Hawaii 2

My favorite island by far is Kauai. While i'm sure I could talk about it for days, I'll only go into my favorite part, Na Pali. Na Pali is located at the end of a long highway that goes around the edge of the island. To get there you have to go across one-lane bridges, dirt roads, and even a few streams that run across the road. You can park at the end of the road and then there are three options.

One, walk 100 feet back towards civilization on the beach, and then 50 feet out into the ocean to Tunnels Beach. Once you get about 50 feet out in the reef, you hit the edge and it just drops off to 40 feet deep. While snorkling there I saw sea turtles and stingrays among tons of fish and coral.

Two, you can walk down to Key'ye (not sure the spelling) Beach right at the parking area. The water is kind of murky because of all the people and not great for snorkling, but it makes up for it in beauty. There is a sand bar 50 feet out that you can walk on at low-tide. The beach is edged by rainforrest. It's really just a little peice of heaven.

Three, (and my favorite option) you can put on your gear and start hiking the Na Pali trail. At this point, there is no more civilization for 12 miles. Only jungle and mountains that abut the ocean. The trail climbs to about 200 feet above the ocean and slinks through ravines with killer views. At points along the trail it dips down to beaches that are accessible only by the trail, boat, or plane.

I've only hiked out to the first beach, but while I was there we noticed an interesting guy. He lives on the beach. He goes naked until hikers start to pass through midday. He has really long dreads and is very tan. He uses buckets to collect rain water and eats cocoanuts. There were also 12 guant cats living there on the beach with him.

Its a very odd sight to walk 2 miles in a tropical forrest to find a man just living alone out on a beach.

Besides the odd, naked guy, Na Pali is the most beautiful place on earth. Totally untouched by civilization, it is just pristine wildreness as far as the eye can see. I can understand why that guy lives there. Out of all the places I will talk about in this blog, if you can get yourself to any of them, go to Kauai and hike Na Pali.

(For you to get an idea of how untouched by civilization it is, many of the scenes of Jurassic Park and Six Days Seven Nights were filmed there.)