Shortly after our arrival at Milk, I was wondering if we would make a mistake.
Fresh from the lush and flourishing atmosphere of Honolulu, my wife and I ended up in the lead on the withered red earth and dried shrubs. He appeared as the middle of nowhere. Even the tiny airport reminded me of all these fragmented island runways that I threw into the South Pacific: flew up the stairs to get off the plane, the tiny terminal with cinder block and a few big guys throw luggage on the bench.
“You're in the country now,” the passenger told me when we landed the plane. He was a local island, returning home from Oahu, and he must have noticed my confused expression. I was stuck in the way he said it; he was proud, not apologizing.
Well, so it is not a tropical forest, palm trees and white sandy beaches. We decided we wanted to leave, really leave. So, in particular, his initial barren appearance, maybe Milk, is just a ticket.
At the moment everything looked promising. Our car did not appear at the airport. The call to the agency responded only to an answering machine. So we were left sitting on the curve, wondering what to do. Finally, I contacted Ray Miller, a real estate agent (via the Internet), we rented a condominium for an ocean week.
“I will go out and lift you up,” he said. Fifteen minutes later, Ray helped us load our baggage into his somewhat shabby blue pickup. He was tall, lanky, white-haired, soft and surprisingly optimistic. “Don't worry,” he said, trying, “you will have a car.”
A few minutes later we were at his office in Kaunakakai. While Ray made some phone calls to try to find our car, we went outside to look around.
As for cities, Kaunakakai is rather unfavorable. In fact, someone with a strong hand could literally throw a rock from one end of the city to the other. We stand on the same main street, lined with faded and dilapidated wooden structures. It was something from the Old West; Dodge City with Plumeria and Coconuts. There was not even a traffic light. In fact, as we learned later, there is no traffic signal all over the island.
Accordingly, Kaunakakai blesses silence, free from tourist hype and hype. At Ray's suggestion, we went to a small market across the road to buy groceries. As soon as we finished shopping, our car appeared, along with a plentiful apologetic agent who immediately pounced on a discount at an already reasonable price.
All brochures say that Moloka is Friendly Island. It became clear why. On this island, where everyone knows only everything, everyone cares, even tourists. Milk is like a family.
Milk is the fifth largest Hawaiian island. Thirty-seven miles long and ten meters wide, it is bounded in the south by the longest white sandy beach in Hawaii and in the north by the tallest sea cliffs in the world. These rocks dip a cardiac arrest, near a vertical 2000 feet, straight into the ocean.
Essentially, Moloka is what remains of two ancient volcanoes, one at each end of the island. The middle of the island is a saddle formed by lava flows from both. The upper eastern end drains most of the available moisture from the dominant trade winds, making it the southernmost and greenest part of the island. The central plain and the western end are dry; dry, in fact, to the point of the desert. Some areas are almost completely devoid of foliage.
Since most of the island is arid and does not have the "South Pacific" of the charm of other islands, the tourist industry has almost completely neglected Milk. The result is an island where life goes slowly, and the situation has changed a bit since the 1920s. Less than 7,000 people live here, and more than 50% of them (some say 70%) have Hawaiian ancestry. This is the highest percentage of any island, with the exception of Nihau (a private island near Kaua), which makes Milk the most Hawaiian island of the Hawaiian Islands.
The longest, highest, most friendly is a lot of superlatives for a place that the world seems to have forgotten. While we were there, you could add one more: the windiest.
“Today is not so good for diving,” said Bill Capuni. "Maybe tomorrow.
I hung up and looked at the sliding glass door on coconut palms and the wind of the sea. In the distance, a humpback whale ran out of the water, its long white pectoral fins flared in the sun. We went snorkeling and dived and lay on the beach. After all, it was Hawaii! Unfortunately, the unusually strong trade winds made this activity impossible. Bill Capuni, the owner of the only underwater fishing on the island, planned our first dive for today, but he was concerned that changing seas would make diving unpleasant, if not dangerous.
I started wondering if I sometimes take on golf. Our condominium in the resort of Kaluaca, on the western end of the island, was only 100 feet from a rugged rocky beach with amazing surf. But between us and the waves was green. In fact, we were located in the middle of a golf course, which for a non-golfer, like me, seems to be the only vegetarian at a barbecue in Texas. But I had to admit that when I watched the rags in front of me spin around, there was some fascination with almost Zen-like concentration that they used to put unruly balls into small holes. Perhaps it was a wonderful trip to a quiet island. At least I don’t have to worry about rain. In fact, it was difficult to imagine a better place for sports.
In the end, however, we chose a research disc. We were told that Kalaupapa was being overlooked, it is worth stopping, so we headed towards the center of the island, and then turned north towards the rocks.
I got as close to the edge as possible to make my physical body go away. Straight down. I mean straight down. 2,000 feet Below, dark, exciting ocean and the roar of the waves.
To say that this is the highest sea cliffs in the world - not to speak at all. These are just words intended for categorization and sows, but they cannot convey the sheer scale and grandeur of these green walls of ancient lava, plunging vertically into the dark sea. Vista is awesome. In any place in the world, it would be a tourist mecca, lined up with souvenir shops selling “Above” footballs and noisy with people. Here we were only a few people. No one said anything, dazed by the sight. Worth the stay. Indeed.
It is impossible to expose the tiny flat peninsula called Makanalua from the bottom of the cliff. Mananala, formed by an outcast, late lava flow, the final eructation of a volcano before his death, as an ideal natural colony of correctional colonies. Isolated by steep and treacherous cliffs on one side and knocking on the other two by surfing, a man planted in the dark might have escaped. What is intentional, why the rulers of the Hawaiian Islands decided to throw their lepers ashore.
The torments and sufferings that were to occur in this seemingly idyllic place are almost inconceivable. People with leprosy were torn from their homes and families and cast ashore — and often into the rough ocean — to take care of themselves. Many drowned before touching the ground. Those who survived lived in the middle and Spartan existence. There was little food, no building materials to talk about, and no medical care. Then, in 1873, a Belgian priest named Father Damien referred to Macalanua to bow down to outcasts. Father Damien built shelters, cultivated food, tended to be sick, and essentially led a civilization to a leper colony called Kalaupapa. Damien himself fell victim to disaster in 1889, but his legacy remains. Today he is revered in Milk almost like a saint.
From my point of view above, the former colony looked like a paradise. The beaches were untouched and the land was not crowded. On the leeward side of the western part of the peninsula, the ocean was calm and clear. It was like a great snorkeling. Unfortunately, Kalaupapa is not limited to all but carefully controlled tourist groups. Leprodia is now curable, but some people still have scars and are allowed to live their lives in solitude and seclusion.
We turned off a clear precipice and took the path to the famous Rock of Fallica. The ancient Hawaiians, like many ancient peoples, were concerned about fecundity. Therefore, when the natural rock somewhat resembled a phallus, it was natural, apparently, to decorate. Here, the Phallic Rock, hidden in the trees at the top of the Milk sea rocks. Warning to women: do not visit the rock if you do not want to get pregnant. That is the legend.
Moloka is an island full of history and legend. It was assumed that the hula was born here in Mauna Loa at the western end. The ancient Molayans were also renamed their craftsmanship during the war, and the island was a stronghold of the powerful Kahuna (sorcerers). The great Kamehameha, the first who brought all the islands under one rule, used Milk as a training ground for his soldiers. Some people even believe that the ancient Hawaiians made their first landing in the valley of Halawa, in a mystical place on the eastern tip of Milka.
“Here you wash your feet,” Pilipo said when he sat down on a stone to take off his shoes. Just a few minutes from our cultural hike, we came across a rocky stream flowing through the rainforest.
Pilipo Solatorio was our guide to the historic valley of Halava, near the northeastern tip of the island. Our goal was the famous Moawla Falls. Along the way, we learned about the ways of the ancient ancient Hawaiians, who lived in the valley for hundreds of years.
Once peacefully with the flow (from which one of the members of our group turned out to be somewhat worse than before), we followed Pilipo, who led through condemning jungles and turned grapes. Pilipo told us that the valley of Halawa was not always so overgrown with lush vegetation. At one time, the whole valley was under cultivation. The first farmers covered the valley floor with a complex rag of terraces for growing taro, the main product in their diet. These terraces were held in place by carefully constructed rock walls, many of which still stand.
We stopped to look at one of them. He loomed out of the jungle, like an ancient black skeleton, green-colored skin with moss. The stones fit together like solid pieces of a puzzle, durable and perfect after hundreds of years, although the Hawaiians did not have metal tools for carving.
A few steps further, Pilipo rose to pick a yellowish, variegated fruit from a broadleaf tree. “This is called noni fruit,” he said. "The ancient Hawaiians used it as a medicine, or drank the juice as a cancer treatment, or used it topically for burns." He also told us about a Kukui nut, taken from a “candle tree”, the so-called, because Hawaiians throw a few wax nuts on a sharp stick and light the top one. Since the nuts are very fat, they burn with a slow, steady flame and thus supply Hawaiians with night light.
Giant dungeon trees, more than a hundred feet tall and adorned with dense bird nests, lined up along the path. The air was rich in a moist, green, earthy smell of new and decaying foliage. Suriname cherries - tart, red, heart-shaped fruits the size of grapes - are excellent at random, and every few minutes we fall on a piece of raspberry-like berries, sweet and ripe for plucking.
Soon we were far from any signs of civilization. The only sounds were the murmur of a stream below us, the chirping of tropical birds and the rustle of a light breeze through the thick foliage. It was easy to imagine that we were returning on time, following the well-worn path of the ancient Hawaiians to their secret place in the jungle. Each new set of ruins that we passed added to this feeling.
Pilipo raised his hand and stopped us. “We're going to go through heyu,” he said. Heios was a sacred place for Hawaiians, their temples. "In ancient times, you could immediately kill for crossing the heyu, but the stream washed away the original trail." He pointed to the stream flowing below us in the ravine. "So we have no choice." But he made it clear that we must respect the land in which we walked.
After a moment, we gathered around a large pile of stones. It was a mound, Pilipo explained, and we were standing in the former City of Refuge, one of several places in old Hawaii. Any offender, regardless of the crime, could have avoided punishment if he or she could get to the city of Vault before being captured. Then the fugitive had to remain in a self-occupied exile for seven years. Criminals who tried to slip out of the city before their time faced immediate punishment - often death. But after seven years, the slate was cleared, and the former criminal was free to return home and into the family.
I looked at the moss-covered pile of stones in front of me and wondered if a man had not buried us in front of us in order to die only before his seven years.
We are moving forward through lush flower beds and rocky streams. The sound of the fast-moving water grew louder until finally we saw a fall. We entered a small clearing surrounded by steep jungle-covered hills. A tall, shimmering pillar of mad water, cascaded from pure volcanic rock to plunge into a dark pool. We clambered over giant boulders to face swirling water. The floating mist weakened our faces and created a rainbow in the air around us. A deep roar drowned out every sound.
Standing on a large boulder with a fall behind him and shouting that he was heard, Pilipo clarified a monumental cartographic misunderstanding. “This place is called Moaula Falls on all maps,” he said, “but this is a mistake. Foreign mappers were wrong. In Hawaiian, moa means "chicken", and ula means "red", but "red" Chicken falls "does not make sense. There are no red chickens here! Instead, the real name is Moh Falls, named after the red god of the lizard, Mo, who guards them. "
Then Pilipo described how Hawaiians prepare for swimming, throwing leaves into a carefully prepared cluster of leaves and carefully watching him. If he swam around and washed out of the pond, it would be safe to swim. If he sank, the god of the pool was unhappy, and swimming could be dangerous.
“God lives in this cave,” said Pilipo, pointing to a dark hole away from the rock. “Does anyone care for bathing?”
It's amazing that two brave souls threw off their shirts and jumped into the cold, dark water, seductive fate. But the giant red lizard did not seem to stalk them.
Too soon we headed down the valley to the Pilipo manor and its newly planted taro fields, where we began our trek. When we retreated from our steps in the jungle, I turned to the sound of helicopters hovering overhead. These were tourists from nearby Maui, who came to see the famous valley and the “red chicken falling”.
I think it was a beautiful sight from above. But they saw it because of the removal, and they saw only the surface - a lush foliage blanket between the towering rocks and a breathtaking waterfall cascading down. They could not hear the roar of the water, feel the fog on their faces, or feel the presence of the red lizard, guarding its treasures. They could not see the ancient ruins and feel the weight of centuries of tradition and wisdom.
They paid a lot more than we, no doubt, but they got a lot less.
On the way back to Kaunakakai, we distracted Bill Capuni’s house to invite him to an earlier invitation. As the turbulent water and strong wind continued to make diving impossible, Bill invited us to look at his work. He came out of his front door as soon as we pushed her.
As far as Bill Kapuni is concerned: “He is a great man, more than life, like the legend of Hawaiians, like the king Kamehameha himself or the grand duke Kahanamoku. When Bill Kapuni enters the scene, all eyes look at him. However, at the same time, he is gentle, quiet and self-deprecating. He speaks slowly and deliberately.
"Lets go," he growled from the porch. How are you?
Pilipo pushed me and whispered: "Say" Maykai no. "
“Maykai is not,” I repeated. I'm fine.
Bill flashed a giant smile. “Now you speak Hawaiian, huh?”
He descended the stairs, grabbed his arms in turn and buried Pilipo in the embrace of the bear. Then he invited us to the place where he was greeted by his Irish-American wife, Kino, a woman almost as tall as Bill and as cordial. Even the one-year-old in Kyno’s hands seemed excited. My wife and I felt Gullivers in Brobibdinagia.
Bill Kapuni is well known for his diving operation, but for him there is much more than scuba divers and regulators. Когда он был моложе, он перестраивал классические горячие стержни, все из которых были сильно изношены коллекционерами. Теперь, помимо дайвинга, он вырезает древесину. Так нам сказали. Но когда мы вошли в его гостиную, стало ясно, что правда намного больше. Сказать, что Билл Капуни вырезает древесину, это дико занизить правду. Это несколько напоминает высказывание Пикассо о масляных красках.
Мы стоим среди нескольких нескольких произведений искусства в натуральном лесу. Среди них были традиционные гавайские церемониальные барабаны и миниатюры и реплики каноэ. Но затмевать все остальное в комнате, в том числе и в Капуни, была потрясающая штука, которую он недавно завершил. «Это дань, - сказал он мне с некоторой гордостью, - к мастерству и храбрости древних гавайских путешественников».
Это подходящий вариант. Работа состоит из навигационной мачты в натуральную величину и двух массивных рулевых манипуляторов, все вырезанные вручную, все они установлены вертикально в самом внушительном куске дерева, которое я когда-либо видел. Стоя около десяти футов в высоту, он сияет в тихом свете дома Билла, доминирующего в гостиной. Его гладкие поверхности и изысканные линии источают сырую энергию.
Билл сказал нам, что работа была задуман губернатором Гавайев, который планировал разместить его либо в особняке губернатора, либо в международном аэропорту Гонолулу. Он казался совершенно безразличным к увеличению этого воздействия. Он даже слегка смутился этим комплиментом его мастерству.
Это было необычное для исполненного художника отношение, но в полной мере соответствовало тому, что я понял о людях Молоки. Я постоянно изумлялся, насколько они настоящие. Билл, Кино, Пилипо, даже Рэй Миллер, все были неприхотливы, неторопливы и тепло приветствовали как друзей, так и незнакомых людей.
Позже, после того, как мы покинули дом Билла, Пилипо взял нас в свой дом, чтобы показать нам свою коллекцию древних артефактов и рассказать о его попытках зарезервировать землю и культуру своего народа. Мы сидели, пили лимонад и говорили об истории, семье и жизни на Молоке, когда вечер упал, и мир был тихим.
«Молока не похожа ни на один другой остров, - сказал Рэй первый день, когда мы въехали в город.
Сидя там, в доме Пилипо, он был вполне комфортным, правда этого заявления стала ясной. Без нашего осознания этого, Молока наделал на нас свою магию. Наша большая городская волна испарилась, позволив очарованию Молоки и дружбе ее людей вернуть нас на землю - настоящую землю цветов и моря и неба, травы, подножия наши ноги и острый сладкий запах плюмерии в наших ноздрях. Темп острова поймал нас, шаг медленнее и больше «острова», чем когда-либо был Оаху или Мауи. Это вернуло нас к нашим чувствам.
К сожалению, наше время было почти вверх. Итак, следующей ночью, нашей последней ночью на острове, мы решили сделать сделку.
В десять часов вечера мы оказались в Каунакакае, припаркованные напротив магазина Имамура. Улица была темной и пустынной. Мы вышли из машины, осмотрелись, чтобы убедиться, что нас не наблюдают, а затем пробрались по темному переулку к задней части хлебозавода Канемицу. Стены затененной аллеи были облицованы граффити, и пустая бутылка с пивом лежала на замусоренном тротуаре. В высоких окнах в задней части пекарни я видел, как потолочные вентиляторы поворачивались, и звук звуковой радиоисточки помахал по экранам ошибок. Одна синяя светлая лампа сияла над синей, красной дверцей.
Я нахмурился и постучал в дверь, робко сначала, потом, когда ответа не было, более решительно. Внутри здания подошли шаги. Я встал и затаил дыхание. Дверь резко открылась, и я оказался лицом к тонкому, темнокожим мужчине с сандалиями с триггером, темными брюками, темно-синей майкой и хмурым взглядом. Он был покрыт головой на носу в муке.
Я глотаю.
"Хлеб?" - спросил я осторожно.
Мужчина кивнул. "Что ты хочешь?" Его голос был грубым.
"Что у тебя?" - спросил я, придерживаясь сценария.
Он поморщился и пробормотал несколько разновидностей. Большинство из них были неразборчивыми, но я уже знал, что делать.
«Коричное масло», - сказал я.
Дверь закрылась мне в лицо. Через мгновение он снова появился с хлебом в руке. Я вручил ему деньги, и мы сбежали. Другие начали приходить, деньги в руке и ожидание на их лицах. Мы сели в нашу машину и съели горячий, вкусный хлеб.
Как и сам остров Молока, это было лучше, чем нам сказали.
