Matty and I spent last Tuesday at Waipi'o Valley - also known as the Sacred Valley of the Kings. It was a soul-changing day of gorgeous scenery and incredible people.
Waipi'o begins with a tiny, one car-width road carved into the cliff. It travels straight down an incredibly steep path into the valley, dropping 1,500 feet in 1 mile. The right edge of the road overlooks sheer cliff, the valley looming below. The descent felt like dropping into some forgotten Eden, a midway point of sorts in the journey to the Underworld. Surviving the rugged road, you must then maneuver through what should be puddles in the road. In realty, they are more aptly described as ponds or pools of perhaps shoulder-deep water. As you round the bend, the valley opens to the right. You are hit with breathtaking expanse, a gorgeous black sand beach and the pounding ocean waves; back to the left is the valley itself, tucked inside 2,000 ft cliffs, rich with green green green vegetation. We picnicked on the beach, frolicked in the surf, and began our hike.
Access to the trailhead first requires a mile slog through the black sand beach. The deep black sand is soft and light, an almost fluffy consistency. You can feel the sand exfoliating your feet as you walk, slewing off layers of dirt and skin, years of pounding through life is released into the sand. Its fluffiness also causes you to sink deep with each step, using muscles you didn't know you had to pull yourself out and into the next sinking step. You hike along the beach heading straight toward the base of a cliff jutting into the ocean - an imposing and masterful sight. When you arrive almost face to face with the cliff, you take a sharp left, and find the trailhead into the valley.
After walking only two minutes, you forget that you were ever on a beach, for suddenly you are in the densest of rainforest vegetation. It's barely a trail, surrounded by thousands of varieties of trees and plants and flowers and fruit. It's dark, almost muggy but not quite. And now you feel as though you are entering the mouth of a cave made of vegetation, a cave that leads you into the dark Underworld, the place of Gods and spirits and overwhelming power. The trail winds along the base of the cliffs along the outside edge of the grassy valley. Occasionally the leaves break, and you can see out into the spectacular expanse of green that constitutes the valley floor.
The valley has a long history - it was home to Hawaii's kings, and was once the center of civilization on the Big Island. Within the valley still exist numerous temples and burial sites from its days of splendor, along with many shacks and small farms, the only remnants of a once thriving farming economy. Taro (the main subsistence crop of Hawaii) farming flourished here until a massive tsunami hit in 1946. Since then, the valley lies largely dormant, interspersed with the remaining farmers alongside communes of the hippy Rainbow People. They forsake the modern world and choose instead to live secluded and simply within the forest. As you forge your way along the often barely existent trail, almost hidden gates and pathways emerge to provide glimpses to small shacks and farms. The occasional rusted out truck sits on the hill, part of the forest now, with vines entwining its crevices and sucking it into the forest. As you travel deeper and deeper into the darkness of the vegetation, the very existence of the outside world begins to fade, to seem impossible. The valley pulls you in, coaxing you into relinquishing that ever-vanishing world of technology and fastness. I considered renouncing - joining the Rainbow People, never to be heard of again in the trifling digital land of blogs and facebook and cellphones.
It was as if I could feel the sheer cliff walls and the valley itself breathing.
After about an hour, the trail dead-ends directly into a 1,400 ft waterfall that falls in about 7 sections. Only the bottom three falls, cascading into gentle pools, are visible from the ground. The rest of our party decided to brave the cliff and climb up into the ascending (or I suppose descending) waterfalls and pools.
While spectacular, the journey into the valley was also one of emotional heaviness for me. I was in the peak of working through feeling ugly, small, inconsequential (see previous post). On the trail in I both was and felt alone, trapped between the young men who were eagerly forging the trail far ahead of me, and the older adults huffingly bringing up the rear far behind me. I felt like a three year old again - wanting so badly to keep up with the big kids, but my little legs just couldn't carry me fast enough. I was in no man's land, physically and emotionally. On top of that, I was being eaten alive by mosquitos. I had to laugh: I've been battling with being The Sensitive One - often sickly, everything affecting me more than the normal person. I spent four days in the hospital shortly before we left for Hawaii, and had determined that on this trip I would find my strength, power, adventure. I cursed the irony that even in the middle of the Hawaiian jungle, soaking in spiritual power greater than I'd ever felt, I was still the sensitive one, the only one of our group to get any mosquito bites. No matter, I trudged on. When we reached the waterfalls, a little voice inside told me that instead of the forced aloneness of the trip in, I could choose aloneness for the trip out. So while everyone else climbed up the waterfalls, I turned back, and braved the trip alone.
It became akin to a journey out of the underworld - I left behind any need for encouragement and validation, to instead forge my own path. As I breathed with the valley, I breathed in peace.
It was an incredible experience to be alone in that expanse of sacred land. I came upon a troupe of wild ponies (who have proliferated after being left behind from the tsunami). Graceful white birds alighted on their backs while they chomped the thick grasses. After emerging from the forest, I sat on the lava rocks along the shore of the ocean, and watched the sky change from piercing blues to soft rose and peach, all the while the surf pounding the shore with both spectacular force and soft grace.
It was a glorious experience.
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