I hear doors open, close, and then open again. It's almost midnight and at least two pair of people have just checked-in to the hotel. They are chatting in the hall, and one woman with an especially strong voice complains about the condition of her and her husband's room.
Things go silent for a bit, and I start to fade.
But then the woman-with-voice returns, raps on the door across the way, and erupts: "They say we have to pay more money for a better room. I'm not paying them any more money." More words spew forth and doors slam shut and toilets flush and soon I hear the woman talking to her husband (who is hardly audible) in the room next door and then, a few minutes later, she's hanging up the phone with a firm and ironic "Thanks so much."
Eventually, I fall asleep.
In the morning, all's quiet; and, after breakfast, we check-out of the hotel and head up the Belt Highway, rolling to the outskirts of Hilo and through Mountain View and ultimately entering Hawaii Volcanoes National Park where we stroll into the visitor center, examine an exhibit or two and then head back to the car and sling on packs. We walk across the road and cut through the Volcano House to a lookout featuring the ever surprising, ever amazing Kilauea Caldera, a massive hole punched in earth and adorned in atypical tropical apparel, mostly gray and round, smoking here and there like a kettle top. Steamy Pele.
I raise my arm and point, tracing a stripe of light gray terra firma running to the caldera's center and angling left. "There's the trail."
Mrs. Koho says, "Ah-hah."
We trek on a paved path that gently descends through a forest. Along the way, at either side, five brown posts, four with descriptive plaques, mark and gloss plant life -- ohia, ginger, pukiawe, uluhe, and ti. Toward bottom, we shoot a photo of big boulders to our left, go around a bend, and then emerge from the canopy and step onto the open caldera floor. Scarred walls encircle the trail from a distance while ahus lead the way close up, ohelos and ohias and ferns sporadically sprouting lava side. The path is well trodden, flat, an easy walk. And when we get some distance in, we stop and look. Around the rim, the Volcano House and Jaggar Museum sit peeking down at us while a bus prowls along the road a few degrees beyond.
My wife says, "I feel like I'm on display."
I say, "Yeah."
Sprinkles of rain come and go, and we crunch along the top of a pahoehoe pie, soon passing a sign saying, "Thin Crust Area, Stay on Trail." We angle a little left before hiking through an opening in a ragged black ridge ---- spatter from a 1982 eruption. Veering toward another hole in the ground, the Halemaumau crater, we walk to a fenced lookout and lots of tourists who have parked their cars a quarter mile up and sauntered over to peer into the basin. Dashes of pretty yellow-green sulfur add zest to the rugged crater walls; steam rises from all over the place, both in and out of Halemaumau. About fifty yards from the lookout, a woman, enthralled with the sights, bends over a vent and buries her head in a mass of smoke, inhaling sulfur dioxide.
My wife says, "What's she doing?"
I say, "Embracing nature."
The sun makes a brief appearance, and we backtrack to the spatter ramparts, not cutting through but flowing right, off the Halemaumau Trail and onto the Byron Ledge Trail, descending slightly and across lava with red and yellow stria, over a fairly wide and deep fissure, a working spider web strung up inside.
We eventually reach a rough looking wall and head up and out of the caldera on a switchback trail that deposits us at a forest on the ledge. We walk not too much farther before sitting under ohia and faya trees and eating a lunch of trail mix, peanut butter on Saloon Pilots, oranges, and water. Below us, on the sunken hot top, a fair amount of other hikers move this way and that way, while, above, Japanese white eyes zip around and, in the distance, an apapane sings "hee-hee-hee."
Mrs. Koho says, "Mostly flat, this hike."
I reply, "Yeah."
We sit back a while, looking here and there; and then pack up and head out. Aggressive uluhe climbs ohias to our right and a red-eyed pheasant struts casually across the trail ahead before we turn at a junction, walk a short distance and descend a slope with a decent view of smoking Kilauea Iki. Bottoming out in the crater, we traipse across rough rock -- a'a, Pele's ugly offspring -- and by an ominous looking vent before strolling to the center of the pit. We are all alone, in the open, on the crater floor. Unlike Kilauea Caldera, the walls on three sides of Kilauea Iki are covered in the green of tree ferns and ohias and home to lots of hidden birds, their chirps echoing down to us. Ahus lead past more steam and cracks and soon enough we reach the opposite wall and head into the brush, zig zagging up and by blooming ginger, rain now falling, past two more brown posts -- one identifying hedyotis centranthiodes, the other hapuu -- and running into an exuberant park ranger who's leading a tour of quiet, wet, and hooded people -- people who politely step aside (at the ranger's request) to let us move through.
A minute later, around the bend, I say, "What was he asking them to smell?"
My wife says, "I don't know. The fern, maybe."
We pop up to a road and a small parking lot filled with cars and buses -- the Thurston Lava Tube across the street -- carry on a short distance and turn left and head back into the forest, skirting the top edge of little Kilauea. Looking below we see three pairs of hikers traversing the lava bowl as well as the peppy park ranger striding to another point of interest, his group still compliant yet lagging behind, his voice, in pieces, floating our way as rain continues to fall, apapanes all around us, calling, flitting, wings whirring.
We eventually veer right, leaving the Kilauea Iki Loop, traipsing along Waldron's Ledge on a closed, smoky road, and passing by the Volcano House and back to the car at the visitor center.
We spruce up -- I comb my wet hair and change into a dry top -- and head over to the hotel cafeteria where we sip drinks and gaze at the magnificent caldera ---- hunched down, silent, simmering. We're not alone: Two people-- they look like newlyweds -- sit across the room and eat hot dogs. And soon a group of four or five walks through the cafeteria line and takes a table behind us.
A minute later, from behind, I hear one of the men in the group say, "I can't eat this."
A woman responds, "There's nothing wrong with it."
The man says, "I just don't have an appetite."
The woman, in an uneven tone, says, "You're making me upset. Do you want to make me upset?"
The whole place goes quiet -- even the newlyweds stop their cooing. And I look at my watch and say to Mrs. Koho in a low voice, "Let's, uh, scram."
She replies, "Good idea."
So we stand and tip toe past the red-topped tables, through the lobby and outside to our rental car, leaving passionate Pele behind as we exit magma town and drive past Mountain View and into Hilo, stopping for gas and then heading to the airport and hopping on a rickety 737 that dodges clouds and drops down into Honolulu where we roll toward home.
Author: LastKoho <lastkoho@yahoo.com>
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