Hawaii Day Five...

-Hawaiian morning rush
-Kilauea Iki crater walk
-Lazy afternoon
-Nighttime tradition

Walkin' on the Moon... That was what stepping across the crater's surface was like... Belches of sulfurous steam and gaseous smoke filled the air, leaving your throat lasting vaguely like strike-anywhere matches had been scraped across it. It permeated everything and it was inescapable.

We walked through what seemed like a pre-historic jungle and arrived at a sudden view, startling for it's vast starkness. Here and there tiny plants struggled for a crack of life to sustain itself. And for almost as far as the eye could see, was the hole of the crater, like a gaping maw, waiting to swallow you whole.

Down into the crater we went, step after step. My head pounded from the smell and the glare. (Only halfway across did it cross The Boyfriend's mind to tell me to put on my sunglasses. Which helped my eyes, but did nothing for my poor assaulted nose and throat.)

Sound travels differently in the crater. Birds in the surrounding jungle seem as if they are right in front of you. Your spoken words sound blunt and buffered. And the crunch of the lava beneath your feet is almost ominous as you realize that about a mile below you lava still swirls. In places you can feel the heat through your shoes and warm your feet uncomfortably.

About halfway across, it seems as if you have been walking forever. And that you still have forever to go to reach the other side. The unbidden thought that the earth COULD shift and open up below you is pushed from your mind again and again as you tell yourself that this IS a safe thing to be doing, crossing the cooled surface of a volcano's crater. You can almost feel the nervous laughter escape your lips, and you walk on.

Light-headed, you finally reach the other side and begin the ascent back up and into the jungle. Back to where there are living things, and green, and cooler breezes, and (hopefully) fresher air.

It is not until you are back in your car, bumping along the highway, many miles past the volcanoes that you can finally such in a sweet breath of air. And you gulp it in so quickly that you start to choke on it. And THAT is when it clicks into your brain that you really did it... You really just spent the afternoon hiking across the huge crater of a volcano (and lived to tell the tale). Your next thought is that you really would love to sit out on the lanai, look out onto the ocean, and sip on a cool beer.

And that is what we did. (Well... I had a juice spiked with 7UP, The Boyfriend enjoyed a beer, but in the end, it's really all the same thing.)