“Stick around,” Larry said, “I’ll give you a ride up later. Go see the waterfall, come back, and I’ll take you up this afternoon.” Larry fed us oatmeal pancakes and Doris sauteed red bananas in butter and cinnamon. There was good strong coffee on the table and we talked about music, Yma Sumac and Martin Denny and Zappa and other obscure acts.
“Another cup of coffee, and zip, up to the falls,” said Doris, “and I’ll take you up later.” They were so generous, sincere. There was not the tiniest whiff of inconvenience. They genuinely seemed to enjoy having company and they wanted our visit to be easy.
Thing is, I wanted to walk up. I would have accepted a ride had they been going anyway, of course I would have. It’s a tough slog. My step counter tells me I climbed the equivalent of 64 flights of stairs. I had walked down late the afternoon before, wading across the mouth of the river. The water was up to my waist. I had propped my shoes on top of my head and plunged in. For the next six hours, moisture lifted from me like my own personal cloud. It was the worst at night. I threw myself on the bed, under the mosquito netting, and it felt like I was wrapped in a hot mist. It took me forever to fall asleep.
We passed on the falls, my friend’s night was no better than mine, and I have learned not to try to see all the things, to leave something for next time. Plus, we had 64 flights of stairs yet to climb. Larry walked us to the river instead. Doris and her dog, Guapi, joined us. “I should go with you at least to the river,” Larry said. “I didn’t tell what’s his name I was having guests and I don’t want him to yell at you.”
I still don’t have a bead on if you’re supposed to go down to Waipi’o Valley or not. It seems like if you observe the signs and stay off private property, you’re fine. If you don’t leave a mess on the beach, you’re fine. There are no services for visitors and you absolutely can not drive your rental sedan down. It’s not clear to me that you should drive your rental 4×4 down either, not without some experience in steep and off road driving, at a minimum.
My “up top” friend had wrangled an overnight invitation. I slept badly, not for any particular reason — the bed was comfortable and I had earplugs to turn down the volume on the coqui frogs. I kept waking up, and once I walked out to the outhouse and the sky was a blur of tiny stars between the clouds. I could only see what little my flashlight illuminated, that, and a pair of headlights coming down the steep road on the opposite side of the valley.
At sunrise, I pulled on my shorts, still damp from the day before, and my shoes, same, and went out to take pictures. I am a morning person not in that it is when I am at my best, but in that it is my favorite time of day. It’s why I wanted to go down 64 flights of stairs to the valley, and why I wanted to walk back up those same steps the next day. To experience the morning in the valley.
