Day 10: The Big Island of Hawaii - Hilo

Evan turned 17 today! Happy birthday to our amazing son! He has brought nothing but joy in the past 17 years, being an intelligent and considerate boy. We are lucky to have him as our son; and he often says we are the best parents in the world! ☺️

When asked what he wanted for his birthday breakfast, he said baked potatoes. Realizing he wasn’t joking, we bought potatoes from the store and baked them this morning. He was very happy eating his potatoes and cupcakes as his first meal as a 17 year old.

Today’s main event was a 4 hour visit in the longest and deepest lava tube in the world. The Kazumura Lava Tube is 40 miles long and 3,461 feet deep and is also one of the longest caves in the world. The only way to see it is to purchase a tour from Harry.

Harry bought a property near the cave in 1990s. During the land survey, they told him of an entrance of this cave is on his property, therefore allowed some ownership to him according to some Hawaii law. For the next 20 years, he made this cave his life’s mission. He explored and studied the cave, learning everything he could about lava and volcano, working with other scientists in the world, coming up with scientific explanations for the formations of many structures in the cave, and then started giving tours to people. He is extremely serious about keeping the cave exactly as it was, only giving tours to very small groups and making sure no one touches the walls or otherwise affect the cave’s natural environment in any way.

We hiked into the cave for about 1.5 miles, going up and down ladders, and climbing over many piles of breakdown. The cave was completely dark with our flashlights as the only light source. Besides a tiny, almost translucent cave cricket we saw, the cave seemed lifeless and completely silent. Harry stopped often to show us all the interesting things in the cave. He asked us if he was giving us too much information. I assured him that we loved learning new things. I told him I called Steve “a know it all” guy, and Evan “a know it more” guy. Neither one of them knew much about lava tube so they were happily soaking in all the new knowledge about it for 4 hours!

I also told Harry how much I appreciated his efforts to keep this cave as natural as possible. He successfully foiled a neighbor’s attempt to expand the tourism of the cave, thereby preventing bus loads of people from coming in. He told us that many years ago, a guy who didn’t speak any English wiped some crystallized minerals from the wall, erased 500 years of growth! He still sounded pained when he talked about it.

We walked deeper and deeper into the cave, and saw many interesting lava formations. At one point, Harry told us to walk forward one by one, and we would see something unusual. Sure enough, we saw a large hole in the ground. I could imagine how scary it must’ve been for Harry when he saw it for the first time 20 years ago. Fortunately the hole wasn’t deep. He called this room the Pit Room. To continue exploration would require rock climbing skills to scale a tall lava fall. Since we don’t have such a skill, here was our turnaround point. Harry asked if we want to experience total darkness, and we said yes. So all lights were off, and we stood in total darkness and silence. The last time we experienced something like this was in Australia Outback. But here, being so deep underground and miles away from civilization, the void was more complete…like death?

The hiking back to the entrance took about an hour. To my surprise, exited into the sunlight wasn’t too shocking to our sense, thanks to the lush vegetations by the entrance.

We skipped lunch today since we were deep underground at the time. It was already 3 pm by the time we got back to our Airbnb. After a bit break, we headed out to dinner at a local restaurant famous for its Laulau, a dish involving wrapping some proteins in taro leafs. It was delicious!

Tonight’s moon was only half full; few clouds in the sky allowed us to see more stars.

We are heading to Kona tomorrow. Czytaj więcej