January 27, 2016
Day 17: Hilo and Mauna Kea
The Hilo farmers market does not seem as expansive as the one near Pahoa, but that is mostly because it is segmented onto a couple of street corners and generally jammed into quite a small space. However, it does turn out to have everything the other one had, with the exception of on site wood fired cooking.
Having learned our lesson in Pahoa, when we breakfasted on low quality toast only to find a plethora of food options at the market. we set off for downtown Hilo as hungry as possible. Then we made a plan to walk all through the market to see what was available before committing to any one thing. We stuck to that, but it did not prevent us from then going back to the beginning and (it seemed like) buying one of everything.
This procedure enabled us, for example, to snag three of those sesame covered balls that we had seen in Pahoa. The vendor was so sure we would like them that he guaranteed it with a money back offer. The sly man knew it was no gamble, because these balls are the yummiest thing going. The slightly toasted sesame coating starts them out with the appeal, for example, of a sesame bagel. Underneath a mildly crispy skin is a thick layer of gooey/chewy maybe rice based gell. And inside - purple bean paste. I did admit that two of these made me feel a little woozy, but Dodie asserts this comes from pigging out in any form.
Other food finds were gyoza (dumplings), shrimp tempura, really good little macaroons, apple muffins, purple sweet potato chips, and yes, haulolo! Why so much stuff? Well, it could be hungry work walking to the summit of Mauna Kea! (Especially if dragging 10 pounds of treats.)
After eating a certain amount of our haul, I declared that I was ready to slowly cruise through the craft section of the market. Again we were impressed with the skill and quality on display. We were attracted to one old lady who was weaving dried reed material into bracelets, and also displaying mostly honu based designs on tapa cloth. But there were many others as well - with jewellery from local shells, minerals, glass, or even preserved flowers, and excellent photography printed on aluminum, in the manner that we had seen at the Volcano Art Center.
Dodie had picked up a small pamphlet advertising the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument Discovery Center. We had no idea what this was, except that it had to do with remote coral reefs. The center was just down the street, so we went to give it a look.
Folks, it was magical. The attractions of the place came on a number of different dimensions. It's hard to tie it inot an integrated story, so I will just write a couple of sentences on each aspect.
First off, we did not know that north and west of the Hawaiian Islands - that is beyond Kaua'i and Ni'ihau - there lies a further 2000 miles or so of other islands, reefs, and atolls, terminating near the famous Midway Atoll. These are still part of the Hawaiian Archipelago, sharing the same volcanic origin. Basically, there is a volcanic hot spot beneath the sea floor, and whatever plate comprises this section of the Pacific is moving over it. Right now, the bit that has what became Mauna Loa is over the "burner", but before that it was Maui, Moloka'i, O'ahu, etc., and then all the way over to Midway. Most of the islands in the north west section have submerged, or perhaps never rose above the surface. Right now there are only about 6 square miles of land you could walk on, but the reef area comprises 4,500 square miles.
These northwestern Hawaiian islands are strictly protected and contain large numbers of endemic species. And 25 percent of all the marine species are unique to this area. Permits to enter the area are only granted for research purposes, and people take extreme measures not to be carrying seeds or other ways that foreign organisms could get a foot (or fin) hold. One of the best know research visits to the place was by Jean Michel Cousteau, in a trip that became a PBS special.
So that's the preserve, but it was kind of the visitor center that became the main story for us. The centre is housed in a building built in 1910, that used to be a fine furniture store. It is known as the Koehnen Building. The first thing you notice on entering is a magnificent staircase to the second level. The staircase is made of Koa, mainly, and Ohia. The floor area of the building is very large, so it gives and open and uncluttered feel. But placed within the space are a number of large screen displays, ipad displays, and high quality posters. These are joined by at least three blockbuster items.
One is a large salt water aquarium, with a selection of reef fish, some recognizable from Violet's Go fish card game.
A second is a replica of a double hulled canoe that is apparently being sailed around the world right now. The project is called the Malama Honua Worldwide Voyage, and its web site is hokulea.com. I have not had time to check it out as yet. But the thing that I did see was the replica. The ship itself and the display space around it were constructed to what I would call fine furniture standards. We learned that this was done by a local shipbuilder. The care and quality shows to us that the people behind this whole thing are not fooling around.
Similarly, there is a poster nearby showing the director of the center with a Google camera on his back. He is engaged in making a "Streetview" of the islands in the archipelago. As with other Streetview, this will enable tracking of changes over time, with 360 degree coverage. This backpack Streetview thing is something we had never heard about. Again, we need to check it out.
Next, on one long wall there is a mural painted by a local artist, Kahi Ching. The mural depicts scenes from the Hawaiian creation chant, such as they came to Kahi Ching in dreams. The images include sea creatures and natural aspects,blended with Hawaiian symbols and celestial objects in a very evocative way.
We were generally marvelling at this stuff when Dodie began to speak to Virginia Branco, the Center assistant manager. Virginia agreed to take us up the staircase to see the second level. The second level is currently only used for education programs, and comprises an even more expansive, open space. One key feature was the floor - made from northwest fir, it had been refinished at great expense. Refinished old wood floors are so great! Another feature was a display case that had been part either of the original store (or maybe some other store). A furniture maker had partially disassembled it, and the Center staff had laboriously hauled it to the second floor through a hole that was later to contain an elevator.
Oops, gotta go get on the Mauna Kea shuttle - more on this and on Mauna Kea, with photos, much later tonight, or tomorrow....
... Now it is much later, but still Day 17 for a little while longer. We are back from Mauna Kea, and needless to say it was a mind boggling experience. We are glad to report that the Grampies reached the summit! We will have to wait until tomrrow to tell the rest of the story of the Papahanaumokuakea Centre and all of the story of Mauna Kea. For now, here are just a few photos from Day 17 to keep the ball rolling:
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The Rest of the Story
This bit is actually being written the next day. Mauna Kea was so tiring and so late that I had no chance of writing much last night. It was enough of a chore just to find my bed!
The star of the last part of the story of the reef discovery centre is Virginia Branco, the assistant manager. The story picks up as she explains to us how the large display case was brought upstairs. In the display case were little bits and pieces of natural history stuff, like shells, bone fish hooks, a bell, an old diving helmet, etc. Dodie said " Oh, Avi and Violet would love this - they have created a similar natural history collection at home". With that Virginia drew a shell from her pocket and gave it to Dodie, for Avi and Violet. More, she said if we gave her the address, she could send them more stuff.
Looking at poster that was bilingual in Hawaiian and English, I asked about the inclusion of the Hawaiian, which we had also seen at Imiloa. Virginia said that perhaps Imiloa had borrowed the idea from them, and that in any event Hawaiian had recently been declared by the legislature to be an official language. She then described her own efforts to learn and speak it, explained some of the differences in syntax and the fact that the translations might not always be literally equivalent.
This whole matter of the intermixing of what I might call " hard science" with Hawaiian mythology and spiritualism has given me some pause for thought. On the one hand, for example, Kilauea does not (repeat NOT) erupt when and if "Pele" is jealous of a lover or fighting with her sister "Poli 'ahu" on Mauna Kea. We can say that because there is no reproducible evidence to that effect. On the other hand what is the value of hard (evidence based) science if it is not backed by some spirit of the wonder of it all, and some respect for the natural world that is being studied. So in some complicated sense, there is room for both world views. (But remember, if the night is cold and you need some heat, better to turn up the thermostat than to pray to Pele for a hot lava delivery.)
Well speaking of "Poli 'ahu", it as time to hustle back to Arnott's to meet up with our van and tour guide. Arnott's seems to view itself perhaps equally as a traveller's lodge and adventure tour operation. They have a fleet of four wheel drive vans, and take people to the National Park, to Mauna Kea, and to waterfalls like Akaka Falls. The vans are fourteen seaters. This time basically all seats were taken. Just as with shared kitchen/common room accommodation, having to deal with other people can be a bug, or it can add to the fun. In this case, the other people were rather fun, and we were able to directly connect with one from Berkeley, one from New York, one from Seattle, and a fun and lively couple from Taiwan.
The tour guide was Lauren, a young woman of about 25. She was both a good driver and a knowledgeable, lively guide. As a decrepit old fogey I rather enjoyed the slices of her young life that she shared - with topics like can you get seasick on your surf board, what it is like to explore a mile down an undeveloped lava tube and have your light fail, and what the atmosphere is like in the tavern Pineapples. Of course, we also appreciated listening to gentle Hawaiian icon Iz on the van stereo. Some kind of loud current music would have been too much.
The first stop on the way to up the mountain was Rainbow Falls. This is an attraction that is almost within Hilo, and is a falls on the Wailuku, the longest river on the island. Wai means water in Hawaiian, and luku is "destructive". I think the area is prone to flash flooding. But the season has been extraordinarily dry, so we could just appreciate a lovely waterfall.
From Rainbow Falls we headed up onto the Saddle Road, that runs between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. The road run all the way to Kona, but we would take a right turn and head up Mauna Kea about half way. Despite my "hard science" rant above, I must say it is not a good idea to drive the Saddle Road if you are carrying pork (which we were - dumplings from Hilo market). The reason is that pork is for offering to goddesses, and threading a line between Pele and Poli ' ahu with it is not advisable. However we did make it, and headed up Mauna Kea.
The turn is at about 3000 feet. At this elevation, all the hibiscus, bougainvillea, and other introduced delicate species have given up, and one is left with Ohia, the tree most adapted to colonizing lava. There is one other tree at this height, whose name I forget, but that has been all but wiped out by herds of feral goats. Also endangered by goats is the Silver Sword plant, that blooms only once every fifty years and then dies. Consequently, a fence has been built right round the mountain, to exclude goats from elevations above that of the Onizuka Astronomy Center - 9300 ft.
Onizuka was our next stop. The centre is a support facility for the telescopes up the mountain, and is operated by the University of Hawaii. The name is in honour of Ellison Onizuka, who was born in South Kona and who became an astronaut. He died aboard Challenger in 1986. The Centre is also known as Hale Pohaku, and has housing for 72 astronomers and technicians. It is a needed spot of acclimatisation before going higher on the mountain, and as a place to live at a semi reasonable altitude. Bedrooms, Lauren said, are pressurized. She used to volunteer in the star talk program that is offered to the public, and liked it a lot because of the quality of food that supplied to staff here.
Oh, oh, gotta go again and actually do something .. today. Tune back in to this page soon for the conclusion of the Mauna Kea story.
... sorry for the choppy presentation of all this, but here I am with a couple of minutes to add a little more - sitting at a shelter by the sea, south of Hilo.
The acclimatisation for us on the tour was 45 minutes. This was a good idea for me, anyway. Though I was not admitting it, I was short of breath. The 45 minutes gives a chance to look at the Centre, which actually is disappointingly small and cluttered. Yes, there were information panels around, and some sort of film playing on a large screen TV, but there was no organization to the information presented, and no staff other than the lady selling the gifts and chocolate bars.
This is not to say that the Centre lacked interest. There were lots of small but complicated looking telescopes stashed around, and other tour groups to look at. Mostly the visitors are Japanese, and their tours seem Japanese organized. One consequence of that is that everyone on those tours received a really appetising looking Bento box. We were not too jealous, though, because we had our own Japanese style stuff that we had bought at the Hilo market.
A short walk was possible from the Centre, through the protective fence and to look at some silver sword plants. Along this way three was a shrine of sorts as well. Earlier I had raised the topic of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) with Lauren, questioning the reasons for the protests against it. Lauren seemed to share this puzzlement , but could also cite the spiritual and environmental concerns involved. She described large demonstrations that had taken place on the mountain, including a blocking of the road, that had trapped astronomers at the top. The shrine, she said, had been erected during the demonstrations, but she could not specify exactly who was involved or precisely the why.
It is at the Centre that the four wheel drive only road continues up, another 10 km. A sign indicates one could hike it as well, but it will take 10 hours. This day was clear, with no snow, so that though the road was really rough and narrow and running by some steep drop offs, 4 wheel drive was not strictly needed. Still the narrowness would have made me really nervous, so it was great to have Lauren's 25 year old nerves at the wheel!
Most vehicles were headed up at this time, but we did encounter a whole group of identical ones headed down. This would be the astronomers coming for dinner. Only much later would they return to get on with the job.
The surroundings at this elevation perfectly fit the term "moonscape" or maybe "Mars scape". It was comprised of boulders and reddish cinder cones, with only a few dry grasses. In fact, the section is designated the "Ice Age Natural Area". In geologic time there was a glacier here. When hot lava encountered the ice, it cooled quickly and became harder than usual. The boulders we saw were such lava, and were collected by the Hawaiians for when they needed something extra tough.
We reached the area with the various telescope buildings. With these surroundings and their unique designs, it felt like arriving at some sort of space station, which of course it was.
From this vantage point other surrounding mountains could easily be seen: Haleakela on Maui, Hualalai near Kona, and especially the red glow from Halemaumau. Just above us was the red cinder peak of Mauna Kea. A sign erected by persons unknown asked visitors not to climb it, as a sign of respect. We climbed it, as a sign of respect.
Normally I would just scramble up a hill like that. But now with the altitude I had some doubt I could even do it at any speed. Dodie, though tottering on her two trekking poles because of bad knees, was not tired or out of breath at all. I was concerned that while she might make it up on the loose gravel, coming down would be impossible, but she just lengthened her poles and had no problem. For my part, it was like you read of mountain climbers at 28,000 ft. just managing to put one foot in front of the other. But this was at under 14,000 feet, so how embarrassing.
The sunset was very spectacular, as it must be when you have such a perfect view. Of course,even when the sun falls below the horizon it is still light. . I think it is not officially "night" until the sun is 18 degrees below. Still, with this show over, we had to begin heading down the mountain for the next show, which happens when it is dark enough for the stars to appear.
Lauren stopped just above Onizuka and pulled off the road. It was by then quite dark, and we climbed a little hill by the light of iPhones. Then Lauren brought out a neat laser pointer and very effectively used it to lead us around the dome of the sky. This was pretty much equivalent to the tour of the sky we had had at the planetarium, with the big advantage that it was easy to ask questions. Our new friends from Taiwan had fun trying to photograph the stars and the Halemaumau glow with an iPhone, and actually did get a decent shot. " I'm a Newbie" conceded the boy from Taiwan, clearly proud of his command of this specialized English term.
After a time we descended to Onizuka, just as their own star talk was ending. Just from the tail end I heard, it did not seem too interesting. Then we were left in a large group of tourists in the dark, just generally milling around. There were two telescopes set up, but we had no information about what they were directed toward. I waited in line and peeked in one. I saw some points of brighter light on a background of lesser lights. Ok.
We felt our way through the dark back to the van, and headed down the mountain. Again, Iz's greatest hits enlivened the trip. Once in our room, we realized that this trip, though a highlight of the tour, had been really draining. So that if course is why you are reading the story only now!
Farmers' Market -more photos
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Reef Centre - more photos
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Today's ride: 13 km (8 miles)
Total: 580 km (360 miles)
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