Living with Hippies in the Woods

Me looking cool

When I first arrived on Kauai island in Hawaii. I was alone and slept on the beach. I have to say, I'm proud of my sleeping hole/shelter that I made. I wrote about it in my previous post. I spent over 3 weeks on that island and I never stayed in a room even once. After, I had been on the island for a few days, I met a very important person.

I stunk. The look on that one ladies face in the convenient store confirmed it. I didn't have any clean clothes.  I hadn't yet mastered my vagabond lifestyle of super cheapness.
I actually decided to spend money on a hostel room for just 1 night so I could conveniently shower and do laundry and then continue camping out the next day. I had been walking around, exploring, and also sweating a lot. I was also carrying my big backpack with me.

I started walking toward the hostel I saw in that town earlier to ask if they had a bed.
 On the way, I saw a guy about my age sitting on some steps in front of a closed shop.
When I walked by him he looked at me and said, "hey man, sit down, I need somebody to talk to!" I was shocked. What a strange thing to say to a stranger on the street. Bwaaaahh! 
"Uh, I'm not a therapist" I replied. " No, I don't need therapy. I just want someone to talk to."
I wondered if I should keep walking, but I decided to sit down.

The man's name is Kaia or Kai for short. He said he recently had gotten out of jail, which is why he really wanted to talk to someone. He was from Big Island but had lived on Kauai before. It had been 8 years since the last time he was on Kauai but he came back because of drama on the Big Island. Just like me, he had only been on the island a few days and was alone. 
A couple minutes after meeting him, a hippie walks over to us from around the corner.
 "hey guys", he pulled out a big clump of marijuana and offered us some. By the way, he was a stranger and didn't know Kaia either. He had a guitar and was carrying several didgeridoos which he said that he made himself.  A little while later, he left and said he was on his way to Kalalau Valley. Somewhere that Kai knew about.

Kaia and I became friends rather quickly and got along. Although we just met, It felt like we had known each other a lot longer. I didn't get that hostel room that night. We were both homeless in Hawaii and we slept on the beach, showered in the public rinse off stations, and did our laundry at laundromats. 

 I also learned that hitchhiking was common on that island, which is something that I'd never done. It's not as common in mainland America and it was something that I never thought I would actually do. The bus doesn't go everywhere and we used hitchiking to explore some great places on the island. Like this place...

 

Kaia is an expert hitchhiker. He taught me how to hitchhike with Aloha!



                             

Ok,  so I suppose I should get on with the hippie part that is in the title of this post. 
The place is like an unofficial community living in the woods. It's not too easy to get to it though and that's something that makes it more rewarding once you do get there.
To get there you must go on an 11 mile hike which goes up and down and up and down and so forth! 
 Well, I guess it's possible to take a boat in but I don't have money or a boat and the waves and conditions can be monstrous! I saw the biggest waves I have ever seen along the Napoli coast. The trail is also gnarly and dangerous, people have died doing it before.
Just don't lean too much while on the trail...    or do it while drunk like I did once ^^ 
Anyway, the trail is beautifully fucktastic!

My shitty backpack.

Finally we arrived in Kalalau Valley exhausted. The beach and the waves there were HUGE!
Also, many people run around naked on that beach. Sometimes the waves overtake the entire beach! I met a guy who lost his wallet to the waves by leaving it on the sand at the wrong time.

caves

After collapsing on the beach for awhile, I set up my tent. Below is a pic of my friend, JP.

who slept in a hammock with tarps over it...   it didn't work out too well for him when a rain  

storm came.

Kalalau is a truly magical place. Some people stay there for months and years with no money and live off the land. Yes, there is so much food that just grows there on it's own and they also hunt wild goats and pigs and there is plenty of water from the waterfall.

Here I am with some goat horns

                                                                                   

meat!

goat eyeballs

It was very surprising how well we ate out there. Everyone shares and as long as you help hunt, cook, pick fruit and veggies, start the fire, gather firewood, and just help out with whatever is needed then you can eat! 

There are also hikers and temporary travelers that come and go. Some people visit every year or so around the holidays. People don't use money there but trade and share. So sometimes people will hike in with supplies like cheese and pepperoni and we have pizza.

I hope you are starting to see why this place is one of my favorite places that I visited on my long trip. 

Tobbacco, weed, cheese, spices, rice, alcohol, etc. are great things to bring to trade.

Now, let me tell you about some of the vegetation growing there. First, the Noni!
There are Noni trees Everywhere!

Noni is a fruit that is known as a super-food, it's supposed to be super healthy and full of antioxidants but...  it's super disgusting!
It smells kinda like vomit and tastes like Satan's ballsack! 

(I have no idea what Satan's ballsack tastes like, I'm just trying to be dramatic).

Well, that's my personal opinion. I like to call it the Oh No-ni. Some people develop a tolerance for it and/or mix the juice with lemon juice which makes it a little better... People also rub it on wounds to make them heal faster. 

Anyway, the leaves of the Noni tree are also edible and unlike the fruit, they don't taste bad, so everyone always uses the leaves as plates, eating the food and the plate too!
I ate spaghetti out of a leaf burrito! :)

                                      

Noni leaves taste great when cooked evenly over a fire to make Noni chips.
 They become crunchy like a chip and get stronger flavor when cooked.

   Anyway, spinach also grows there as seen being cooked in the pic below... 

As well as sugarcane, lettuces, mangoes, passion fruits (we call it lilikoi in Hawaii), lemons,  lots of oranges, and etc. It was Orange season when I was there and those were the best most awesomely fucktastic oranges ever!!! They taste Waaaaayyy better than any store bought orange or Any orange I have ever had and gave a jolt energy. They were like our Redbull. I was amazed at the power of those oranges. I probably ate about 20 day. Seriously, and there was still plenty more oranges there than we were able to eat. To gather them we have to climb and shake them out of the trees. I swear they always fall better when making monkey noises.

Me in a tree

Ok, so I've written A lot about food so far. Let's move on to activities and people.. well it has a great place to swim and jump off rocks.

They also play volleyball on the beach and every night many people gather around a fire and some play instruments, sing, and chant.

I also learned how amazing and powerful it sounds when a big group howls or OM's in sync. 

This is a special and fun place I will someday go back to. before I left we had a party... 

and this is what I woke up in the next morning.

For some reason a dog who I didn't know was also sleeping inside with me and please don't ask why there is a rock halfway in...  But that story is too long (and a little bit embarrassing) to put in this post so maybe Ill save it for an e-book or something.

So I think, I'll finished describing this place by describing the people. What kind of people are in this place? What can you expect? You might be wondering. 

           

Well, you'll see a lot of outdoorsy loving travelers that come and go. They are tougher than the typical tourist. You'll also see a lot of hippies and hippie-ish people and you'll see a lot of laid back people. Oh and also a few naked people as well.
I also noticed that people like to hug others quite a bit in that community. Even if they hardly know you.There was a guy who became really embarrassed because he got an erection in front of several others after a naked girl hugged him.

I certainly met some interesting characters. A few go by names like Izzy,Grizzly,Space Dog, Uncle T and Josh. Josh was an interesting guy.. Just not his name. 
I met a guy who actually told me that Shiva told him to go there. But don't worry, no one else I met was quite as Out there as him...  At least not that I know of.

Damn, there's so much I could write about that place and this has been my longest blog post so far. I hope you enjoy it. You probably have at least some if you are still reading this. It's been over a year since I've been to Kalalau as I write this now.

This post isn't over yet. I'll explain how to get there for anyone interested.

How to get there:

So, the airport in Kauai is in Lihue, The furthest the bus goes is to Hanalei. After that, If you don't have a car then you either have to hitch-hike or walk about 7 miles or so to the start of Kalalau trail, which is the very end of the road.

It was never too difficult to find a lift.

After that, there is one problem... as usual, it's the government.

Warning: this next part will contain complaining

Technically, everyone is supposed to have a permit to camp. and the price is an unreasonable $18 per night!  The hostel I stayed at in New Orleans was $16 a night. 

A hostel with a bed and a shower for Less than sleeping in a tent that I own in the woods?

I don't believe in paying for nature. 

Sometimes I don't mind paying a little for a spot at a campground because campgrounds have a bathroom and sometimes a shower and public facilities like a kitchen area and often an outlet that I can charge my laptop with. In my point of view, I'm paying for the facilities, not for the nature and it still must be less than a hostel price...   but Kalalau wasn't a public campground.  They Seriously wanted $18 a night to take a walk in the woods..  nature that they didn't create.

 $18 a night is ridiculous. 

So Kaia and I and 2 others that we also met, JP and Michael,  all went to the start of the trail and had some ranger in a green shirt walk over to us and demand we have a permit.

I didn't  know that a camping permit was required before arriving and I was shocked to learn that. Michael, who we met the night before already a permit. So, he said " well, later." and began the hike on his own.

"Ok, fine. I won't camp if I need a permit. How about I just leave my tent here and lay on my tarp on the ground?"  I said. "That's CAMPING!" he said angrily.  

"If you spend the night in the woods, you have to pay $18 a night for a camping permit!"

"I don't mind paying if it helps support the department of forestry" JP said and pulled out a 20 dollar bill. The man wouldn't take it. "No, you can't buy a permit here. You're supposed to buy one from the office building in Lihue." 

We were very far away from there.

Then that asshole made a suggestion. We were out of cellphone signal range but he said that if we walk 1 mile down the road there is signal and we could access the internet from a cell phone and then go online and buy a permit from the website and walk back and show him the receipt and then we'd be allowed to hike the 11 miles!

JP didn't do it, he ended up sneaking on the trail. Someone mentioned to us "hey, this guy gets off work at about 4 p.m. and then no one is guarding the trail."  So we came back later that evening and hiked in as the sun was setting.  We hiked in about 2 miles and camped when it got dark  and did the other 9 in the morning.

Well, I think that's finally all I have to say for now.  wow, this has been a long post. Thanks for reading.