It’s been a while, I know, I apologize, but my adventures have not been as frequent, intense, and I don’t have many pictures so I didn’t want to “blog” if it wasn’t worthwhile.
I did go on an amazing snorkeling trip a few weeks ago at Honolua Bay which must be one of the best places to snorkel on Maui. Saw thousands of fish, and really beautiful coral formations. It’s an amazing world under the water- colors you would never see on land, vast and abrupt changes in scenery. I just wish the snorkel mask didn’t feel like it was sucking my brain out from my nose, and wasn’t so cold otherwise I could have stayed out much longer.
Otherwise there have been a few farm dances, lots of beach time, waterfall swimming/jumping time, and laid back reflection time, also been improving my painting and ukulele skills and reading a lot . I only have a couple more weeks left here- gotta take as much in as I can. I am taking a long weekend this weekend to spend with Megan and our old housemate, Janice, who is coming to visit/vacation. Next weekend a farm friend and I will do a backpacking trip through the crater which I’m excited for- my first backpacking trip- I can’t believe it’s taken me 24 years to finally do it! Don’t worry mom, we’ll be fine!
My phone died so I can’t include pictures from that- it’s really amazing how much you can rely on one tiny device for. Hopefully Apple will get fixed and sent back soon! I have pictures on my camera to upload still, and I’ll do that next time around- give ya’ll the “farm tour”.
So after this chapter is over, I’ll be back in the Bay from the 7th to about the 17th, see everyone and spend time with as many loved ones as I can before I head to Seattle. I just got housing lined up for myself and have been talking with the Mountain to Sound Greenway project- so I hope to work for them doing restoration and trail building. I’m really enjoying manual labor- especially when it’s good for my body and the earth. I’m excited for all these changes!
I’m exhausted- Just got back from a camping trip with all the other WWOOFers. We camped Saturday night in the costal Kipahulu area of Haleakala National Park. We got a campsite right on the edge of a cliff overlooking the water, near a lau tree, and with a spectacular view of the Haleakala crater. We visited Seven Sacred Pools- seven waterfalls/swimming holes. Swimming around waterfalls still hasn’t gotten old. We then hiked through mango, banyan, and bamboo trees (among others of course of which I still don’t know what they are called- but are not nearly as impressive as the three I mentioned sooo they remain unknown) to an awesome 400’ waterfall. It was a pretty magical place. I don’t even have the energy to try to describe the feeling being in its presence.
Sunday we went on a beach tour. First beach was the “white sand beach”- Hamoa beach. Hamoa is apparently ranked as being one of the top 5 best beaches in the world. It’s what you would envision as a typical tropical beach- white sand, clear blue water (so coral or rocks! Yes!), surf not too intense, lush greenery surrounding it. It was my favorite beach to swim at for sure.
Next beach was Red Sands beach. It’s not really sand- more like red rock and pebble beach. There are lots of places to cliff dive into the ocean. I jumped about 25 feet. Jumping was great, but getting out was the hard part. You have to wait for a wave to bring you up on a rock and then climb up lava, which is sharp.
Last beach was Black Sands beach-again more like pebble/rock, but there it did get a bit sandy in a few spots as well. The lava tubes and caves there were great to explore. I really enjoyed being at all three beaches, they were all drastically different, but all still very beautiful and serene.
I’m covered in mosquito bites again (still), banged up my knee, recovering from cuts on the bottom of my toes, sun-toasted, adventured, and not well rested- hope I’m ready for work this week!
I moved out of my tent into the “goddess den” which is a nice dirty little cabin with an amazing view of the ocean, a waterfall, and the Haleakala crater (when it’s not being shy behind the clouds) that I share with two other ladies. They will both be moving out in the next two weeks so our group of 7 wwoofers will now be down to 5. It will be interesting to see how that goes. When I got here there were 9 wwoofers. I guess the farm is going to start phasing out wwoofers and get interns in instead. I really don’t like that idea. I really like that this place has given me the opportunity to learn without having any previous experience or knowledge about farming/agriculture. It’s been such an enriching experience and I’ve definitely grown a lot. At the same time I think that any intern that would pay to come here for college credit would be disappointed. Although they say this farm is an education center not much has been taught to us- just learning though doing, and I don’t think that’s what an intern would find to be rewarding. The owner/managers keep going back and forth between wanting this to be a production farm or a demonstration farm. There’s actually quite a bit of drama and it’s pretty amusing to see. I hope the best for the farm though because it’s been so good to me.
The trees out here make me really happy! There are Rainbow Eucalyptus trees that have different colored layers of bark and when the top layers peel off it reveals a different color, they are so smooth, and perfect for hugging! On our way to Hana we stopped to explore them. There was another lady there hugging the tree and so the 4 of us other girls found our own tree and hugged it too. I think it was a pretty amusing sight for many of the passersby.
Mango trees must be the most majestic of all fruit trees. They are so massive. When you drive by them you get a strong smell of vinegar from all the fallen and fermenting mangos. Fresh mango, right off the tree is soooo delicious. Same goes for coconuts, of which I’ve been drinking a lot from. I’m going to miss all the bounty of fruit out here when I go back to the mainland. Free avocados, papayas, mangos, bananas, coconuts, plus all the farm produce has really been an awesome treat.
Banyan Trees are also massive and fun to climb on. The branches vine down and root back into the soil so it looks like many trees connected in the limbs.
So let me start of apologizing again for the unruly mess of the text/pictures here. I'd really like it to match up, but really don't know how to edit it to make it right. I'll take any pointers anyone has...
The weather has turned, and now it’s been raining for the past two days after a beautiful weekend.
I’ve felt a bit like the weather too- a little sick the past two days after an amazing, high energy weekend.
Saturday I went on an adventure through a bamboo forest to find four amazing waterfalls. Bamboo is beautiful and a ton of fun to climb on. In fact, there are so many great climbing trees around here, banyan, eucalyptus, and others of which names I don’t know. I’m enjoying all the monkey play. So we found the first two waterfalls which were beautiful- like all the rest. But then to get to the third fall you have to climb a 15’ rock face (rope provided) continue hiking, stash your things, jump into a pool, swim through it through a “hallway” and then you get to the last fall, which is about 150’ and an absolutely amazing sight (apparently there is a 400’ fall on the island that I hope to get to one of these days). And to top off Saturday I learned how to make kale ravioli from scratch. It was tasty :) I’ve been making lots of hummus and pesto from scratch too. I did bread once, but will have to continue to perfect that art.
Sunday, Shiva, the on site manager, took the whole group (minus the sickies) to La Perouse Bay, which is the end of the road on the south east part of Maui. It’s apparently great for snorkeling, but no one brought any gear for that. Our destination was an isolated black sand cove with amazing clear blue water. We had to hike a couple of miles over lava that ranged in size from a pebble to chair size. I love hiking, but hiking over lava is definitely the least enjoyable walking medium. It didn’t help that I don’t have closed toe shoes either, and lava is sharp, so I got some good slices to show from it. Oh well. We grow turmeric here so I’ve been putting some of that in paste form on the cuts to prevent staph infection. (Turmeric is amazing, so good for you and so many medicinal properties) But the views from that part of the island were pretty incredible. The lava itself was pretty awesome to see, all the different and crazy formations it makes. And the white coral on old black lava is beautiful as well. From the location we were at you could see the south western side of Haleakala, the west Maui mountains, Molikini, Lanai, and the other island that starts with a “K”. So we got to the beach and played in the water and waves all day.
The weekend before was pretty low key- spent a rainy Saturday playing with oil pastels and watercolors, reading, and relaxing. Sunday, Easter Sunday, got a ride into town to go to the hippy church. It’s amazing that living my whole life in the Bay Area and then 4 years in Santa Cruz, I never really thought I could go anywhere (in the U.S) more “hippy” than those places, but then I came to Maui ;). The CA coast is very politically “liberal”, environmentally conscious, etc, but I now realize there’s very little spiritual connection to mind, body, earth, spirit out there (maybe because it’s so developed? Maybe because we’re so highly educated and “rational”?) Out here spirituality seems to be the dominant force behind action/belief as people understand the connection between mind, body, earth, and spirit in order to make sense of how to live and take care of themselves and their community. (But then I don’t get too far out of the jungle, so maybe on the other side of the island tourism has broken that connectivity?) But anyway, the church was fun, lots of singing and dancing, and the “congregation” got to participate in music making with maracas, chimes, tambourines, etc (connecting the spirit and body together with music!). I didn’t too much like the preaching part of the service or touchy feely part. But it was still a fun experience. (Don’t worry, not a cult.)
After the service made it to the beach, swam for a bit, and then got rained off the beach- that was definitely a first. Megan picked me up from there and I went with her and her boyfriend to one of his co-worker’s Easter
BBQ. It’s always fun and interesting to meet new people and hear what their deal is all about.
The weekend before that!- Megan picked me and a farm friend up on Saturday after she got off work and we went back to Kihei with her for a night on the town. We met up with some other farm friends who just happened to also be staying in Kihei with family/friends for the weekend. We woke up with Megan at 3:30am to go to work with her to catch the famous Haleakala sunrise. It was pretty awesome, but for what it was worth I might rather sit in the hot tub here and watch it. But anyway Haleakala is amazing. We hiked into the crater about 3 miles and it’s just such an awesome landscape, the scenery subtly changes so often- that plus the 10,000’ elevation really is an awe inspiring feeling. My camera died about half way down but I’ll be back to take better pictures. It’s pretty hard to describe or show how fantastic it is up there, it's a very surrealist kind of look/feeling. The silversword is an endangered plant that grows in the crater. It's a pretty awesome looking thing when the sun hits it right. I didn't see too many in bloom, but it looks pretty good in bloom- it also looks pretty good when it dies- like a Dr. Seuss picture :)
Anyway, I’m still enjoying the farm- feeling happy and healthy, calm and confident. I’ve made the decision to move to Seattle for the summer and I am excited to see where the next adventures take me and what I will take away from those next adventures!
One last thing I will mention- and another thing I have been very grateful out here for is a feeling of connection with my Dad. Maybe it’s the tranquility, the stars (when they are out), reading a Carl Sagan book, being in my own mind and remembering, reflecting, and continuing conversations we often had- which helps to guide me and I can feel his pride for his daughter. It’s really nice. I hope those of you who are reading this who had a relationship with him will sometimes reflect on meaningful conversations you once had with him, and continue that dialogue in your head. It’s healing :)
