The first morning we awakened in our bamboo cottage, we heard the sound of something scurrying across the rooftop.
“I think we have a monkey on our roof,” said Ray.
“There are no monkeys in Hawaii, silly.”
“A velociraptor, then.”
Just then, we heard a strange bird call: something neither of us had quite heard until then.
“Yep,” said Ray. “Definitely a velociraptor.”
Despite his concerns for my safety, I ventured forth on the second day of our stay to explore the grounds.
Our cottage is on a working orchid farm, and although I did not take the official tour, I did find a labyrinth and some sacred looking stones, as well as lots of spiderwebs with large, forbidding spiders.
Ray’s voice echoed in my mind. “If there is one thing that Uncharted has taught us, it’s, ‘Don’t piss off the spiders.'”
I kept on the pathway and made my way back to the cottage.
We decided to go to Wai’anapanapa State Park, where there are supposedly numerous caves and lava tubes. We walked along the black sand beach and followed a path around the cliffs to several more black rock beaches. We assumed the caves and lava tubes were just ahead, but the path just led us further and further down the beach, until we were in the middle of a lava field.
The desolate landscape made us feel we had been dropped into some alternate timeline. Please, I prayed, let us not get dumped into that godawful show, Terra Nova. Anything but that.
We must have hiked for at least a mile before we could go no farther, but I, in my sundress and sandals, was not exactly dressed for a hike. My purse, weighted down with cameras and various other electronics we did not want in the car, was beginning to make me lopsided.
When we returned to our starting point, we saw a sign saying “caves” and pointing uphill.
I sighed and looked at Ray.
“There’s water in the car,” he pointed out.
I nodded, and we headed back to the parking lot, then back to our cottage for a nap.
