It wasn't all perfect......

My goodness - I'm still going on about Hawaii.....it was just such a unique experience I have to finish telling the stories.  Also, this post will make me feel better about no longer being there as it's about some of the pitfalls of living in the valley; I have quite a romantic notion of that time and place and remembering the injuries, illness, bad weather and dirt helps to  balance it out!

Weather issues

Although we were blessed with sun most of the time, island weather is notoriously unpredictable.  When we first arrived in Kauai and wanted to get to the Valley, we were held back several times by hurricane warnings.  Apparently this year there was an El Ninio and as a result, hurricanes were not uncommon.  However after about the 7th warning, with no hurricane actually occuring, we decided that we had to just go for it and catch the boat in.  The boatmen are highly experienced sailors and would certainly never set off if they had any concerns about safety so we just arranged a date and got out there and of course there was no hurricane the day we set out.

However the weather wasn't great.  It was unexpectedly rainy for our first week in the Valley - so much so that living in just a small tent was just unbearable.  Our tent wasn't tall enough to even stand in and so if we wanted to do anything other than lay down, we would need more extensive shelter.  We discovered the art and science of 'tarpology'.  Alot of effort goes into tying up tarps in the trees using ropes.  There's much to consider, which branches to use, how high to go, what angle to put it at so that the water pours off where you want it to. We were lucky that within the first couple of days we were hooked up with a spot that had a huge tarp, extremely well hung up, so that we had plenty of space to cook under and make a fire.  This helped us move beyond simply just surviving outdoors.

Yet the next issue was the mosquitos.  Agh..they're a pain.

Going stir crazy....

Our spot was set back slightly from the beach in the forest and it wasn't long before mosquitos would bother us whenever we sat down.  We were told smoke from the fire would help to get rid of them, but it's hard keeping a fire going when all of your wood is wet and to be honest, it only works if you stand directly in the smoke, which is not a pleasant experience - that's what people usually try to move away from when sitting around the fire! So we couldn't really sit comfortably in our own camp.

Mosquito bites were so annoying!

Also disheartening was that we couldn't really explore much.  If we went hiking or walking up the valley, as soon as you stood still for five seconds, swarms of mosquitos would attack.  This happened to me a few times and I tried to avoid it by being covered up, putting on mosquito repellant but they'd simply bite me through my clothes. I must have one of the blood types that they find overly appealing as I'm that person that always gets bitten first.

I'm particulalry sensitive to mosquito bites, my legs just looked like I had some kind of weird skin disease as I'd have tens of bites, all of which would flare up and oh boy did they itch!  'Don't scratch', Scott kept telling me, but I found it immensley difficult not to as the sensation of itchyness was just overbearing.  Again, I got told many remedies to calm the itching down by various people - from banana peel, to aloe vera, to herbal ointments such as calendula.  Nothing seemed to vaguely help, apart from diving into the salty sea which would temporarily ease the sensation.  But I couldn't really find any relief, apart from occasionally giving in and having a good scratch. It also made it difficult to get to sleep on some nights as it was just so all consuming and really can drive you a bit crazy.

Don't slip up in the jungle

The rain also meant that we couldn't do much hiking as it was just simply so slippery.  It might rain for only half the day but that was enough to mean it was very muddy going down the hills and hence quite dangerous.  We did attempt it one day when it looked dry, but having collected the fruits we wanted, the heavens opened as we made our way back to camp.  We were carrying quite heavy goods and all of a sudden, Scott slipped and had a huge fall, landing (thankfully) on him bum, although at the time it looked like it could have been on his back from where I stood.

Scott just after injuring himself in the makeshift sling that I made (he doesn't look very happy does he?)

He went into shock and was a bit dazed at first, needing to sit down.  What I hadn't realised at the time is that he had also landed alot of the weight on his left elbow.  He was in a great deal of pain and it was quite worrying.  He could barely move his arm at all, his range of motion became very limited.  There were about ten days of worry within which he could do very little with the arm.  He did feel that the motion was slightly coming back, but it was just really unnerving not knowing quite what was wrong with it and how serious it was.  And so we had to boat out to get it checked.

In all honestly we didn't want to wait ten days to get it seen to but hiking out with only one good arm wasn't an option as it would be so slippery and thus very dangerous, with a high likelihood of further injury.  On the other hand, he also wasn't able to swim to the boat to get on it - there's no pier as it's not an official drop off point.  Normally if people need emergency help, they can get a helicopter, but we knew this was too extreme.  So we had to wait long enough for it to heal so he could swim.

Coincedently at that time, I also needed to seek my own medical treatment.  One of the mosquito bites that had bothered me a great deal on my ankle had been scratched open and gotten infected.  Believe me when I say that it's pretty much impossible to keep any wound clean in those circumstances.  A plaster simply comes off immediately and it is so easy for a grain of sand, a little bit or dust or a splash of mud to get into any cut.  It's very hard to stay clean when you're living outdoors, particularly when it's wet and if you have cuts on your feet you can't really wear shoes, but then again if you don't you have the dirt issues again!

Yuck - my feet often looked like this as the wetness made it hard to keep anything clean!

I tried many treatments for the would before resulting to taking antibiotics prescribed by the doctor, but I just couldn't heal it myself and the wound began to grow wider and deeper and so I knew it had to be attended to.  Scott also had a similar wound on his foot that also needed attention and many people around us got infected cuts.  Even the long term folks were getting them which was extremely unusual.

Thankfully for Scott's arm an x-ray showed that the elbow was just strained and wouldn't need any special treatment, just the healing of time.  My infected ankle also healed nicely.  We were instructed to soak our feet in epsom salt twice a day, which I ended up rather enjoying, it's quite relaxing!  I think our little break was very much needed to recuperate.

A brewing storm (or tsunami!)

The only other situation that I would describe as less than ideal whilst I was out there was the 'tsunami incident'.  One evening a guy I didn't recognised rushed passed our camp shouting to us that a tsunami was coming at 2am that evening and that if we wanted to get back to the main part of the island we could get on the boat.  This really got the rumor mill going and slowly most tourists trickled out onto the boats.  We didn't really know what to think, we were aware that the weather warnings in the past we'd been given never seemed to be accurate and also that this part of the island tended to have really good weather, even when it was bad on other parts of the island.  Everyone started giving their opinion on the situation but no one really knew anything.

But we'd never had a tsunami warning before.  Hurricaine....yes.....tsunami....no!  However we found that the local folk who live out there long term, were staying put.   One of the older men, explained he'd heard it all before and most likely the boat men were just saying it to make a bit more money by boating out people.  This reassured me.  But I still felt an element of risk.  I heard my mother's voice in the back of my head 'now you stay safe Renee and look after yourself'.  I questioned whether not moving during a potential tsunami situation qualified as not looking after myself.

And so it was this that kept me up all night, in two minds wondering if I'd made the right decision to stay.  We were sleeping practically on the beach by this point and the waves just sounded so much louder than normal to me.  Scott lay sleeping, oblivious to my concerns and eventually I was forced to wake him up to tell him we needed to at least move back onto the cliffs.  Of course, he rolled back to sleep telling me not to worry and it was too dark to do that. Then I decided I should just go anyway and leave him to die alone if I had to!  But then I questioned that again....

Eventually Scott woke up enough to calm me down and I reasoned that if I did die in a tsunami, my mum would kill me, but by then I'd already be dead so that wasn't really an option?!  And if I was to die, swept away by tsunami whilst living in paradise wasn't a bad way to go.  I woke up the next day extremely sleep deprived but alive and well with alot of 'I told you so' from Scott.  This was one of the few times I felt anything close to real concern about the situation I was in, but now looking back at the story at least I can tell it with a smile on my face!