Fresh Air Fiend (43 page)

All my adult life I have lived in places regarded as prime tourist destinations, in Africa, Southeast Asia, England, and now Hawaii. Yet for the whole of that time I have never had much to do with tourists—hardly saw these birds of passage. They never visited my bush school in Malawi; they were getting bug-bitten and sunburned two hundred miles away on the stony beaches at Lake Malawi. (In Africa only tourists sunbathe; everyone else—nationals and Peace Corps volunteers—stays in the shade.) In Uganda, while I was teaching at Makerere University, tourists in Land Rovers were bumping through the game parks in a fruitless search for endangered species. Tourists in Singapore shopped while we residents enjoyed the hilarious club life of the island state. I lived in south London for eighteen years, but tourists seldom percolated south of the Thames, to savor its seedy charm and glorious parks. They were hotfooting it to
Phantom of the Opera
or the Crown Jewels. I never saw them, never felt the need to.

For the past four years or so that I've lived on the island of Oahu, the story has been the same, visitors and locals enjoying separate pleasures. The visitors are not hated. If anything, they are patronized and pitied by the locals, because they seem so innocent, inhabiting a tiny corner of the island in a timid toehold. Hawaii is a culture of genial mockery, yet no one pokes fun at tourists. There are local Filipino jokes and Samoan jokes, but you seldom hear anyone say, "Did you hear the one about the tourist?" Most residents are silently grateful for the revenue. The tourists stick pretty much to Waikiki, and for them Oahu is the glitter of that mile of streets, its wall-to-wall hotels, T-shirt shops, and (with some notable exceptions) indifferent restaurants, meretricious entertainment, and lovable Polynesian kitsch.

There is another Oahu, where real people live modestly, go to work, to church, to high school reunions; they go swimming and on picnics and seldom see tourists. They eat local food in local restaurants, go to local movie houses, have a private language and distinct rhythms and intonations in their speech. One version of local: eating a sludgy platelunch meal at Zippy's, then fishing off the jetty at Magic Island, and at night going to see
Wayne's World 2
at Pearl Ridge. The middle-class alternative might be spending the day in Manoa. Or you could spend your life in Manoa. ("I am not leaving this Zip Code," a Manoa resident said to me, and he never does.) You could stroll around the university, visit Hamilton Library, walk the streets of Manoa Valley or its cemetery, try its several pleasant restaurants, have a beer at Danny's or a cup of exotic coffee at Manoa Coffee, and then catch a play at the Manoa Valley Theater. Locals go pig hunting in the interior; locals play polo. Late every Friday afternoon locals who own sailboats engage in a race to a buoy and back, starting from the Honolulu Yacht Club. This race marks the end of the work week, but it is hardly invisible to the tourist, who would probably regard it as a rowdy regatta of crapulous sailors and their friends. It is of course that, but—celebratory and skillful—it is more.

One of the more interesting aspects of life on Oahu is its sense of locality. There are people who never leave the suburb of Hawaii Kai, who don't stir from Wai'anae, who stay put on the North Shore. Some people who have grown up in Honolulu regard Haleiwa as "the country" and plain don't go there. This is not strange; the relatively small size of Oahu (608 square miles) makes it, like all small islands, not simpler but more complex. The microclimates that exist because of the steep volcanic mountain ranges and the precipitous valleys make it even more complex: very wet in Manoa, very dry in Nanakuli, usually pleasant in Honolulu, the wind in your face in Laie. The weather at Waikiki, which was once swampy ground, with a royal residence, is usually gorgeous.

The weather is variable elsewhere on the island, but the other Oahu is first its people. Most have roots as deep as any found on the mainland—indeed, the native Hawaiians can trace their first migration to the island to about
A.D.
600. Other ethnic groups can claim many generations of residence, to the point where they have been thoroughly deracinated. Local Chinese seldom speak Chinese; local Japanese tend not to be Nipponized. One of the few cultural facts associated with the large community of local Portuguese is that the ukulele and sausages were brought from their homeland. The Spam-eating and hymn-singing islanders from the rest of Polynesia have become local—in some cases aggressively so, claiming parts of the island as their own. I sometimes have the feeling that a Tongan visa is required in certain parts of Honolulu, and Tagalog and Ilocano are widely spoken in the service industry.

Locals are charitable, have a strong community spirit, are caught up in sports—high school teams are followed as assiduously as national teams. They surf, go fishing, play golf. Because of the island habit of frugality, they are typically not spenders. Because of their curious history, they are America Firsters. They are proud to live in Hawaii and tend to be sensitive to criticism, because they are themselves easygoing and somewhat in awe of the mainland.

Beyond the suburbs of Oahu is a hinterland that is seldom visited, because it is vertical, or wave-lashed, or inaccessible. The highest mountain on Oahu is more than four thousand feet high. Some of the hinterland belongs to the military, and therefore is off limits; much of it is inconvenient to reach. This is true of the Pacific generally, for people on small islands travel in ever-decreasing circles, and tend to preserve their notions of remoteness.

Technically, Hawaii is not a wilderness, yet a good deal of it is wild enough, and seeing it fully requires taking calculated risks. In any given week, people in Hawaii—both visitors and locals—are drowned, or rescued from drowning; are airlifted to safety from hikes, or else lost forever; suffer heat stroke, exhaustion, or trauma. Two or three times a year there are shark attacks, nearly always on surfers or boogie-boarders. These are salutary indications of how frail human beings really are when confronted by the overwhelming forces of nature, even on a pretty little island. That is how it ought to be. During one week in January this year, an average of ten people a day were rescued by lifeguards on the beach at Waimea Bay. "The surf was up," a lifeguard told me, "and they didn't know about the Waimea Express"—the swift undertow and rip tide that drags swimmers offshore.

The other Oahu is, inevitably, dangerous. That should not be an excuse to avoid it. Rather, it ought to be a reason to forearm yourself with more information. I love paddling; nothing is more liberating. Visitors to the island seldom paddle, yet some enterprising companies and outfitters rent boats and give lessons. The best view of the island is from a mile or so at sea: off Honolulu, you can see the hotels on Waikiki and the bungalows on the slopes behind them, the mansions on the ridges, the mists in the deep valleys of Manoa and Pauoa, and above the rainbows the somber old volcanoes, with black ridges and dark green peaks. From the sea, the North Shore is first a narrow beach, then an escarpment of pineapple and sugarcane fields, and then an enormous expanse of forest. You can usually depend on sheltered paddling at Waikiki and Ala Moana, because this is leeward Oahu. The surf can be diabolical on the North Shore, yet some days in winter the sea is like a millpond. I set out from Shark's Cove at Pupukea on a January morning and immediately saw three large green sea turtles. Paddling on, I saw some locals hoisting crab nets from their anchored boat. They told me they had just seen some dolphins, and the day before they had seen two whales. I put into Waimea Bay, where the lifeguard gave me the details of their rescues, and then, keeping outside the surf zone, went on about six miles to Haleiwa, where the channel and harbor are often free of heavy surf. The name Haleiwa means "Home of the Frigate Bird," and coincidentally I saw one of these soaring kitelike creatures high in the sky. That night, while stargazing, I saw a pueo, a Hawaiian owl, which is a subspecies of the short-eared owl.

You have to be lucky to paddle the North Shore in winter, because the conditions that are favored by surfers are hell for kayakers. But if paddling is out of the question, you can hike up the slope to Pu'u-o-mahuka (Hill of Refuge) Heiau, where in 1792 three English sailors who had wandered from Captain Vancouver's supply ship
Daedalus
(anchored in Waimea Bay) were captured by Hawaiians and murdered. This
heiau
(shrine) is still regarded as sacred, as having
mana
(mystical power). Offerings of flowers and piled stones and ti leaves are still left in a solemn propitiatory gesture.

Another good hike begins where the tar road ends at Mokule'ia Beach. This is six miles round-trip, below the high sheer cliffs that descend to Ka'ena Point, where there is a lighthouse, nearby rock pools, lagoons, and the fiercest waves and most inhospitable shore on the island—two ocean currents meet here. But few people ever come here. Mountain bikers can round the point and continue down the Wai'anae coast on the path that was once a railroad bed. Built in 1899 and closed in the 1940s, the track was finally dealt a death blow by a storm in 1988. From December to late March you might see whales spouting and occasionally broaching, smacking their tails, a few miles from shore. I saw six whales the sunny winter afternoon I hiked to Ka'ena Point. The dramatic Ka'ena
pali
(cliffs) rise to well over two thousand feet. At the foot of them are native plants: the ohai, which is said to grow there and nowhere else; the naupaka and ilima, treasured by Hawaiians for their mythic or royal associations.

Because of the various localized climates on the island, even if one part of Oahu is racked by wind or rain, there are always other options. Pupukea Road on the North Shore zigzags up to about eight hundred feet, where it becomes a narrow path, open on weekends to hikers and cyclists (the U.S. military commandeers the path on weekdays). The ironwoods and eucalyptus give way to dense woods and in places koa, a beautiful hardwood. There is abundant bird life on these heights, as well as small game—wild pigs and mongooses. On the opposite side of the island is the easy walk to Makapu'u Lighthouse. A good half-day hike on the knife-edge ridge above Manoa is only a fifteen-minute drive from Waikiki, to St. Louis Heights and then down Ruth Place to the entrance to Wa'ahila State Park. Local workers—repairmen and delivery people—often take their lunch to this high-altitude park, a pleasant, shady spot sweetened by a breeze. A prospective hiker need only follow the arrows. After a few hundred feet the path contracts from a gentle stroll to a teetering trek along several miles of a windy knife edge fringed by native trees, one of the best views of Honolulu.

Similarly, if the wind and surf are terrible on the North Shore, they will probably be gentle elsewhere. Paddlers have a specific route off Waikiki, making for the large buoy that lies about a mile from Diamond Head. Men in kayaks, in outriggers, or paddling surfboards race to this marker from Ala Wai Boat Basin in the late afternoon, unseen by tourists. In a stiff wind it is very hard paddling, and a strong current runs just beyond the buoy. The reward of this trip is the sight of the pale, shapely lighthouse on an outcrop of rocks just below the leonine cliffs of Diamond Head.

In good weather it is not difficult even for a novice with a little instruction to paddle from Kailua Beach to two islands called the Mokuluas. Small and steep, on the windward side of Oahu, they are both bird sanctuaries, where shearwaters nest on protected ground. The islands are also connected to a reef that extends from just off Kailua Beach, and the snorkeling offers wonderful vistas of fish and coral. If I am in the mood for snorkeling, I tie an eight-foot line from my waist to the bow loop of a boat and tow the boat as I snorkel ahead. Another accessible offshore island is Goat Island, near Malaekahana Beach Park, where there is also some good snorkeling and a sense of being away from crowds. In general, however, the snorkeling off Oahu is adequate rather than brilliant: the reefs are either gummed up (as at Hanauma Bay) or hard to get at—too deep, too far offshore, or else broken apart.

Off-road biking is underrated on Oahu, but the touring kind—pedaling along a paved road—is so dangerous (Oahu drivers are oblivious of bike etiquette) that cyclists ought realistically to regard themselves as potential organ donors rather than adventurers.

When I first moved to Oahu, I was thrilled by the softness and fragrance of the air, the steepness of the surrounding mountains, the profusion of flowers, the sense that I was suspended between air and water. But I was appalled by the traffic and the density of Honolulu. It seemed to me a city of suburbs and bungalows, rather forbidding in its coziness, as though the whole population had closed ranks against visitors. This was mostly paranoia on my part. Until recently there was no city, only the town of Honolulu, and it is still a small town, Polynesian in complexion, American in essence. Any city where beeping your horn is considered the height of bad manners is worth living in. Still, why not head for the hills, on foot or on a bicycle, or paddle offshore, or find its wilder shores?

In many respects, the best way to visit Honolulu is to leave it—not simply to understand it from this new vantage point, but to enjoy the sort of life that up to now has mainly been a local secret.

The forecast for all islands said that the strong trade winds would drop, to be replaced by light breezes: great weather for paddling out of Molokai's usually dangerous Halawa Bay. Many places on the Hawaiian Islands are named Halawa—it means "curved." This Halawa was Hawaii's earliest documented settlement, and even fifty years ago (before a tsunami hit) Hawaiians lived in the valley, growing taro.

When I arrived at Halawa with my folding kayak and my camping equipment, all I saw was enormous dumping surf and a turbulent white sea with windblown foam flying from the peaks of waves. The wind was blowing faster than I could paddle, and such a rough sea was unsafe on this rocky coast. So I bided my time.