a catalogue of events:::
6:00 am: wake up in the Banana Bungalow Hostel, head reeling from last night's pursuit. brandi and i set out from the farm to find the greenest beer on maui. she's part irish. i'd never had a green beer. we found some and through a series of delightful events and quaint bus rides, we made it to Wailuku just as it was getting dark and rainy. hostels are the most wonderful places in the world to observe people. bar none. these international loci of ragtag transients.
6:30: get up feeling like i need to puke or poop or find a new head or something. go to the bathroom and give awkwardly boisterous good mornings to the people brushing their teeth. walk across the street and buy a bottle of water. return to the room. brandi's up. we decide to go find some breakfast.
breakfast: eat a bran muffin.
8:00: check out of the hostel. decide to walk the three miles to Iao Valley Park. Wailuku is a strange little town. it reminds me a lot of Zanesville, which is kind of strange because i've only been in Zanesville once or twice, but Wailuku had a lot of three-story, white buildings lining the roads that either seemed to be completely deserted or some kind of strange office buildings. Wailuku is the county seat. so as you get closer to the central crossroads, the office buildings get whiter and there's more flags flying. it's a strange feeling town. brandi and i get along in such a way that we laugh almost constantly, and strange feeling towns are particularly well suited for this.
walking along the road: the West Maui Mountains are strikingly sheer and sharp, so that they look like you could just walk right up to them, stand on flat ground and stare straight up the clean green faces of the peaks. we walk about a mile before this guy in an old white truck stops to see if we need a ride. he says his name is bobby and that the valley is a very spiritual place.
at the park: bobby says he'll show us the good hike. says we'll get wet. brandi and i are wearing the same clothes as the night before. tennis shoes. sandals. this park is another drive up and look around type. tourists everywhere. they all walk up a flight of stairs to look at the needle (the peak in the picture). we do too. then we head down and into the woods. we reach the point where bobby says, "that's the paved trail but this is the real hike over here." and we set off into the woods following the river, tall green peaks and the morning sun shining overhead.
to be continued...
i need to hit the road to moloka'i and i'm leaving my computer here. i would have liked to have gotten all this typed out nice but i'll have to finish it quick here.
...so we swam in this river with this guy we'd never met. and i was slightly wary because of my previous encounter with local guys and the way they'd kicked me in the face. but we followed bobby into the middle of the woods and all jumped in the river and screamed and hooted and had a good time. he drove us to his house afterwards and gave us a hearty breakfast of cheerios and sunchips and peanut butter sandwiches. he's a recovered crackhead. we had wonderful conversations. he is very happy to be alive. he works at a verizon kiosk at the mall and positively loves it. after hanging out at his house and talking about everything from god to charlie kaufman movies, bobby drove us to the mall. he's a professional mallrat and thrilled to be so. he was also, the whole day, always picking up bits of trash. he said that his purpose is to help people. but he wasn't preachy or pious in any way. one of the most refreshing and hopeful people i've ever met. i wish i had more time to type about him but i need to eat lunch and get on the road.
to moloka'i!
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