Perfect Days on Maui
Perfect Day #43 -- Kalaupapa Peninsula
Most visitors to Moloka’i come to see the former leper colony implanted on a huge solitary bulge, Kalaupapa Peninsula, protruding into a sea, deceptively calm in summer and showing its true nature in winter with huge, powerful, relentless waves.
One of the most remarkable destinations in the world, Kalaupapa on Moloka’i's northern shore is separated from the rest of Moloka’i and the world by a 1000-foot wall of mountains. Intentionally this infamous former leper colony is accessible solely a steep trail and, in relatively recent times, by air. Although Kalaupapa ceased operations in 1969, many ex-patients still inhabit the peninsula. Introduced by westerners, leprosy in the Hawaiian Islands goes back to 1835.
Fearing that the mysterious, horrible disease might infect and destroy his kingdom, King Kamehameha V decided to banish persons with any type of strange skin condition to the most isolated spot in Hawaii – Kalawao – a cove on the southeastern part of Kalaupapa Peninsula. Starting in 1866, persons who had the misfortune to be "diagnosed" with a suspect skin disorder were put on a ship that dumped them into turbulent seas near Kalawao to drown or miraculously survive, reach shore without food, shelter, medicine or hope, and certainly not to return or ever be seen again by family or friends. Over the next 100 years, more than 10,000 people (no one knows exactly how many) would be shipped to Kalaupapa. All of the children born to any of thesse people would be taken away for adoption.
By 1870 Christian missionaries had arrived to tend or minister to these survivors. Born to wealth in Belgium, Joseph de Veuster – Father Damien -- exiled himself to care for the afflicted at Kalaupapa. Not until Father Damien, a Catholic priest, arrived in 1873 did the sick and horribly deformed have houses to live in (Damien built more than 300), coffins and graves (Damien produced more than 2000) in which to be buried, nor St. Philomena Church in which to pray.
In the same year that Father Damien arrived, Gerhard Hansen isolated the bacteria that caused leprosy and hence the disease came to be known as “Hansen's disease.” (The terrifying name “leprosy” was officially banned in Hawaii by the state legislature in 1981 but the few remaining residents of Kalaupapa still call the disease leprosy.)
Ten years later, Father Damien himself was diagnosed with leprosy and died in 1889, strangely one of the few cases of a worker at Kalaupapa contracting the disease. Beatified in 1995 by Pope John Paul II, Damien is a candidate for sainthood. Mother Marianne, buried near Father Damien in St. Philomena’s graveyard, also is a candidate for sainthood. The dedication and sacrifices of these two and others who worked with victims of Hansen’s disease is very difficult to grasp even as it is described and commemorated at Kalaupapa.
It was not until the 1940s that sulfa antibiotics were discovered to be an effective treatment for leprosy. By the 1960s Hansen’s disease was no longer considered contagious. However, the quarantine on Kalaupapa was not lifted until 1969 whereupon no new patients were admitted and residents were free to leave, although many of the 1800 residents at the time stayed. Their homes are owned by the state and the grounds are maintained by Hawaii Parks Services.
Damien Tours (567-6171) operates all tours of Kalaupapa that take place every day except Sunday. Advance reservations are required. This incredible adventure can start with a 10-minute flight from Moloka’i’s Ho’olehua Airport and from there into the postage-stamp airfield at Kalaupapa. You fly along the otherworldly cliffs of Makanalua Peninsula to land on a runway that ends at the cliffs themselves.
Chances are that you will be met by Richard Marks and his big blue tour bus. Richard and his busload will drive over to meet other visitors who have hiked or ridden a mule down the newly refurbished mule trail from Kalaupapa Lookout. You might be one of these hikers or mule riders if you chose not to fly into Kalaupapa. Even if you don’t fly in to Kalaupapa, you still have the option of flying out to Ho’olehua Airport.
A former third-generation patient as well as sheriff of Kalaupapa, Marks is a well-known tour guide and character who will entertain and inform you between 9:45am and 2pm. Marks shares a litany of horror stories, including his own heartbreaking early life, about patients being tyrannized for decades by bureaucratic insanity and ineptitude, which makes for dark humor but somehow Richard pulls it off.
The tour proceeds through town from the docks and brief visits to St. Francis Church, its walls covered with images of Father Damien, and the grave of Mother Marianne, to the Visitor Center and bookshop. In addition to the best collection of photography and other books on Father Damien, patients’ lives and stories, and Kalaupapa, the bookstore includes a collection of ingenious gadgets invented by patients to compensate for their handicaps.
Moving across the peninsula, Marks’ tour bus passes through the “Haunted Forest” to the original Kalawao settlement for lunch in Judd Park and spectacular views of north shore cliffs, offshore islands, dome-shaped Okala Rock, and rocky Waikolu Beach. Although it’s a morbid and bizarre addition to a picnic lunch, looking down from your vantage point at Judd Park you may try to visualize sick and despairing people barbarically dumped into the churning seas, struggling desperately to stay alive and reach a completely wild and terrifying shoreline.
The heroic and tragic story of Father Damien's life is recounted at St. Philomena Church, beautifully restored in an idyllic setting. Damien’s grave contains a hand, not his body, the rest having been returned to his native Belgium in preparation for canonization. One suspects that, given a choice, instead of sainthood Father Damien might have chosen to remain next to Mother Marianne in the place where they spent unimaginable lives together.
Few sights in all of Hawaii are as hauntingly beautiful as the one from St. Philomena’s graveyard down the mist-shrouded north coast. For a dramatic finale, book the long tour around Kalaupapa that takes you in a tour bus to panoramic views of the peninsular from the top of Kauhako Crater and returns to the airstrip for the return flight along the edge of the peninsula. For those of you who hiked down, on the return hike up to Kalaupapa Overlook it will feel like you’ve visited another world and dimension of time, and indeed you have, for an extraordinary experience that will remain in your thoughts and feelings for a long time.
This landmark of man's inhumanity toward victims of what was supposedly incurable contagious disease, a startlingly beautiful and utterly isolated place -- "The Place of the Living Dead" – today is a National Historic Park (567-6802). Kalaupapa also is one of Hawaii's richest archaeological preserves, with sites that date from A.D. 1000.
Mule Rides To Kalaupapa
Most everyone who has ridden one of Buzzy Sproat’s mules down the precipitous path to Kalaupapa National Historic Park will attest to the experience as an once-in-a-lifetime ride. Every day, rain or shine, starting at 8am at the top of a 1600-foot ridge that will take your breath away (and not return it for a while), these surefooted mules trek down and up a narrow, 3-mile trail, pausing for a heart-stopping moment at each one of the 26 numbered switchbacks to give you an opportunity to take another deep breath.
Like a hike down this awesome trail on your own two legs, mule tours reinforce the profound sense of leaving the upper world, albeit with the reassuring knowledge that you can return, in the mid-afternoon of the same day. For physically fit persons 16 years of age or older and under 250 pounds, the round-trip ride costs $150 per person, including the guided tour with Damien Tours, and lunch at Kalawao. At least two weeks ahead of your planned arrival on Moloka’i, contact http://www.tombarefoot.com/maui/molokai_mule_ride.html) for Moloka’i Mule Ride reservations..
Kalaupapa By Plane
The fastest and easiest way to get to Kalaupapa, aboard a plane from Honolulu or Maui, quite obviously makes the entire experience very different and certainly less adventuresome than making the journey on foot or by mule, even though you take the same Kalaupapa tour that mule riders and hikers take. You can combine a flight from Maui to Moloka’i and either a hike or a mule ride, one-way or round-trip (see http://www.tombarefoot.com/maui/paragon_air_molo.html and http://www.tombarefoot.com/maui/island_marine_kalaupapa.html).
Kalaupapa By Ferry/Hiking
Simply book a trip Mon, Wed, Fri & Sat from Maui on the Moloka’i Princess Ferry to Kaunakakai, enjoy a continental breakfast and beverages along the way, shuttle to the trailhead for a guided hike down the cliff trail to Kalaupapa, tour the settlement with Damien Tours, have a sandwich lunch and beverages at Kalawao, fly out to topside Moloka’i on Moloka’i Air Shuttle (9 passenger plane), and shuttle back to Kaunakakai Harbor for the return ferry cruise to Maui. (See http://www.tombarefoot.com/maui/island_marine_kalaupapa.html)
Other Guided Tours of Kalaupapa and Moloka’i
Fly from Maui to Moloka’i and you can just about customize your tours of the island (see http://www.tombarefoot.com/maui/paragon_air_molo.html):
- visit Maunaloa Town and Kaluakoi Resort, Purdy's Macadamia Nut Farm, Coffees of Hawaii, the Phallic Rock and the Kalaupapa Lookout, Our Lady of Sorrows Church, Morris Point, Puu O Hoku Ranch and Halawa Valley Lookout, with lunch included;
- Mountain Bike on forest roads, visit a woodcarvers home, view the famous Kalaupapa peninsula, see the Phallic Rock then head downhill to Coffees of Hawaii and Purdy's Mac Nut Farm, ride or bike back into Kaunakakai Town, lunch included;
Sail to from Maui to Moloka’i on the 120’ luxury yacht, Maui Princess, and customize your land tour (see http://www.tombarefoot.com/maui/maui_princess_molo.html):
- Spend the day exploring Moloka’i at your own pace with approximately six hours of driving time in a rental car with courtesy pickup and return to the rental office;
- Shuttle to the Moloka’i Lodge for 9 holes of golf at the nearby Kaluakoi Golf Course followed by lunch;
- Shuttle to the Kalaupapa Lookout, shuttle to the Sheraton Moloka’i in Maunaloa, shop at the Sheraton Moloka’i Lodge and shuttle to Kaupoa Beach Village for a choice of: kayaking, snorkeling, volleyball, horseshoes, hiking, and other leisure activities, BBQ-style buffet lunch, and transportation back to Kaunakakai Harbor for the return trip to Lahaina.
Pala’au State Park
A visit to Pala’au State Park easily can be combined with a land tour from Kaunakakai to Kalaupapa. The Kalaupapa Pali Trail down to Kalaupapa starts near Pala’au State Park and the Kalaupapa Lookout. Hwy. 470 to Pala’au State Park passes the Hawaii Coffee Plantation that can be visited on the way to Kaunakakai.
The 8-mile trip from Kaunakakai up to 234-acre Pala’au State Park passes through a great deal of natural and man-made beauty, pastoral countryside, cattle and horses grazing, misty forests, and wonderful views in every direction. Just a few minutes walk through ironwoods from the end of the road, the “supernatural,” 6-foot high Phallic Rock seems poised for action in a manner that raises some doubt about the sign declaring that the stone is merely a “natural” formation. According to Hawaiian legend, a woman who wishes to become pregnant need only spend the night near the rock. Hundreds of thousands of pictures have been taken of women standing next to this inspiring rock who look more embarrassed and awestruck than hopeful.
An interpretive sign for the Phallic Rock says the following:
“Many years ago the man Nanahoa and his wife Kawahuna lived on this green hill of Puu Lua. One day a beautiful young girl appeared and began to admire herself in a pool of water. Nanahoa watched admiringly and the girl returned a smile to his reflection in the pool. Growing jealous, the wife grabbed the young girl by the hair. Nanahoa hit his wife in quick-tempered anger and sent her tumbling down a nearby cliff where she turned to stone. Nanahoa also turned to stone but his power remains in this male rock. It is said if a woman goes to Kauleonanahoa with offerings and spends the night she will return home pregnant. Phallic or fertility rocks are found on all these islands, but this is the finest example. The rocks present form is a natural configuration which has been carved to some extent.”
Just a few minutes walk in the opposite direction and questions about the Phallic Rock are quickly forgotten while looking at great views of Kalaupapa Peninsula and magnificent sea cliffs from Kalaupapa Lookout.
Pala'au also is a very uncrowded camping place with restrooms and (outdoor) showers that would be ideal if not for lack of potable water (which of course you can bring) and intermittent drizzle and rain. Necessary camping permits are available from the State Division of Parks (567-6618) or the caretaker's office on the left as you enter the park. (Office open M-F, 9am-4pm., $5 per group, 5-night maximum) Camping equipment is available for rent from Moloka’i Rentals andTours (553-5663). A two-person camping package is $20 a day or $80 a week.
Coffees of Hawaii
Most people associate Hawaiian coffee with Kona on the Big Island although a great many visitors to Maui and Kauai know that these are coffee growing islands, too. It's a little known fact, however, that Hawaii's coffee industry actually started on Oahu (circa 1813), and that coffee found its way to Moloka’i in 1865, when Kamehameha V selected the island as the Kingdom of Hawaii’s coffee-growing hub.
The rolling hills of Kualapu’u, beneath high mountain peaks near the center of the island, provide an ideal climate and soil for coffee, and is home to the plantation of Coffees of Hawaii. Since 1987, Coffees of Hawaii has grown, processed, roasted and packaged its coffee varieties here. Stop by and taste test the pride of the estate, Malulani Estate Coffee, and also Moloka’i Muleskinner, Moloka’i Island Princess and Hawaiian Espresso. Draw your own conclusions as to which one is your favorite. Take the plantation tour if you're interested in how coffee is grown and processed or take a mountain bike tour of the plantation.
Combine mountain biking and coffee touring with Moloka’i Rentals and Tours (553-5663) on a bike tour that takes you through the 500 acres of Coffee of Hawaii. You not only ride through the plantation, but you get an insider's look at coffee processing and sample the brew. Tours are offered Monday to Friday, 8:30-11am, $45 adults and $20 children under 16. If you want to tour on your own, bike rentals are $20 a day ($80 a week), which includes helmet, bike rack, and lock.