Kauai, Hawaii trip – Climb your rear end off to get to the top of the world

After the strenuous and slimy trail of Kee Beach, you'd think that no one remotely sane would want to do something similar. But trust me, time does weird things to your mind. And let's face it, the view and fun were definitely worth it. So we took off for Waimea Canyon 3 days after we got out of the muddy goodness. To get there, we had to drive all the way up along a winding mountain road, which obviously was foreign to a lot of Americans. Being Taiwanese, I felt adequately confident that I would fare pretty well.

The entrances of a handful of trails span along the road heading up to Kokee Museum. Apparently a lot of people chose to stay there overnight, but we figured one day was probably quite enough. We chose the Nualolo-Awaawapuhi loop since it was highly recommended by the old lady working at the museum. (Seriously, how bad could it be if a 65-year-old lady could do it?) With the last experience in mind, we bought new hiking boots and brought lots of water/drinks and (ah-ha!) bug spray.

The first mile was torturing. The slope was steep, and the fact that I couldn't seem to get enough air didn't exactly help. The chef tried to morph into my personal cheerleader but still failed to wean me from every-10-min breaks. But here's where the mystery of human bodies kicked in. When you tortured yourself long enough, you simply stopped feeling the pain as much.




We walked on some narrow paths dangerously close to the cliff and arrived at the first outlook hours later. It was something that I've definitely never seen before. Quoting a friend, you'd just feel very close to the sky. And here the rainbows showed up once again (as they did from time to time on this island), and I could barely believe my eyes when one of them was making a trail of raining showers on the sea (or the other way around. Oh who cares, minor scientific details). The whole scene was so breathtaking that I hated the idea of moving on to the returning trail even more. My new boots were not exactly helping either by giving me hell. They were men's boots and therefore about 1 size too big. I don't care what those motivation coaches say, but when you hurt yourself by making each step, it's really hard to forget the pain and to work up the motivation. At that moment, I just wanted to lie there and play dead.







But you've got to do what you've got to do. The only consolation was, you could hate what you've got to do with all your heart. I had no idea what kind of sadistic twisted pervert could have planned such a route, but the return trail was heading all the way uphill. If there were Armageddon, we were hiking it. The only good news appeared to be the absence of mosquitoes—even though I did remember to bring the bug spray this time. Detecting that my battery juice was drying up, the chef volunteered to carry my backpack for me. I felt bad. But that only lasted like 3 minutes. The truth be told, I was running out of energy (no bunny prize for me). After another 3 hours or so, we saw the best view EVER: a car parked at the exit.



A lady from Canada with her son offered to give us a ride back to where we parked our car, and I tried not to behave too desperate when I took the offer for us. The chef later said that she probably wouldn't have made the offer if he were hiking alone. Uh duh! Who'd pick a 200-pound strapping male instead of a fragile helpless petite brunette in this case scenario?! Now you know we shorties can work our charms too.

On the way down, I got carsick. I guess that was a pretty suitable wrap-up for such a devious trekking experience. I would just classify this along with the parasailing flight in Borocay under "Must Do, Not Again."