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!