Just Put on the Shoes
Bradley Charbonneau May 23rd, 2007
I hate jogging. I want to stay in shape. I need to jog to stay in shape. After I jog, I feel better. Jogging is like writing. I hate jogging.
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Which Way is North?
Laurie McAndish King May 16th, 2007
They say the Polynesians navigated by squatting low between the two hulls of their ocean-faring canoes, testicles dangling into the water. The combination of ultra-sensitive skin, keen attention to the subtleties of ocean swells, and nautical lore handed down from father to son enabled these ancient tribes to explore the uncharted waters of the South Pacific, and eventually to locate and populate the thousands of tiny islands there.
Phoenicians navigated by the sun and stars, the Vikings accomplished their impressive feats using mysteriously carved stone disks called solskuggj”l; Aboriginals trekking across the vast Australian outback can actually smell water. My own father has an uncanny ability to align the hour hand of his watch with the shadow of the nearest church steeple and somehow determine which street leads back to his hotel. This seems to work for him anywhere in the northern hemisphere, with the higher latitudes providing the most accurate readings.
Personally, I have no navigational abilities or aspirations; in fact, I relish the off-kilter sensation foreign locations inevitably induce. I love wandering through a new city, with no idea in which direction my hotel lies. There are no familiar streets, shops, or restaurants. No nostalgia — or even local memories — of friends, family, fine wines, or lost weekends. I have no profession, no religion, no identity, except what I choose to invent. I can view the world through new eyes, and I generally spend quite a lot of time trying to figure things out.
Things that ought to be simple enough, like which way is north. In Melbourne, Australia, for example, the Central Business District (CBD) is a grid on an angle; it heads northeast. Even knowing that, I cannot, for the life of me, get my bearings in Melbourne. Partly, it’s because the official city map is — for some random reason — rotated 90 degrees clockwise and shows my hotel on the southeast corner of the CBD, when really it’s on the northeast. For a while I thought this might be an idiosyncrasy peculiar to the southern hemisphere, perhaps some sort of cartographical counterbalance to the thing about drain water circling in the opposite direction than in the northern hemisphere. But I have discovered that drain water usually — though not always — goes down counterclockwise, no matter which hemisphere you’re in. Anyway, it was not just the map that confused me.
One day, after having lived and worked in Melbourne for several months, I began to feel at home, and decided I had had enough recreational disorientation. I resolved to walk up and down the streets, paying particular attention to the sun at intersections, and, finally, figure out which way was north. The weather was perfect: hot in the sun, cool in the shade, light breeze, bright blue skies. I walked down Exhibition Street, willing myself to achieve some minimal state of orientation, and repeating what I hoped would be a helpful mantra, “South on Exhibition, South on Exhibition, South on Exhibition.” But with the sun warm on my back, something felt seriously wrong; even walking in and out of the shade of skyscrapers, I was disoriented.
Continuing south on Exhibition Street, I arrived at a corner where the once-grand Southern Cross Hotel was being completely remodeled to include luxury apartments and up-market shopping. Steel I-beams supported scaffolding over the sidewalk, and I considered crossing to the other side, but was more in the mood for a construction site than for the opal stores across the street. The scaffolding would provide cool shade, and I’d had quite enough of tourist shops for the day.
Someone had spray-painted a message on each consecutive vertical I-beam, drawing the reader in with every step. The first said: Welcome. Then: Enter, Look, Read, Be Silent — each running down an I-beam. Inside the scaffolding, a small gap in the overhanging canvas left room for the artist’s message, sprayed in neon orange on plywood:
110 million land mines
90% war victims are civilians
40,000 kids starve to death daily
1 dead princess
80% W pop = 3rd w’80% W goods = 1st w
I had stumbled into another dimension of Melbourne, a parallel universe in this tidy city with its graffiti hidden discreetly away. How many other worlds existed here, patiently layered, unseen by tourists?
I walked on and the I-beams said: Take it All, Use it All, Shop a Lot, Consume, Forgive, Forget It, No Guilt, Nothing. Suddenly I was out of the scaffolding and back in the bright sunlight. Across the street, a sign announced: Opals’Australian Souvenirs’Tax Free!! Around the corner — west on Collins Street — the signs said: Wedgwood, Waterford, Cartier, Bally, Hermes, Louis Vuitton.
And there I was, standing in the sunshine, still trying to feel which way was north.
The Great Manila Trashcan Debacle
Bill Fink May 1st, 2007
The Philippine capital of Manila was the infamous home of a massive steaming garbage dump nicknamed “Smoky Mountain.” Until it closed several years ago, hundreds of families lived on and around the dump, surviving on food scraps, trying to make a few pesos repairing and reselling refuse.
During my yearlong stay in Manila, I joined the “Junior Rotarians,” a student-run charitable offshoot of the Rotary Club. When they announced a project to help the poor of Smoky Mountain, I volunteered.
While normal life at Smoky Mountain was miserable, some- times it crossed into the realm of the abysmally tragic. Three weeks before my arrival, an open cooking fire had spread, burning down a section of Tondo, the nearby shanty town, killing dozens. Without running water, no one could stop the flames.
In this setting the noble Junior Rotarians stepped up and a day of service was declared to help the hapless Smoky Mountaineers.
I joined the assembly in the parking lot of the Bel Air Country Club. Empty trash can-size oil drums filled the lot. About 25 volunteers painted some cans bright red and filled others with sand.
“What exactly are we doing here?” I asked Jojo, the group coordinator.
“The Junior Rotarians are donating this fire-prevention equipment to the poor in the Tondo neighborhood,” he answered.
I looked for some sign of hoses, portable pumps, fire extinguishers, even a squirt gun, but saw nothing.
“What equipment?”
“All around you! We’re filling these cans with sand the Tondoites can use to dump on fires. The sand won’t attract mosquitoes like water would, which means we’re saving them from malaria as well.”
“So essentially, we’re giving away trash cans?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“To people who live in a trash dump?”
“Um, yes … But we’re painting them bright red! They’ll stop fires!”
He gave me a can of white spray paint and a stencil that said, “Bawal Basura Dito” — “Don’t throw trash here.” The only trash-free spots in Tondo would be these trashcans.
We loaded the painted, sand-filled cans onto a Rotary Club truck, and nervously drove past the crumbling walls marking the edge of the Tondo shantytown.
When we entered the rutted dirt path, people ducked between shacks and slammed shut corrugated metal shutters on clapboard houses. Trash, mangy dogs and skinny chickens scattered in front of the truck as we bounced to a stop in what we took to be some sort of central square.
Tattooed toughs in tattered clothing glared at our student group hopping out of the truck in our work clothes — Gap sweatshirts and Diesel jeans. We lowered the loaded cans with a hydraulic ramp, and struggled to roll the first one to where we felt was a strategic fire-prevention spot.
One local sauntered over to stick his hands in the sand-filled can, feeling around as if he were looking for a prize in a box of cereal. He pulled out his hands, opened them up and allowed the sand to sift through the fingers to the ground. He looked at me with arms outstretched and a mystified smile. As my fellow crusaders offloaded another can, I tried to demonstrate the can’s fire prevention purpose with a charades-like presentation. I waved my hands in the air, pantomiming a fire rising from the earth. Then I wiped sweat from my face to indicate “whew, hot fire!” As a finale, I reached into the can for a couple handfuls of sand and threw it to the ground with a “ta-da!”
The Tondoites stood with hands on hips, looking at the area where I had flung the sand, skeptically but politely waiting for something to happen. One older guy spoke to me in dialect, I imagined something along the lines of “OK, we may be poor, we may live in a garbage dump, but you can’t possibly think we’re stupid enough to believe that trash can is filled with magic sand.”
The group went back to what they were doing when we arrived, which was mostly sitting on wood crates drinking warm beer. Perhaps out of pity, they motioned for me to join them.
Their drink of choice was Red Horse, a local beer with high alcohol content. Rumor had it that if you drank a bad batch, you’d go blind. My new friends had bloodshot, but still working eyes, so I sat down.
With a flourish, the older man who had lectured me used a spoon to expertly pop the bottle cap off a beer. I motioned for him to do the trick again, which he did slowly, demonstrating the leverage needed from the opposite thumb. We opened several more bottles until I learned the technique myself. The group was delighted they had taught the foreigner a skill, and pretty far from upset that the teaching process required drinking the newly opened bottles of Red Horse.
The Junior Rotarians finished offloading the sand cans and called me back. I waved goodbye to my new Tondo buddies, who replied with a toast of Red Horse.
While the Junior Rotarian charity trip didn’t quite have the enthusiastic response we hoped for, I felt my visit gave a few people in the Philippines a better opinion of Americans, at least in a “not very bright, but they try” sort of way.
And as the saying goes, those who give charity receive the same in kind. But I have to say, in a trade between the “Tondo Bottle-Opening-Spoon” technique and the much-hyped “Junior Rotarian Trash Can Fire Extinguishers,” I think I received the greater gift.
This story originally appeared in the 3/19 San Francisco Chronicle Magazine
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/03/19/CMGU9GJ0CF1.DTL
The Last of the Hawaiian Cowboys
Constance Hale March 27th, 2007
Leave the Beach Behind and Saddle Up with Big Island Paniolos
The bull, all one thousand muscled pounds of him, stands firm in a grassy pasture, his brindle hide glistening—the red richer than a tiger’s, the black blacker. Menacing two-foot-long horns curve like twin tildes from his brow, and he glares at me as if to say, I’m not going anywhere. Slowly, I ride toward him.
Having joined the day’s cattle drive at Dahana Ranch, nestled up-country on Hawaii’s Big Island, I’ve been dispatched to collect this straggler. Just moments ago my horse seemed perfectly adequate in size; now she seems slight. I move to the right, trying to hide my trepidation, while one of the ranch hands, B. J. Hamlin, approaches from the left. Hamlin is a no-nonsense cowboy whose only trace of vanity is an oversize belt buckle, which he won at a local rodeo.
The bull eyes us implacably.
We close in, turn our mares as we pass his flanks, and trap him in a V between us. “If a bull charges,” Hamlin told me earlier, “just turn your horse and run.” I’m ready to bolt if need be. But the bull hardly budges. “Hup,” Hamlin calls out, and the beast trudges off to join the herd. We continue driving the cattle along through rolling pastures that stretch for miles into the distance, all the way to where the volcano, Mauna Kea, rises up, its summit punching through the clouds.
I didn’t come to the Big Island to face down bulls. I came to meet paniolos, the storied breed of Hawaiian horsemen who were herding cattle on the slopes of island volcanoes 30 years before cowboys first wrangled them in Texas. I’ve come to Dahana Ranch specifically to meet owner Harry Nakoa, a 59-year-old former rodeo champ, known locally as the “Hawaiian horse whisperer.” Nakoa now breeds American quarter horses, coaches a handful of interns, and welcomes visitors to his 350-acre spread, where they can saddle up and ride alongside paniolos on their weekly cattle drives, and in so doing help Nakoa train the mares he’ll eventually market to working cowboys.
When I join him in the stable, flush with victory over my longhorn nemesis, Nakoa informs me—unremitting teacher that he is—that the brindle bull is not a bull at all. “He was castrated two months ago,” Nakoa says. “He’s a steer.”
Nakoa is a voluble storyteller who speaks in metaphors, sprinkles lessons with off-color anecdotes, and relies on the Socratic method to get his points across. He spends half an hour expounding on the difference between a cow pony and a cutting horse, recounting the history of the Hawaiian saddle (his great-grandfather’s happens to be on hand), and digging into Hawaiian etymology.
“What do you think paniolo means?” he asks when I inquire about the term.
I offer the traditional explanation: It’s a transliteration of Espanol, what the first cowboys would have called themselves when they arrived in Hawaii from Mexico in 1832. Or that it’s a possible derivative of paneulo, the vaquero’s neckerchief.
Nakoa listens, nodding politely. It’s clear he has a different theory.
“Paniolo evolved from the Hawaiian words pa niolo,” he says, jumping atop a saddle on a nearby stack of hay bales. He sits up tall. “Pa niolo means ‘to be sitting there, straight up,’ and if you think about it, that’s how a Hawaiian, in the Hawaiian way of thinking, would have described these vaqueros.”
My infatuation with paniolos began when I was a teenager on O‘ahu’s North Shore, a quiet district known for big waves and show-off surfers. On Sundays we country kids would sneak over to a beachside polo field to watch the matches and ogle Honolulu’s high society as they sipping champagne under white tents. Prince Charles played there, as did some jet-setting South Americans, but the polo players we rooted for were paniolos. They came from Maui and the Big Island and wielded their mallets as skillfully as ancient Hawaiians did their spears. Some were descendants of old missionary families or the scions of hotel chains. Others were native Hawaiian horsemen in a class all their own. Our favorite player was Tuna Sampaio, whose pidgin English cursing once caused Prince Charles to dismount, throw down his glove, and stomp off the field.
Like most Americans, Hawaiian kids go through a cowboy phase. But where the mythical Wild West cowboy is all six-shooters and Clint Eastwood swagger, the Hawaiian paniolo is possessed of a gentle soul, an ancient language, and songs that are more soft-and-sweet than achy-breaky. The paniolo knows his flower species as well as his cattle breeds, and weaves blossoms into leis to adorn his hat. He breaks his horses in the ocean and trains them to pick their way through sharp fields of lava. For over 150 years, since they first saddled up, the paniolos became not just keepers of their own wrangling and roping styles, but also of Hawaiian music, language, and tradition. And for this they are revered by native Hawaiians today.
Hawaiian cattle is still big business, generating an estimated $100 million per year, but with tourism driving the Big Island’s economy, with golf courses more in demand than grazing land, Hawaiian cowboys are facing harder times. Ranches have had to adapt to survive: some pastures are being planted with crops, others are being parceled out and sold to developers. Cowboys with their strings of up to eight horses (for different terrains and tasks) are being replaced by smaller crews on ATVs. And, entrepreneurs like Nakoa, while moving away from the paniolo lifestyle, are using it to lure adventurous travelers to their ranches.
These changes have taken place while I’ve been living on the mainland, away from the Hawaii of my youth. I found myself wondering whether my beloved paniolos have become as endangered as some of Hawaii’s native birds. So, on a long-awaited trip to the Big Island, I gave myself two weeks and a mission: to find paniolos who have found a way to survive another century.
The ideal place to look for cowboys is in Honoka‘a, a coastal village 38 miles west of Hilo, where the 1920s buildings have Western-style false fronts and covered boardwalks. On Memorial Day weekend, the annual Hawaii Saddle Club Rodeo kicks off with a parade down the main drag. Hundreds of spectators have turned out today, from shirtless surfers in floral shorts to families in cowboy hats banded with ferns and flowers to curious visitors who, like me, are eager for a taste of this offbeat island spectacle.
The parade’s grand marshal, 80-year-old paniolo Jamie Dowsett, rides by to cheers, flanked by his sons and his wife, Queenie, a renowned hula dancer and former Hawaiian TV star. Two granddaughters in matching chartreuse jackets follow on their mounts. A pickup truck passes by, loaded with hay and even more progeny—children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, in-laws—four generations in all: a living paniolo legacy.
The following day at the rodeo in the Honoka‘a Arena, Dowsett is sitting in the stands after a respectable showing in the calf-roping event. He’s traded his boots for a pair of running shoes. Pointing to the dusty Nikes, he says, “You know why cowboys wear these?” His pencil-thin, white mustache dances as he smiles. “So you can tell them from the truckers!”
Having been a working paniolo for most of his life, Dowsett is in a position to explain what makes Hawaiian cowboys so unique. “We used to train our horses in the seawater,” he tells me. “We would ride them in up to their chests. First, it was easier on the man—the horses wouldn’t be able to buck so much. Second, the horses would tire quicker. Third, it would help train the horses to swim. In the old days, cattle were loaded by water, and paniolos would use big draft horses that had deep chests that helped them float easier. The cowboys would swim three cattle out at a time, tie them onto longboats, row them out to the ship, and hoist them onto the deck.”
A faraway look comes into his eyes when he recalls the halcyon days of Pu‘uwa‘awa‘a Ranch, on the slopes of the volcano Hualalai. “All the guys were Hawaiian,” he says. “That was a different kind of ranch—in the lava fields.” His voice lifts as he remembers. “We’d ride single file up the hill, and all the guys would be singing in Hawaiian.”
Singing in Hawaiian is a huge part of the paniolo tradition. Pre-contact Polynesians relied on chants to preserve their history and to wax poetic about everything from spirituality to sexuality. When vaqueros brought their guitars to the islands, paniolos adapted them as enthusiastically as they did the saddle. Hawaiian slack-key guitar was born on cattle ranches.
Typically, at the end of a big cattle drive or roundup, paniolos gather to make merry, which usually includes roasted meats and rollicking music. For the Dowsetts, the rodeo was occasion enough. Lucky for me, I am invited me to a Saturday barbecue at Auntie Po’s—that is, at the house of Po‘omai Pflueger, the youngest of Jamie and Queenie’s five children.
Actually, the party is at the barn—the stalls have been cleaned of poop, the tack room emptied of saddles. A large table has been cleared and decorated with a burst of ginger, antherium, and birds of paradise. Around it Queenie, wearing an exquisite lei of orchid petals, arranges the food: sliced rare beef, BBQ ribs, hot dogs, corn on the cob, rice, macaroni salad, a sashimi platter, Caesar salad, and avocado and spring green salad. Outside the tack room, under tarps, are the bar, the grill, the desserts, and tables for the two dozen guests.
From the time I arrive to the time I leave there is constant music, played variously by four different guitarists. (Two of them, Matthew and Billy Beamer, are cousins of Keola Beamer, a slack-key master who has recorded their grandfather’s paniolo tunes and whose dozen-plus recordings include the first Hawaiian album to debut on Billboard’s World Music chart.) They slow down only once, to accommodate a youngster who approaches with his ukulele. Late at night the traditional Hawaiian music shifts to 70s soft rock— the Eagles, Loggins and Messina, and Crosby, Stills & Nash. The four-part harmony goes on till the wee hours.
Auntie Po lives in Waimea, the town 15 miles upland from Honokaa, sitting in the saddle between Kohala Mountain and Mauna Kea. Waimea is the capital of cowboy country, and for most of its history it was a one-company town. That company was the Parker Ranch, once the largest privately owned ranch in the world. Today, with 175,000 acres and 35,000 head of cattle, it’s still the biggest in Hawaii.
I have ensconced myself in the Jacaranda Inn, a complex of rambling buildings and elegant gardens that was originally built for a Parker Ranch manager and later served as Laurence Rockefeller’s private retreat and guest house for the likes of Jackie Kennedy and Henry Kissinger. Now a bed-and-breakfast, the inn is a little worn around the edges. But the hallway cases filled with random silver, the chandeliers in every room, and the guest suites joined by long wooden lanais are relics of the grandeur of the Parker Ranch oligarchy.
In the history of the ranch lies the origins of the Hawaiian paniolo. It all started in 1793, when British sea captain George Vancouver presented five cows (two in-calf) to King Kamehameha I as a gift. They were suffering from the journey, and the Hawaiian ruler threatened death to anyone who harmed them. Within a few decades, thousands of wild sharp-horned beasts roamed the northern side of the island, endangering lives and wreaking havoc in fields. Then, in 1809, an ambitious captain’s clerk named John Parker Palmer jumped ship and commenced a long and cunning climb to power, learning the Hawaiian language, befriending a member of the court, and convincing Kamehameha to let him take up residence. Parker was the first man allowed to shoot the now problematic cattle, and to trade in beef, tallow, and hides. Eventually he married Kamehameha’s granddaughter, Kipikane. King Kamehameha sent to Mexican California for vaqueros who could teach Hawaiians how to handle horses and herd cattle. Parker capitalized on their know-how. By 1850, Kamehameha had granted two acres to Parker for a home and 640 acres to Kipikane. The Parker Ranch was founded.
Cowboys on the Parker Ranch and elsewhere soon modified the vaqueros’ tools. Saddles were stamped with Hawaiian quilt patterns, and eel-like lariats were woven to lengths of a hundred feet. Paniolos replaced sombreros with hats made of native grasses and held them in place in fierce winds with elaborate leis of feathers, ferns, shells, and flowers.
Their horses evolved, too, responding to the challenges of the islands. They had to plow into the surf with riders on their backs and struggling cattle roped to them their sides. They had to be fast and able to stop on a dime in the kipuka, rich islands of pasture land left untouched by lava flows. They had to be sure-footed in a terrain of deep gorges, lava-strewn ranges, volcanic crevasses, and deserts tangled with cactuses and thorny Hawaiian Mesquite trees, called kiawe. Some were bred to forgo shoes, even on the jagged a‘a lava that could cut a horse’s feet to ribbons.
The vaqueros also imparted another tradition that Hawaiians made their own. Slack-key guitar, or ki ho‘alu, was born on cattle ranches when paniolos adapted the vaqueros’ instrument to suit their own style of storytelling. There’s something about that gentle music that perfectly suits this soft-but-dramatic landscape. My longtime favorite is Sonny Chillingworth, who died in 1995 and was known by the moniker “Waimea Cowboy.” His songs were full of bell-like tones and rough-hewn wisdom. The classic “Kaula ‘Ili” (The Lariat), tells of a paniolo who is roping wild cattle when his horse stumbles into a lava tube hidden in tall grass. The cowboy manages to climb out of the lava tube and get back on his horse. “Oh never mind, ke hina pu ua hiki no,” Chillingworth sang; “if you fall, never mind, you get up and ride again.”
Like many legendary cowboys, the hero of “Kaula ‘Ili” was a Parker Ranch paniolo. Today, although their numbers have dwindled (in 2002 the ranch’s working cowboys were pared from 25 to 14), the Parker Ranch is trying to turn its paniolos and their history into a magnet for mainlanders. At the Parker Ranch Historic Homes, docents recount Steinbeck-worthy tales of Parkers gone by; visitors can ride horses (or ATVs) through nearby pastures. And, in the most authentic display of this rich legacy, paniolos from all over the island still gather at Parker Ranch to compete in its two annual rodeos.
And in the parking lot of Waimea’s spanking-new Parker Ranch Center, is a 27-foot bronze statue of the ur-paniolo, Ikua Purdy, who learned to ride and rope on Parker Ranch and won the Frontier Days World Steer Roping Championship in Wyoming in 1908. Around the pedestal of the statue are plaques bearing the brands of all the major Big Island ranches, a healthy 84 in all. But my heart sinks when I see that the statue was erected by the Paniolo Preservation Society. You know a tradition is in trouble when the word “preservation” is linked to its name.
“The cattle business is healthy, ” Freddy Rice declares confidently, “but the cowboy business is over.” We are sitting at the dining room table of Rice’s contemporary home, overlooking a jumble of rocks in a now-dry stream bed. “We’re raising more beef on fewer acres than ever before,” he says, “but the four-wheel drive Jeep, the gooseneck trailer, and the ATV have made the paniolo history.”
Rice, who I remember from his polo-playing days on O‘ahu, comes from an old Maui haole (white) family, but his speech is sprinkled with the Hawaiian-language terminology of the paniolo, which he says trumps English in its precision and efficiency. Although Rice concedes that it’s better business to replace six cowboys on horses with two on ATVs, he insists that ranches will always need “the guys with cow sense—the ones that get to the gate before the cow.” At 71, he intends to stay one of those guys as long as he can. And after a visit with him, it’s clear that he speaks for those ranchers who are embracing change as a way of preserving both their traditions and their businesses.
It’s a short drive from Waimea to the ranchlands of Kohala Mountain, in the midst of Big Island cattle country. As I skirt the base of the mountain and then ascend, brown grass, scrub, and lava boulders give way to lush fields and rounded hills. Every now and then a break in the trees reveals green pastures sloping toward a turquoise sea. Then I look in my rear-view mirror and am so awestruck that I have to pull over to the side of the road. In the clear of the early morning, the island’s three largest volcanic peaks rise in all their majesty, without a single cloud to blur their striking lines— Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa, and Hualalai—forming a massive double M, as if God himself were reminding ranchers that when it comes to branding, they’ve got nothing on him.
“This isn’t god’s country, Monte Richards announces. “This is where god comes on vacation.” Richards, a 75-year-old, fifth-generation islander, works 8,500 acres on the slopes of Kohala Mountain. I join him and his extended family in the spacious kitchen of their white wood-frame house, headquarters of the Kahua Ranch since 1928. On their land, ranching has also been evolving along the lines described by Freddy Rice. “Now we’re a cattle ranch, a sheep farm operation, and an ag-tourism venture,” Richards says. “We’ve practiced new grazing techniques, tried farming, and developed alternative energy.”
The cattle operation is overseen by Richards’s eldest son, Tim, 46, a practicing veterinarian possessed of striking blue eyes and a showy Kahua Ranch 75th-anniversary belt buckle. His beefy brother John, 35, has taken on the tourism side of things ever since he returned from a tour of duty with the Army in Macedonia. In addition to evenings at the ranch barbecues (with their history lectures, lasso lessons, and local music), you can saddle up at nearby Na‘alapa Stables and ride through Kahua’s open ranges.
Like everyone in the family, John is eager to extol the beauty of life at Kahua, its landscape, its history, and its cowboys. Though the number of ranch hands at Kahua has shrunk from fifty in the 1940s to five today, certain families are as much part of the ranch as the Richardses. (”I used to put Godfrey on the school bus each morning,” says Monte of Godfrey Kainoa, one of the most respected paniolo on the big island today.)
Yet it’s clear that preserving the ranch’s bottom line will always trump preserving its cultural legacy. “We’re dedicated to paniolo tradition,” John Richards says, “but we’re not opposed to innovation.”
“This road opens a book to the Big Island,” Rob Pacheco remarks as we head up the notorious Saddle Road, a narrow, winding, pockmarked strip of macadam that is the only route over the saddle between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. “When you go up over the Saddle, you see the whole island, the real story,” he muses. This echoes what I’ve been thinking: that to understand the paniolos I need to understand the mountains that have so shaped their history.
The contract from my rental-car company forbids travel up this road, so I’m happy to let Pacheco do the navigating, in a giant Ford 4 x 4 owned by his nature adventure company. We head uphill through pastures of waving, wheat-like grass. Pacheco is a 41-year-old whose Portuguese grandparents moved their family from Hawaii to California, only to see him return in 1990 and found Hawaii Forest & Trail. Every now and then he slams on the breaks to show me a palila, an endangered bird found only on Mauna Kea, or a manane forest that was almost destroyed by ravaging cattle, sheep, and goats. He gestures across a wide plain of green pastures cut by charcoal lava flows, to the ridged pumice mound locals call “Cupcake Hill” and Hawaiians like Jamie Dowsett call Pu‘uwa‘awa‘a, or “furrowed hill.”
After we pass the Humu‘ula Sheep Station, a motley collection of wooden buildings halfway up the mountain that was for years part of the Parker Ranch, the view disappears behind layers of clouds. A thick fog deprives me of all sense of time and place. Then we emerge into an area filled with what geologists consider to be the closest material on earth to Mars. In this glacial moraine, lava once pushed rough and raw from the earth, only to be ground down by glaciers, deprived of rain or vegetation, and subjected to harsh ultraviolet radiation. We pass the sacred Lake Waiau, where ancient Hawaiians deposited the umbilical cords of newborn kings and queens. At 13,020 feet, this is the highest elevation lake in the U.S. and it sits almost at the top of the mighty Mauna Kea. When measured from its base below the ocean, this is the tallest mountain on earth. Its name in Hawaiian means “white mountain,” and its summit is flecked with snow even in May.
We have entered the domain of Poliahu, the Hawaiian goddess of ice, but here Modern Science seems to be challenging her hegemony. Scattered across the 13,796-foot high summit are no fewer that 13 telescopes, housed in observatories that look variously like cool siblings of R2-D2 and squat cafeteria trash cans. Included among these are the “Keck Twins,” the most powerful telescopes on earth, and Japan’s Subaru Facility, site of the world’s largest single-mirror optical telescope.
As the apricot sun slips below the horizon’s layer of cottony gray clouds, constellations begin to emerge—brighter and more colorful than I’ve ever seen them. This is the best star-gazing spot on earth: It lies above 40 percent of the earth’s atmosphere, which distorts viewing of stars, and benefits from an unusual weather condition known as “tradewind inversion,” which keeps the sky clear 325 days of the year. I see, for the first time ever, the Southern Cross, the asteroid Ceres, a ring of Saturn, and Hokule‘a: the “star of gladness” that guided the original Polynesians to Hawaii.
An hour later, Pacheco delivers me to my rental car at the base of the Saddle Road. As I head back to the Jacaranda Inn, I find myself wondering if the Big Island is big enough to bear the sometimes conflicting interests of cattlemen and cowboys, scientists and sacred mountains, tourists and trekkers. I wonder, too, if paniolo culture can remain a robust part of this island cosmos in the 21st century.
Then my thoughts flash through the people I’ve met who are stubbornly balancing the past and the present: Harry Nakoa, who makes his living raising horses; Nahea Brenneman, a nurse in her 20s who rides in roundups on Saturdays; and all those hearty rodeo contestants who would scoff at the notion that they’re a doomed breed. I think of eight-year-old Ka‘ili, who ropes every fence post in sight and vows he’ll grow up to be a cowboy.
Overhead, the Big Island’s obsidian sky throws the stars into brilliant relief. I recall Dowsett that day at the rodeo, reminiscing about life as a paniolo. “We would ride by moonlight sometimes,” he said. “It was cooler at night, so the cattle wouldn’t get overheated. One morning, we started at 4 a.m., 30 cowboys riding up the mountain. We split into three groups and headed up three different hills. As the sun started to come up, the metal on the spurs caught the light, and all over the mountain you could see the flashes.”
(A version of this story appeared in National Geographic Adventure in February 2006.)
BIG ISLAND GUIDE: Where to Bunk and What to Do in Cowboy Country
BUNKHOUSES
The Jacaranda Inn in Kamuela was originally built as the residence of the Parker Ranch manager, then purchased by Laurence Rockefeller as a private retreat to host guests like Jackie Kennedy and Henry Kissinger. Today it is run by an émigré from Texas; each room takes a different tropical flower as its theme. Made-to-order breakfasts are served in a large sunroom. ($159 to $225; 808-885-8813, www.jacarandainn.com.)
Waianuhea, in Honokaa blends high-taste and high-tech for an inn that is at once luxurious and eco-friendly. Traditional wood floors set off ultrasuede couches and modern art; the grounds feature wild turkeys, peacocks, and whimsical furniture. A Bali-inspired bathhouse opens to a solar-heated hot tub perfect for stargazing. Gourmet breakfasts are sumptuous spreads of tropical fruits, egg concoctions, and dangerously good breads; complimentary wine, cheese, and conversation each evening. ($170-350; 808-775-1118; www.waianuhea.com).
Waimea Country Lodge in Kamuela offers comfortable rooms of various sizes, some of which have a view of the grassy hills above Waimea town. ($101 to 117; 800-367-5004 or 808-885-4100; fax 885-6711; Web www.castleresorts.com; email reservations@castleresorts.com).
PIT STOPS
Merriman’s Restaurant in Kamuela is one of the state’s top restaurants. Chef-owner Peter Merriman helped popularize Hawaiian Regional Cuisine, using freshly caught fish, locally grown fruits and vegetables, and ranch-raised lamb and beef. (Lunch is served Monday- Friday 11:30 to 1:30 p.m. (prices start at TK), and dinner nightly from 5:30 to 9 p.m. (prices start at $16.95). (808) 885-6822. www.merrimanshawaii.com
Aioli’s Restaurant in Kamuela is a friendly little place that skews Italian. It features healthy sandwiches, soups, and salads for lunch—either sit-down to to-go—and a constantly changing menu at dinner. 11 am to 8 pm Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. 11 am to 9 pm Friday and Saturday. Lunch starts at $6; dinner entrees start at $14.95. (808) 885-6325.
Tex Drive-In in Honoka‘a is a no-frills grill popular with locals for its spam and rice with breakfast, lunch, and dinner and its signature malasadas—hot holeless donuts introduced by Portuguese immigrants. Owned by the Texeira family, it sells nearly 60,000 malasadas monthly and also hawks chutneys, dessert sauces, coffee, and macadamia nuts. 808-775-0598 or email malasadas@tex-drivein.com; www.texdrivein.com.
TRAIL RIDES AND CATTLE DRIVES
Dahana Ranch (www.dahanaranch.com) offers horseback rides, cattle drives, and paniolo parties on the Big Island’s only Native Hawaiian homestead ranch.
Na‘alapa Stables (www.naalapastables.com) provides trail rides through the Kahua Ranch and through the dramatic Waipi‘o Valley. For Kahua Ranch rides, (808) 889-0022. For Waipi’o Valley, (808) 775-0419. Email naalapa@ilhawaii.net
ROUNDUPS AND RODEOS
Kona Stampede Rodeo, each March, is the oldest rodeo on the Big Island and is held annually at the Honaunau Arena, at Route 160 & Hale O Keawe Road. It features classic rodeo contests as well as such only-in-Hawaii events as “double muggling” and po‘o wai‘u. Admission is free.
Hawaii Saddle Club Memorial Weekend Rodeo in the Honoka‘a Arena features three days of intense competition. The rodeo is part of the town’s annual Western Week, which features a barbecue and parade, a farmers market and a “saloon girls contest.” Admission: $6 in advance, $7 at the gate.
Parker Ranch Horse Races & Rodeo, every July 4 , pits Parker Ranch cowboys against paniolos from rival Big Island ranches. Also includes a Grand Entry Parade, children’s activities, and local food. 9 a.m. to noon at the Parker Ranch Rodeo Arena. Tickets are $6, available at the Parker Ranch Store or at the gate on rodeo day.
Parker Ranch Round-Up Club Rodeo and Horse Races, Labor Day Weekend, features a full menu of rodeo events, as well as food and refreshments. Begins at noon on Saturday and at 11 a.m. on Sunday, in the Parker Ranch Rodeo Arena. Tickets are $6, available at the Parker Ranch Store or at the gate on rodeo day.
TRACKING WILDLIFE
Hawaii Forest & Trail offers eight different adventure tours, often on private lands and in wildlife refuges. Hike through native Hawaiian forests looking for endangered birds, traverse Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, or experience dramatic waterfalls. (800) 464-1993; (808) 331-8505. www.hawaii-forest.com; email info@hawaii-forest.com.
Hawaiian Walkways leads adventures to forests, waterfalls, and volcanoes, on trails through private lands. Headquartered in in Honoka`a, the Hawaii Ecotourism Association’s “Tour Operator of the Year” meets visitors at trailheads all over the Big Island. (800) 457-7759 or 808-775-0372. www.hawaiianwalkways.com; email hiwalk@aloha.net
Dolphin Dreams Images’ Manta Ray Experience allows you to swim with graceful manta rays, which range in size 4 to 14 feet and can weigh up to 1,000 pounds.
Led by underwater videographer James Wing, the outings on the the 46-foot cataramaran Hokuhele begin at dusk from Keauhou Bay in Kona. Wet suits, snorkeling and diving gear are provided. (808) 987-8660; www.dolphindreams.com; email info@dolphindreams.com.
VOLCANO VIEWING
Numerous outfitters, including Hawaiian Walkways, Hawaii Forest and Trail, and Arnott’s Lodge, offer excursions to see lava flowing at Pu‘u O‘o Vent. They also offer rides to the Mauna Kea summit for sunset viewing and star-gazing.
Another way to see hot-red lava is to take an around-the-island helicopter ride. Blue Hawaiian Helicopters leaves from Waikoloa and flies the new EC 130, which has been desgined to reduce noise pollution. (800) 786-2583 or (808) 886-1768, www.bluehawaiian.com.
Bathed in Bordeaux
Gayle Keck January 14th, 2007
I stood naked in a stark, tiled room, bracing myself for what was to come. Then the fire-hose blast hit me full force, stinging my bare skin and pushing me against the wall.
Wielding the powerful nozzle was not a Turkish prison guard, not a dastardly character from some travel nightmare. No. It was a petite, young, French beauty, who nonetheless seemed fixated on interrogating my thighs until they submitted and surrendered several inches of cellulite.
I had given myself over to an unusual spa-in-a-vineyard near Bordeaux, France, called Les Sources de Caudalie.