Kauai Day 5

Day 5 Kauai


Today was a long, long day. We broke the 6:00 barrier by three minutes, and lounged around the hotel room for an hour or so – eating the apple-bananas (yes, you heard right – bananas that taste of apples) and pineapple I bought yesterday at a farmer's market from a lady who was a bonafide hustla of fruit, and drinking coffee. And showing Isla how to put stuff into drawers when she takes things out – an endless supply of fun for her and work for us.

We decided to go on a hike today – the book said it was 1.8 miles into waimea canyon each way. No problem, we thought, we go 1.8 miles in our sleep. Possibly, Aaron and Tegan, but not likely. Anyway – we drove to the south of the island, up through the brick-red mountains until we got to the top of Waimea canyon. There we packed up Isla into her armored humvee of a baby carrier and were off. Now, the hike began wonderously, with the fog still in on the Na Pali coast, and the canyon obscured by this eerie white cloud so high up. The walk was easy enough, with some slippery slopes in places, but overall no problem. Then things got a little hairy. Over one of the hills, we noticed that the trail seemed to just sort of drop off. Upon closer inspection, it was revealed that the trail was this washed out mudplain, where there were small grooved footholds carved in among the various roots that stuck out. The vertical drop-off was about 10 feet. Ok if you're a dude with amazing balance and agility – not OK if you have a baby strapped to your chest or back. And this wasn't the first of these drop offs – they continued for a good ¾ of a mile or so – Isla beginning to sense our state of mind and starting to howl like a banshee after the first one. We were determined to get to wherever the hell this trail was supposed to go, I had forgotten by now, consumed completely with not letting my wife and only daughter fall to their deaths in the Valley thousands of feet below us with sheer cliffs on our right and left. Whose idea was this hike anyway?

Fortunately, after about an hour of agonizingly slow foot-placement along the paths, we found our way to where the book said our hike BEGINS! WTF? We've been killing ourselves to get here and this is where it begins? OK, fine. I get it, this is a test to see if we are truly adventurous parents or just really stupid. It turns out, we're not completely stupid – because the rest of the hike is “paved” with a boardwalk of 2X10 boards with chicken wire over the top, since we are now hiking through what is apparently the highest swamp in the world, and would sink up to our knees if it weren't for the boards. Maybe we should have thought twice about hiking in flip flops.

When we got to the end of our hike, I came to a realization. 1 mile for people with no small children = 10 miles for people with them. Why doesn't anybody write this anywhere? So it took us roughly 2 hours to hike two miles. That's an average hiking speed of 1 MPH... easy tiger. Slow or not, there were several things that made this hike awesome. 1 – Isla was in a good mood for most of it, she slept in the carrier for a good 45 minutes of the hike back out. (although the times she was not so happy completely sucked). 2 – the scenery was otherworldly – with fog in places, mist, ferns, and echoing birdcalls the whole way, not to mention breath taking vistas every time we came to a clearing. And finally – reason # 1, 345 why I love my wife: when we were going through a particularly dense section of the forest, I overheard her talking to Isla, saying: “this is where the Ewoks live...” completely unprompted from me. Hell Yeah that's where the Ewoks live! I thought, and commenced acting out a scene from Return of the Jedi in my mind.

The hike ended up being exhausting but well worth it, and we drug our tired butts to a pizza place for ridiculously expensive pizza and geckos on the wall. Day 5 ended with rum & cokes at the pool and a zombie movie on the computer at night while Isla slept soundly. Sweet.