By ED LOWE
Special to the Journal & Topics
To many, a vacation on the islands of Hawaii is a dream. Most first time visitors spend a little time on two or three of the islands to get a sampler of what they have to offer. After those first tentative visits, veterans select the island they find most appealing to their needs. We have picked the Big Island, Hawaii, which gave its name to the entire chain.
The Big Island offers some of the world's most posh hotels along the northwest, Kohala, coast. Golf courses, gourmet restaurants, tennis, water sports and real luxury are available there. Further south, in the Kailua-Kona area, more hotels are available at more modest rates. Our recent trip to the Big Island was designed to find out more about the historic and cultural background of Hawaii. Tourists, especially those who spend time in Honolulu on Oahu tend to think that hulas, leis and luaus are designed to amuse touring mainlanders.
Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, among native Hawaiians, the culture is taken very seriously. The Hawaiian alphabet, consisting of 10 vowels and 8 consonants forms a language that is both difficult to articulate and hard to understand. But it's part of the root of a culture that goes back to ancient Polynesia ‹ probably 1,500 years ago. When the first massive outrigger canoes arrived from the Marquesas they brought families, customs, and a harsh tradition consisting of kapus (social regulations), as well as beliefs in a whole pantheon of nature-based gods to these islands.
Even before these settlers arrived, there was excitement on the Big Island. The Hawaiians attribute the blessings of their land to the goddess of fire and volcanoes, Madam Pele. Every Hawaiian knows of her. In the dim distant past, something made her unhappy. Legend has it that she began to rumble under the calm seas and explosions at the ocean floor brought forth a series of volcanic mountains. From the 18,000 foot depth of the sea, there rose the volcanic mammoths that make up the archipelago. Two of these volcanoes are still active on the Big Island. The most active of them, Kilauea, is the site of Volcano National Park which rises 4,000 feet above the sea.
Located on the Caldera or rim of the volcanic crater, the visitor's center is also the beginning of the 11 mile drive around the crater where steaming vents of gas testify to the internal activity. A walk through the Thurston Lava Tube or into the Jagger Center, a virtual museum of volcanology will show the visitor how volcanoes work. While there, don't forget to visit the mythic home of Madam Pele, called Halema'uma'u crater.
A 20 mile drive down to the sea will take you past lava flows, all carefully dated, including the current flow which began on Jan. 3, 1983.
At sea level, it's easy to see the huge plume of steam and hydrochloric acid gasses emitted as tons of lava flow through the tubes into the ocean. In fact, hundreds of acres of additional land have been added to the Big Island in the past years. For a special thrill, try sleeping in Volcano House, the historic hotel located on the caldera. Meal service in the 150-year-old hotel is available and the chance to wake and see the steaming vents ‹ some on the hotel grounds is an experience to be remembered.
Hawaii is basically divided into four unequal quadrants. The active volcanoes ‹ Kilauea and Mauna Loa are in the southeast quarter. The commercial city and main port, Hilo, is located in the northeast section. The luxe hotels and the cattle ranching country centered in the town of Waimea is in the northwest and Kailua-Kona serves as unofficial capital of the southwest region.
It's in the southwest region that much of the Big Island's cultural background is centered. To begin looking at the culture of ancient Hawaii, one should first visit the City of Refuge, Pu'uhonua o Honaunau. Prior to the arrival of New England missionaries and their strict biblical regimen, when the ancients violated the taboos ‹ kapu ‹, they fled to Cities of Refuge on the islands. There, with proper penance and with the guidance of priests, they were given a second chance and were permitted to return to the general society without fear of punishment for their violations. Penalties for violations of the kapu were harsh, generally death. But when the violator reached a pu'uhonua, a ceremony of absolution was performed by a kahuna pule (high priest.)
This place of refuge was a safe haven for non-combatants in battles and for defeated warriors. The National Park Service has fully restored the pu'uhonua in Honaunau. There, the government has contracted with Tava Taupu, a native of the Marquesas who for the past 30 years has served our government by practicing his ancient craft of carving the tikis which are sited throughout the City of Refuge. Working in a thatched roof hut, while we were there, he carved on native koa wood to create a bowsprit for one of the reproduced canoes. Other tikis within the city are evidence of his devotion to a very unusual craft. In his loin cloth, he is willing to stop and explain the process by which he identifies the tikis and reproduces them.
Near the City of Refuge, in Kealakekua Bay lies the Captain Cook Monument. A small white stone obelisk, the monument stands on the site where Cook, discoverer in 1778 of what he called the Sandwich Islands, was killed during a misunderstanding with locals. One of the officers on his ship, George Vancouver, returned to the islands several times, introducing cattle ranching to the rich grazing land which lies in the northwest quadrant, near the city of Waimea. The third largest cattle ranch in the nation, the Parker Ranch, is located near Waimea. Vancouver's botanist, Archibald Menzies planted the first orange tree in Hawaii, a tree which is still producing fruit!
Driving north from Kailua-Kona and past miles of black lava fields, punctuated only occasionally by the greenery of the luxury hotels, one arrives in Waimea which could be confused with any cow town in Texas or Oklahoma. From Waimea, a well-paved road takes you over the spine of another extinct volcano, Mauna Kea. It seems eerie to drive through an area where long needled evergreen trees grow side-by-side with prickly pear cactus in seeming disregard for botanic logic. Cattle graze along the pastures of this mountain, sometimes lost in the misty clouds that frequently coat the slopes.
At the very northern tip of the island, in Kapa'au, stop for a minute to see the authentic King Kamehameha Statue. Honolulu residents claim the original is in front of the State of Hawaii Building in the Oahu city, but the truth is that the original was lost at sea and Honolulu can claim only a replica. Later, salvage operations reclaimed the original from a shipwreck and, after replacing a missing arm, the piece was lovingly installed in Kapa'au.
Driving southward down the coast, you discover Puukohola Heiau, a temple erected by King Kamehameha I to mark his consolidation of the islands into a single kingdom. Another project maintained by the National Park Service, you may be lucky enough to encounter Martha Zacho, a Park Ranger whose knowledge of Hawaiian lore and history is truly astounding. While we were there, with little prodding, she recited the history of the Hawaiian Dynasty from the mid 1700's until the annexation of Hawaii to the U.S. in 1894. This latter event was not something she viewed with great approval.
Among the restaurants in the Kailua-Kona area, we can recommend many of the high line gourmet restaurants in the hotels on the Kohala Coast. But for excellent dining in places where the locals eat, we would recommend three places. First, on route 11 above Kailua Kona, you'll find La Bourgogne, a tiny French bistro with attentive personalized service from the owners. On Alii Drive, about four miles south of the city, you'll find Jameson's. Ask for a terrace seat and enjoy the freshest of local seafood as Pacific waves gently slap against the shore. Finally, the restaurant guide's most favored independent eatery along the north shore is Merriman's.
The range of activities is broad on the Big Island, but the temperature varies only about 4 degrees between summer and winter. An average of 85 degrees (f) and as many as 200 days of sunshine per year is a strong inducement to visit Hawaii. Obviously the long flight from the mainland makes visitors expect something special in return. And on the Big Island, that's what you get.
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