to look. I really did not see first contact, but I definitely saw second, which was so exciting. There it is! Not to be seen again by anyone now alive, even someone born right at this very moment. 2117 is the next time.
Of course, since it began at 12:10, one had to look straight up, so I took the garish orange towel given to us by the people running this tour, and laid it out on the ground and lay down on it and looked up. Yes, YES I can see it, I can see it!! So round, so dark, and especially so surprisingly large. I helped at least eight other people to see it with my binoculars, getting them to lie down on my towel, and helping them find it. As always, you know when they see it because they vocalize. That was so satisfying. People were of course letting others see through their scopes, but I like the binoculars because even if you don’t have a telescope you can still do this, can still look for things, even sunspots.
So, I came home early, returned one of our chairs, packed up my stuff for tomorrow which will be a hiking day at Volcanoes National Park, took a shower, went out to see what I could see and maybe show others, but they are paying no attention.
I think I will go out there now, because I would like to see third and fourth contacts.
I ended up sitting at the open-air bar area, with another guy who had binoculars, and we both watched. I had had my phone on the live NASA feed from the top of Mauna Kea, and so did he, there at the edge of the water, and so we both watched his phone to corroborate what we felt we were seeing with our binoculars.
I almost definitely saw third contact—that brilliant black and so surprisingly large dot JUST oozing over the edge of the sun—greenish in my binoculars because of the welders glass, red or white, depending on what instrument they were using, on the NASA feed. There it seemed to stick, as if reluctant to go back into darkest space, and then the clouds came in of course, and when we were able to see the sun the next time, it was as if nothing had happened. There are a few sunspots right now, but otherwise, blank. Until 2117. It was delightful to share this with this man, enormously and grossly fat, but I could see, as we talked a bit, sensitive and intelligent. Reminding me again that I must really not judge by appearance, though of course I do.
I feel weird here. I feel quite apart from everything. It’s so terribly ugly here on this strip! This hotel is so yukky. I can’t wait to move next door to the condos, when the tour part of our trip is over.
Today the group drove to Volcanoes National Park in a big bus, but we didn’t; we went in our own car, mercifully free of the tour organizer, and the constant yakking of that man on his cell phone, and the insipid music the bus driver played yesterday (until I got John to tell him to shut it the hell off).
Off we went, 96 miles. As soon as you rise above the strip here in Kailua-Kona, and go along the edge of the volcanic flanks, going south, there are a few houses, tiny ramshackle businesses, ancient and young hippies strolling barefoot with their filthy hair hangin’ down, once one with a baby slung on her back, poor thing and her poor parents. But there are many signs for coffee tastings and tours, though I did not see any growing from the road, and little messy places to eat, and steep roads going mauka [mountain] side, and everywhere the decay of tropical places all over the world. Tropical fruit and coffee, say the hopeful signs. The speed limit is mostly 40, and we get a bit stuck behind a Coke truck, but not for too long. The road twists along the edge of the slope of repose.
Down the south coast to South Point, where there is a wind farm that we can see from up here, right at water’s edge way down there. We are at about 2000 feet according to the signs. There is a Natural Area called Kipahoehoe which appears to be set aside to preserve the lava flow across it and down the other side to the sea. Some of the land is clear--for the time being—and across other of it flows the old lava, or maybe some of it not so very old. Bits of trees and other plants grow in it.
Around the south coast and up north now, and we pass slowly through Naalehu, a very pretty town with huge banyan and other trees shading the road, all very neat and lush, and even a few little shops. The population of the entire state is only a bit over a million, and John observes that he keeps expecting there to be towns, but there aren’t any. One of the reasons for this is that although there is a lot of land, you can’t do much with much of it because it is either already covered by lava or might be.
As we approach the park, it is all lava on both sides. At once horrible stuff and yet hopeful, or at least having the potential to make new soil, in due course. You take this stuff, add some plants, add some rain and wind and lichen, and at the other end of a long time, it will be the red dirt of Kauai. But right now it is completely and totally and utterly unforgiving and horrific, and black.
We enter the park, go to the visitors’ center and chat with a nice Hawaiian lady ranger, and get our bearings. We drive down the way to buy some food for lunch, in the village of Volcano. A little tiny store but with a rack of great and some esoteric books about Hawaii, which if I had not been in a hurry to get on the trail I would have looked through. We get egg sandwiches and a few other things.
Then, finally, on the Kileauea Iki Trail, which is a 4 mile loop which first traverses the side of the sunken caldera and then down into and across it.
But first there is a sobering view of the pit of Pu’u O’o. The Rim Road, formerly the one thing everybody did at the park, is now partially closed, and the hikes we did in 1991 are no longer available, because of the activity in Pu’u O’o and elsewhere nearby. Steam rises from it in a large cloud. This dissipates into the air but there is also sulfur in it and so we can smell it, and there are warnings to be careful if there is too much in the air, close your car windows and so on.
Anyhow, we start on the trail. In lush rain forest, tree ferns tower overhead, of an ancient time. Their fiddleheads are thick and covered in dark golden hairs. There are smaller ferns too, with deep purple stems covered with bloom. They unfold into a triangular array much like bracken fern at home. The dirt under foot is dark-chocolate brown. Many bird songs and chips are heard, none of them familiar, but once something very cardinal-like lands on a step ahead of us, then flits off. At intervals are overlooks where we can see far down into the now-congealed lava lake. This erupted and filled up only in 1959.
We pause to sit on a bench and eat our egg sandwiches. Meals eaten under such conditions are always so delicious. We have oreos and Gatorade and water. Then continue around the edge of the caldera in the forest, and finally at the far end, down, down, down steep rocky stairs, to the floor of the caldera. For a bit the going is picky, but with my trusty stick I do it.
Then on the black floor, large cairns guide the way, amidst horrible piles of black new rock, slabs upended, crumpled, fallen, open cracks and slits, a few plants growing in these steamy slits, no order to it at all, no layers, no rounded objects, but all is jagged and irregular, just tossed here, pushed here, heedless and chaotic. A visual definition of chaos.
We pick our way to what from above appeared to be a flat part, a congealed lava lake. But it turns out to be all low hummocks, as if formed by black water boiling slowly and congealed, here and there cracks, and, we discover, steam vents all around. From one vantage I count at least eight vents steaming around us. Just underneath of course is molten rock, just there underneath us, as we trit along in our dumb human way.
The wind blows strongly, and there is a little rain or mist in it, and we can smell the sulfur dioxide from Pu’u O’o, and taste it on our lips and tongue. A wholly primitive thing, a beginning of the world thing.
Coming down the other side, and meeting us on the lava, are two folks from our transit trip, a man and his very young son, perhaps 12 or so. The boy is a fine young person, polite but not fawning, knowledgeable but not displaying it obnoxiously. Congratulations to this father, and to this kid. I compliment the boy in front of his father on the excellent way in which he made their telescope available to our bus driver yesterday. They say they have been to see the petroglyphs on one of the trails here, and recommend them. They, too, are not overly distressed that a) they didn’t go with the group today and b) that they will miss the ghastly “luau” this evening back at the hotel.
So switching back through the forest again and up the other side of the caldera, we pass a group of Bodies In Motion clients wearing black t-shirts, led to the lava floor by a guy with bulging muscles. He cheerleads: 5 4 3 2 1 ONE and TWO and THREE and FOUR and—they are engaging in some kind of exercises. Annoying but at least they are outside and here, I guess.
There is some time left before we need to begin the long drive back, and I prevail on John to drive us up the 13 mile one-lane road to what is billed as the Mauna Loa overlook. It is, it turns out, besides being narrow, quite magical. First we look thoughtfully at the Tree Molds, where ancient lava flows buried trees and left a model of their trunks, then up this road. It passes through peculiar forests of gleaming silver and gold trunked trees (I think they are koa trees, or ohia trees which grow in many forms), in fantastical twisted arrays, and through a lava flow seemingly so fresh that its odor enters our throats powerfully. Yes, the lava smells. Strong, almost sweet or pungent in some way. The little road is cut right through a deep flow of it.
There are vistas of Pu’u O’o steaming far below; we arrive at perhaps 6000+ feet, but there is no overlook. There is a trailhead for a long and arduous multi-day trail up Mauna Loa. I go just a few steps down the trail. It is covered with sweet-smelling dry grass, and except for birds’ songs, is absolutely still.
We stay only briefly, after a short greeting of a man there in his truck, from Southern California he is, and what is he doing here then? We begin winding our way down, and several times see some kind of large game-type birds, black with red eyes and eye rings, and they make a big racket as they cross in front of us. I learn later that these are Kalij Pheasants, native to the Himalayas and introduced here in 1962 only, and that they are mostly found on the slopes of Mauna Loa.
Near the end of the road, the trees are tall and silvery, and below them are the tree ferns in bright green. The light, the place, and awayness and farness of it in time, are magical. My magic road I think it is. I decide that it is like a landscape we might see on Star Trek, you know. Of another planet somewhere.
We return the 96 miles, through the gathering dusk, cattle grazing in the slant-light fields, large pastures mauka up the hills, and makai [ocean side] the coming sunset.
At the hotel, the raucous and ugly “luau” continues, but we got to the bar and have our drinkies and our dinner, and then to bed.
Well, tomorrow we will move out of this place and next door to the condos for the rest of our time here on Hawaii Island, and I will feel happier.
But I did see the Transit of Venus across the face of the sun.