I’m burying my bare feet in the soft, warm brown sand. It has that perfect packing consistency – not too soft and not too hard. It’s our little piece of paradise on this stretch, many feet from the crashing waves. The next couple is hundreds of yards away, in their own world. We’re all looking at the turquoise blue Pacific, letting time stand still in this pristine location.
I watch waves climb over and around a single lava boulder – my moments of Zen as I call it. We steal a nap and magazine reading as our reward for hiking in more than a mile to this spot, over mid-day radiating lava rocks from 1800s-era eruptions of one of many volcanoes on Hawaii’s Big Island.
Passenger planes fly overhead, past lava fields to Kona airport’s runway several miles south of here. I saw this spot from one of those planes days before, vowing to return to this place where many years ago I ventured out furthest into the ocean than I had ever before – where I first saw a brackish pond and an untouched lagoon I was afraid to swim across.
We were some of the only visitors then, back when the road from the highway was truly “unimproved,” washboard gravel and ruts everywhere.
Now the road is tame by comparison, smoothed out and even paved in places. I see now why its location and increased access has become even more contentious to locals. This feeling bad for enjoying paradise at the expense of a culture is challenging to me, and familiar in the mainland states as well. I’m not sure tourists and people in general really think about that as they travel, but it’s always on my mind how tourism affects the local culture.
I try to balance these conflicting ideas by respecting places we visit, packing in and out everything we bring and learning about the history.
Read more about Makalawena beach.
And please join me in respecting local culture when you visit.