Autophagy on Kaua'i (a blast from the past)

It’s fun to be young and just a bit reckless. On a foggy January morning in 2011, I woke up in my tent at Ke’e Beach on Kaua’i (one of the islands that make up Hawa’i) and would set off on the Kalalau trail straddling the rugged Na Pali coast. Along the way, I’d make acquaintance with a guy from Philadelphia who carried a towering backpack full of food, which, once he had set up camp under an overhang under the cliffs at Kalalau Beach, became much frequented by the local rodent population.

The same fate wouldn’t befall me: I barely had any food on me. Having hitchhiked into Ke’e beach late the previous night, I had planned to stock up before embarking on what was scheduled - and would be - a five-day adventure. But, head emerging from the tent that early morning, it had become clear that Ke’e beach was not a place where purchases could be made. Mulling my fate, I had struck up a conversation with some fellow campers who were packing up, and who handed me a big bag of Gatorade powder, a few single-serving packages of instant oats, and a tiny can of tuna salad alongside, and I remember this precisely, six tiny crackers.

Despite the absence of food, my backpack was heavy, for I was moving back from Berkeley to Bonn and was carrying winter clothes for a stop-over in Tokyo as well as my heavy DSLR setup with multiple lenses. The Kalalau trail is beautiful but no joke; I remember scuttling about on all fours to round a corner where wind gusts were trying to blow me into a ravine that would dump me right out over rocky cliffs above the ocean 30 feet below. Standing finally in the coarse golden sand on Kalalau Beach and taking in the breakers ahead and the waterfall and the tropical vegetation giving way to steep, sculpted cliffs behind me, I decided to set up camp under a tree perched right at the edge of the beach overlooking the sea.

Fast forward a few days and there is less magic in the air. It’s the middle of the night; I can’t say what time exactly because my phone is long dead. It’s dark but loud: the wind is whipping up the ocean and from the sounds of it, my picture-perfect ocean perch which makes my residence may well be the next Atlantis. Every couple of minutes I anxiously unzip the tent to check that the high water mark stays put. I am simultaneously drenched and shivering, not because I’m worried, but because in an attempt to save weight I do not have a sleeping bag on me. It’s too cold to sleep without one, so I’m wrapped in an emergency blanket, but in the humidity of the tropics alongside the ocean produce ample condensation. At least I don’t feel the mosquito bites any more. I had been rationing what little food I had - I’m guessing 100 calories/day against the high expenditure of exploring the wild Kalalau valley during daytime under the influence of my most abundant asset, caffeinated Gatorade powder - and my attempts at foraging have yielded little but very unripe oranges whose acidity hurts my teeth even more than the hunger ails me. It was time to have the best tuna salad ever.

On day five, a rainy day, I loaded my Camelbak with all of the remaining Gatorade powder and got the hell out of dodge, practically running the last miles on slick muddy trails, wiping out a few times, and arriving at the trailhead in the midst of a torrential downpour.

I spent the next week on Kaua’i trying to fatten up. I fondly remember sumptuous meals at Koke’e lodge, who agreed to take my US checks (my wallet had been stolen earlier that week at Salt Pond Beach Park so I almost got trapped on Kaua’i), and frying up lots of tuna belly at a hostel with new friends. My new driver’s license photo that was taken weeks later (and which sadly has since been replaced) still shows.

I wouldn’t recommend this as a great way to spend a week, and definitely had to suffer. Yet, it has become one of my treasured experiences and over the years has put a lot of other inconveniences into perspective.