Oct. 7 to Oct. 9

You probably gathered from the end of the last chapter that we arrived in Hawaii with a little glitch: Air New Zealand had somehow left one of our bikes behind in LA. Eric's, to be exact. A nice Air New Zealand man at the baggage carousel in Honolulu helped us fill out a "property irregularity" report. Eric secretly hoped that the bike was lost, so he could get money to replace it, instead of having to fix his own troublesome brakes.

Since our actual destination was Maui and it was too late to get any connections that night, we stored most of our luggage at the airport. I was all for sleeping at the airport, too, since it was really hot and seemed really safe. But Eric actually wanted a hotel room, so we went to the bus shelter to wait for the last bus to town. It was about 11:30 p.m.There in the bus shelter we encountered another would-be fan of Eric's French Horn playing.

He was a happy drunk guy, drinking out of a paper bag. He offered Eric a cold beer if Eric would play. Eric whipped his mouthpiece out of his pocket, stuck it on the horn, and started warming up.Eric's audience was unimpressed. "Don't give me that bullshit!" he yelled. "You know what I want to hear," he said. Gamely, Eric said, yes, yes, he knew what that guy wanted to hear; he wanted to hear a song. Then Eric puckered up and burst into "Scotland the Brave." It wasn't exactly what our drunkard had in mind. He started yelling at Eric to stop, and held out the headphones from his portable radio. "Play that!" he ordered. Eric listened. He later described it as an unknown song of rock 'n roll origin. He told the guy he couldn't play it.

By then it was 11:40 or so and we figured we had missed the bus. We had just started searching for a taxi when the bus showed up. We jumped on but the drunk didn't. I guess he was planning on sitting in that bus shelter all night.

It was a long ride into town. We had looked up a cheap hotel at the airport and we went there. The guy at the front desk was thrilled to see Eric's horn, but Eric wasn't ready to indulge a second audience that night. The front desk clerk, a man who's voice was totally soprano, said that he had been a concert pianist, and had studied under some big names. But he had ended up here at the hotel. "No good," he said.

The next morning we walked around Waikiki a bit--ugh--bought a $2,09 folding straw beach mat, and headed out to the airport to fly to Maui. Since Air NZ had promised to deliver the bike to us anywhere in Hawaii, we figured we should get to Maui first, and then call to have the bike sent there. We wanted to save the $20 fee for flying bikes between islands.

But when we got to Maui, Air NZ still hadn't found or heard of Eric's bike. So once again, we stored our stuff in the airport and headed into town (the county seat of Wailuku) to get a hotel. We stayed at a place called the Banana Bungalow that was totally like a dorm. Grown boys and girls screamed at each other into the night. I kept thinking, I'm too old for this crap.

We had two missions in Wailuku: wait for the bike and get camping permits. Hawaii has some campgrounds, but since the weather is warm, a lot of homeless people like to live in them. We ran into plenty of homeless people ensconced in campgrounds on the Big Island two years ago. Technically, you're supposed to jump through all kinds of hoops to get permits to camp on the Big Island --i.e. apply for the permit in person during business hours at least two weeks in advance more than 50 miles away from the actual campground--but no one does. And no one kicks out illegal campers. At least they didn't when we were there in '95.

Well, Maui claims that it does regularly roost campers without permits from its campgrounds. Maui's activity magazine, which tourists get for free, has a section on camping. I won't quote the whole thing here, but here are a few words that from the text that will give you the idea: must, permit, merciless, won't listen, jail. Get it?

So the next day in Wailuku Eric and I got permits to camp at two state campgrounds, and got a list of some other campgrounds that don't require permits. Then we called Air NZ and found that our bike had arrived.

Bike tourists note: apparently, it's very hard to find bike boxes in Hawaii. Some stores will box your bikes for you for a fee of $20 each, or $25 each if you have high-rider front racks. Eric and I thought about throwing away our boxes and trying to find new ones on the way out, but we didn't want to risk getting stuck. We considered paying the $25-each boxing fee, but then we'd have to order a taxi from the bike store to the airport, which would mean a total cost of over $65 or so. So we decided to keep the boxes in storage at the airport. We smushed one box into the other, and threw in some stuff we knew we wouldn't need on our Maui bike tour (i.e. our NZ tour books) and left.

Finally we were on the road. Then something happened that nearly made Eric cry. If you know Eric you know that what happened must have been a terrible thing, since he hasn't cried since childhood.

About two miles away from the airport, I suddenly remembered that I had left our camping permit behind in our stored luggage in the airport. After nearly crying, Eric then started shuddering, and his bike shuddered with him since his hands were gripping the handlebars. With much regret, we headed back. I retrieved the permit and we hit the road again.

Our idea was to ride to clockwise around eastern Maui, from the airport to Hana, from Hana to O'heo (also known as the Seven Sacred Pools, although apparently they were never actually sacred), and from O'heo along the dry southern coast to Kaupo, from Kaupo up to the base of the volcano Haleakala (an elevation of 3000 feet), and from there back to the airport.

But since we had gotten such a late start, there was no way we could make Hana that first day. We decided to try and find a b&b somewhere enroute.

After only 12 miles or so on the road, we stopped at a grocery store, and saw a b&b listed on the bulletin board. While we were trying to find it, a pickup truck pulled up and asked us where we were staying. It was amazing. The driver was Mike Conway, a former bike tourist, and he felt for us. He invited us to stay in his guest room for free. He showed us into his house but couldn't stay to talk because he had just taken a few minutes off his construction work to pick up his daughter Colleen from daycare. His crew had just poured concrete and he had to run back to do something. He told us to help ourselves to everything.

The guest room was fabulous. It had a shower and a big screen television and a great bed and a phone. We had a siesta. I was exhausted and was hoping I'd be feeling better when Mike got back. Before he left, he told us how he had bike toured NZ, Australia, Indonesia and Thailand seven years ago. He had run out of money and had come to Hawaii to earn some more, but ended up falling in love with a neighbor. Now he's married and has a kid and a mortgage and a dog.

When Mike got back that evening, he couldn't stay because he had to go help his brother-in-law, whose truck had broken down about 20 miles away. So we crashed.

Next: Mike's tale

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