Hawaii: The Big Island

While Mike and I spent the first and last nights of our Hawaiian vacation in the tacky delight of Honolulu, the bulk of our trip was spent relaxing on the Kona coast on the Big Island. Hawaii really has two kinds of vacations: Waikiki and everything else. With one of the big tourist hotels in the heart of Honolulu you get a sliver of an ocean view, beaches crowded with tourists and uniquely Hawaiian activities (luaus and hula dancing) under the watchful and familiar gaze of Diamondhead. This is the Hawaii that looks exactly like Hawaii, retold in countless movies from the 1960s heyday of surf culture. More modern and sophisticated travelers like the unspoiled and less crowded splendor of other islands, where massive resorts have sprung up in former sugar cane fields and pineapple farms, delivering high end slices of paradise.

I had been to Hawaii before in December of 1999, freshly released from my career at AOL, and living on my small farm in Southwest Michigan. Eric Mueller organized a big trip with many of his friends, and we all made the journey across the ocean. Mike was stationed there at the time, so it was an opportunity to visit him and get a little touch of warmth just as winter was settling in hard on the shores of Lake Michigan. That trip was a blurry sea of drunken sailors (the sixth fleet was in town that weekend) and wild gay adventures. A fight between me and one of Eric’s friends on the second day left Mike and I alone for most of the rest of the trip there, which is just how it was this time around too. Having already experienced Waikiki we were both ready for the other Hawaii.

We landed in Kona and the airport, much like the one in Honolulu, was a quaint throwback to a kinder, gentler time before terrorism and security made airports so utilitarian, ugly and walled off. The Kona Airport looks like a cheesy movie set, not unlike the opening sequence in Postcards From The Edge. I am not even convinced it was real lava rock the building was constructed with. It might just as well have been stucco spray-painted black by an eager production assistant. The biggest difference on the Big Island was a decidedly slower pace, set by a much older crowd.

The condo my Dad rented was in an old but well-maintained complex right on the ocean. The accommodations were functional, in the barest sense of the word. For someone who likes to be pampered and taken care of at all times, my Dad weirdly has no lust of luxury, another trait I largely (though don’t completely) share. The condo was disappointing, although given my father’s history with such things, I don’t know why I was surprised. However, when I learned that it was only $1300/month, it was magically transformed in my cheap eyes into a castle worthy of our adventure. After all, that was less than our old apartment in Manhattan.

Our week in Kona was supposed to be about relaxing, and it was. We logged in some nice time at the swimming pool, doing our best to avoid the elderly and small children. Of those of legal drinking age on the island, we were among the youngest people there. But with the six hour time difference from New York, dinner was at 5pm most nights and by 11pm, we could barely keep our eyes open. Combining that with the pace and demographic surrounding us, it was easy to feel like charter members of the AARP.

But we used the early to bed, early to rise scenario to our advantage. True, our one trip to the local gay bar, Mask (of course), was cut short when I nearly fell asleep in a bowl of stale popcorn there just after 10pm. But with our 7am wake-ups, it left us with a whole day of exploring, even after throwing away a few hours in the morning over lattes and bagels at the Café. On Tuesday, we drove for two hours to Volcanoes National Park, where we hiked into the crater of an active volcano and I posed for a series of wacky photos, including “warming” myself over a steam vent. When I recounted my activities to my friend Paui, he said that he treated the steam vents like a magical spa, opening his pores and lungs until a park ranger advised him that he was basically breathing in microscopic shards of glass and maybe putting his face in the vent wasn’t the best idea ever.

The volcano has been quite active recently and it is a good thing we went on Tuesday because Wednesday the sulfur dioxide levels were so dangerously high they closed the entire park. But by then we were miles away at the green sand beach. Hottie Zach recommended a trip there, and it turns out it is one of only two such beaches in the entire world. And not wanting to go to Guam, we made the trip to this hidden gem on the Big Island instead. Having been around the world, I have long since given up the notion of discovering a hidden treasure. The first time I went to Notre Dame in Paris, somehow I thought it would be tucked away in an old neighborhood, not surrounded by gift shops and a Haagen Daas store. The green sand beach was another story.

It is not far from South Point, the furthest south you can go in the United States. This is the place where the original Hawaiians probably landed when they came up from Tahiti. From there, you have to walk several miles along what is barely a path with no sign to guide you, to a beach that is literally cascading out of a rock outcropping. The sand is a deep olive color but green it is. The water was a pastel blue that day and the contrast was incredible. We were there for hours and all told saw perhaps two dozen people. Most of them, like us, making a solitary march through a barren landscape to encounter a fabled nook nestled in the far side of the world. Without question, one of the most satisfying experiences of my life.

As much as we loved our quiet days in Kona, we knew living there permanently would probably make us crazy. A week was more than plenty of time. By Friday we were sad when we sipped our last latte at the café and made the winding drive down the hill to the airport. But at the same time, we were ready to return to civilization. Waiting for us on Waikiki beach were rooms at the famed Royal Hawaiian hotel, with soaring ceilings and comfortable beds. Gay life was just a short walk down the road at Hulas where I ran into Michael, the former Mr. Gay.com who was a guest on my radio show way back in 2004. Suddenly, my week of anonymity was at an end. Our vacation was drawing to a close and this last bar crawl was the perfect way to ease us back into real life.