Kaua'i

Kaua'i is the oldest and northern most Hawaiian Island. I landed here a little over a week ago with a renewed feeling of excitement for exploring a new place. This island can be summed up in one word, magical. My accomodations the first few nights were at the Kauai Beach Hostel. This hostel is centrally located in the town of Kapa'a and just 75 yards from the ocean. My desire though was to find a community to stay in for my 3 weeks on Kaua'i. I found Ahupuaa Village and moved into a cabin also bringing new friend Arnold who I met at the hostel and old friend Leif who traveled with me from the Big Island. This community is much different than Kipuka Temple in that the majority of people here are doing their own thing as opposed to getting involved in a lot of group activities.

Arnold, Leif, and I along with another hostel traveller, Safira, traveled all over the island. The typical day trip would include sightseeing and hiking followed by swimming at a beautiful beach. The size of Kaua'i makes it easy to go anywhere on the island, spend the day, and be home by early evening.


Our first excursion was to the south side of the island to the towns of Poʻipū and Kōloa as well as Spouting Horn, Maha'ulepu Beach, and Kawelikoa Point. We hiked through some sand dunes to reach Maha'ulepu Beach and then continued along the coast checking out various cliffs, pools, hidden beaches, and caves.



The next day we headed to the "north shore" side of the island which is centered around the town of Hanalei. We first stopped at Queen's Bath which is a unique and sometimes dangerous tide pool. We did an afternoon hike on the Okolehao Trail which gave us great view of Hanalei Bay and the surrounding area. Finally, after searching several side roads we found Secrets Beach which was as beautiful beach as I've ever seen.




If these excurions weren't enough we followed these up by going to Waimea Canyon State Park. This was mostly a driving and sightseeing trip taking in different views of the incredible Waimea Canyon. I plan on returning here to do several hikes. This picture is a good representation of the vast beauty this canyon offers. If you find any of the pictures on this blog too small remember to click the picture to see a bigger version.

I've covered the highlights from the first week but also have to mention a few other amazing places I"ve been fortunate to visit. This list includes Kapa'a Beach, Donkey Beach, Larsen's Beach, Ke'e Beach, Tunnels Beach, Salt Pond Beach Park, Waikapale'e Wet Cave, Waikanaloa Wet Cave, and Maniniholo Dry Cave.

Big Island Goodbye

I was fortunate to have my friend Tom visit the Big Island coming all the way out from Chicago. He spent the first week touring the island and enjoying resort life with his girlfriend Dena. The three of us had a chance to spend a day and a half together. We swam, layed in the sun, and hiked to a petroglyph site. The visit gave me a chance to camp at nearby Spencer Beach Park as well.


After Dena left, Tom and I had about 5 days to relax and hang out together. We visited Volcano N.P., checked out some waterfalls and historical sites, took several yoga classes, swam, and most definitely ate well. It was a great visit and lots of fun catching up with a good friend I hadn't seen in 8 months.

After the visit with Tom I was down to my last 6 days at Kipuka Temple. It was hard to believe two and a half months of community living was coming to an end. There were several highlights over my last few days at Kipuka. One of them was a trip to the summit of Mauna Kea with four of my community friends. Mauna Kea is an inactive volcano that is nearly 14,000 ft. above sea level. We drove up and over the clouds to reach the peak about an hour before sunset. The temperature was about 40 degrees so we bundled up and drank hot cocoa while enjoying the sites.


The top of Mauna Kea features 13 different telescopes which are huge and privately owned by various countries around the world.

Here's the Mauna Kea gang, Malia, Leif, myself, Mikal, and Maria in front. I enjoyed several opportunities to sing, dance, laugh, and bond with my friends the last few days. I really enjoyed my time spent living in community and will definitely seek opportunities to visit other communities in the future (www.ic.org). I'm grateful for all the friends I made during my 10 weeks who opened my mind to new areas of interest and possibility. I'm especially thankful for Robert Silber who welcomed me to the community back in early January. I learned a great deal from Robert from how to run a community with integrity to conscious communication. My final three weeks before returning to the mainland will be spent on the island of Kauai.

Waimanu Helicopter Evacuation

On friday afternoon I travled back to Waipio Valley with 3 friends, Nate, Leif, and Maya. We set out to hike 8 miles along the Muliwai Trail from Waipio Valley to Waimanu Valley. Waimanu is a beautiful uninhabited valley only accessible by hiking or kayak. The hike took us up and over several scenic valleys before one final steep descent into Waimanu Valley. We swam in the ocean and as the sun began to fade we set up our campsite. We planned to camp friday and saturday evening and then hike back on sunday.


On saturday morning around 6 am we were awaken by police who were there to notify us a tsunami warning was in effect as a result of the earthquake in Chile. They were also there to evacuate us by helicopter. We quickly packed up our belongings and headed over to the first campsite where the helicopter was waiting. My friends took the waiting chopper back to Waipio Valley and I waited a few minutes to take the last ride with the emergency personnel people.



The helicopter ride was quite a thrill as we rode out over the water along the coast. I could see the cliffs and valleys we had hiked the previous day and then enjoyed a birds eye view of Waipio Valley as we returned to high ground. We now had about 4 hours to wait before the arrival of the tsunami so we went into town to eat breakfast and relax. We then returned to the Waipio Valley lookout to see the tsunami. We waited until 11 am and then waited longer but the tsunami never came. It was an anti-climactic conclusion but a definite relief to know the lives of many Hawaiians would not be turned upside down.

On monday we had a Goodbye Sushi party for Nate, Moze, Natasha, and Tookah. These are 4 people who have been at Kipuka since November. They've grown into good friends and for me the community won't be the same without them. Here's Nate and Moze doing the sushi preperation. Below I'm doing a little pre-party Xigong with Leif.