(Week one in Maui)
“No one can tell
what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart the blue and lonely section
of hell. There are no maps of change. You just. . . come out on the other side.”
-Stephen King
10 hiking miles later it got worse,
but first let’s backtrack. Hana Highway
is 68 miles long. Hana was about 55
miles from our starting point, so that meant we were about to hit our halfway
mark, walking. The thing about a trip to
Hana is that it’s never about getting to Hana, or even the seven sacred pools
nearby, but rather the journey getting there.
There
are a couple kinds of people that will pick up hitchhikers, friendly people
from the other 49 states that moved to Maui, Hippies, and crazy people. The natives pretty much suck cock for
quarters and the average tourists are just rich assholes.
4 miles down the road from our
previous campsite, the one that’ll probably haunt my dreams, we found a small
vegetable stand. Various fruit and
vegetable stands were spotted throughout the rest of our journey to Hana. The cool thing about them is most of them
have honor boxes and no tenants. An
honor box is a box where you put your money for the cost of the item and take
what you bought.
It was bright and early so this one
had the owner restocking his vegetables.
He had a gleam in his eyes that showed complete adoration for our choice
in travel and suspected adventure. I had
seen it often from old men his age when they drove by or passed us in
supermarkets or at fast food restaurants. It was our father’s generation that glowed
with envy, and our generation that didn’t seem to understand at all. We bought an avocado for a dollar, refilled
our Nalgene water bottles and roosted ourselves on some rocks near his stand.
A few miles later a white truck
stopped abruptly and asked if we needed a ride.
Hitchhiking was taboo to us, but we were tired. We got in the back and collapsed. It didn’t take long to realize she was
crazy. She picked us up a few weeks
later, where we learned that she was just a drunk driver. It was a fast, bumpy and wild ride.
The worst part about hitchhiking is
the hiking part. By the time someone
picks you up you can only hope that the ride isn’t short, and at the same time
only be thankful that you were driven any distance at all. It also depends on the time of day. Morning and late afternoon are hard
hours. In Maui we’ve waited as short as
5 minutes to as long as 30.
The cab of the truck had a Bob Marley
picture and a sticker that said Maui Girl. The sound of jungle drums beat from the
inside of her vehicle and vibrated the whole truck. We played a guessing game as to what drugs
she was on. The ride was practically
over before it started. I finally got a
good look at her face when we pulled over at her exit, and our new walking
point. She looked worn down, probably
from years of Ice, and her chin reminded me of Pinocchio’s, or one of those
other puppets on a string. We told her
to have a good day, she yelled back 'don’t tell me what to do,' and cackled as she
peeled off. Jungle drums filled the
forest and didn’t fade until she was out of sight.
We were now officially in the middle
of fucking nowhere.
We were in between
a canyon, and there were no cars in sight.
Eventually we got out of there and then we were completely surrounded by
farmland. We walked another four miles,
and then I broke down. I’m a city boy,
I’m not going to lie, I have had it easy most of my life. I’m not a saint, I’m human like everyone
else, and I’ve constantly taken for granted all the things that I have been
blessed with. But this, this was just
too much.
It
was hard to keep up the morale. But I
definitely did not go down with out a fight.
At first I had false motivations.
I thought of a girl, but somewhere I knew that that was a rotten
road. I thought about how at least I
would look really good physically by the time we were done with this trip. Eventually the pain in my legs stopped that
thought as well. I thought that in the
least I would have one amazing story to tell.
In the end my thoughts stopped all together. It was like floating in Limbo. I couldn’t quite tell where or who I was. We were out of water and it was mid day, the
tropical sun beat down.
25 miles, with 65lbs sacks, in two
days, with no chance to recover, or real ending, was all I could handle.
I
gave up.
The
sparkle left my eyes and the only thing on my shoulders was gloom. About a mile back we bought small bananas
with our last dollar bill. The Hawaiians
we had met at our most recent rest stop were genuine dicks. Most natives speak with an undertone, they
have good reason to be angry, tourists have taken over there home, but to take
it out on everyone is just ridiculous.
They scoffed at the idea of credit or debit cards working anywhere in
the vicinity of the next 45 minutes of travel, and that was if we were in cars.
I stopped moving and told Rob I wasn’t going to move
another inch, backwards or forwards, I was just going to lay there and
die. I’ve never been homeless, not had
enough money to do or get the things I needed or been on a trek that didn’t
have a real end. Rob and I argued for a
long time. It ended with the solution
being that I go back to California. I’ve
had some serious low points in life, but nothing was ever this bad.
That was when the first positive thought came over
my mind. Nothing worse could ever happen
to me, and even if it did, I would know that eventually everything passes.
It was like a spark went off in my head. When you reach the lowest point in your life,
the only thing you can do is pick yourself up and start all over. Sometimes you have nothing and have to be
willing to start from scratch, and other times you have everything and have to
be willing to lose it all to advance.
I had the option of going home or seeing the trip through. I chose to make the best of what we had, and
that was the first time I understood that everything has a positive angle to
it. My motivation should be myself, not
about what others thought, but rather internal glory.
We pressed on, and about a quarter mile later we
reached a cut off point that had 20 miles of winding road and no shoulder. The first legitimate hitchhiking thumbs went
up. It felt really awkward asking for a
ride. I hadn’t shaved in 4 days so it
made me think of all the homeless people that ask for money in Berkeley.
10 minutes later a shitty car pulled over. Hitchhiking lesson XX, shitty cars and
trucks are more likely to pull over.
A busty blonde stepped out and I’m pretty sure my mouth dropped. We stuffed our gear into her small Honda Accord. (No pun intended)
No comments:
Post a Comment