Koko, Chris and the Boar. (Hawaii Day 4)

Closed toed shoes were a requirement today, much to the disappointment of my flip flop loving toes. As I slid my socks on, I felt each freshly pedicured digit whimper beneath the confining fabric. It was like shutting the back door behind me and watching my dog stick her face up to the glass, begging for fresh air. Sorry. It’s just how it has to be right now. Stop licking the glass. STOP.

With 3 cars in our group now, each trip about town was like a parade of tourists. There was no hiding our constant, “look at that tree!” “look at that view!” “where are we?” “did we miss it?” “look, a chicken!” It’s funny how being a tourist is so much more fun than being a local surrounded by tourists. When you’re a tourist, everything is beautiful, fun and the greatest thing you’ve seen to date. When you’re a local, everything is exactly the same as it was yesterday and everyone driving slow to look around and say otherwise, is ruining your life.

Our first adventure of the day was zip lining. We pulled up to Skyline Adventures around 8:30, and the staff promptly gave us a complimentary water bottle. (Clearly they know the way to a tourist’s heart: free stuff.) They then loaded us into an open top, jeep-ish vehicle—reminiscent of the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland—that bounced us around on a dirt road up to the check-in point. There we received our helmets and harnesses, before being reloaded into a van that drove us that rest of the way up to the first zip spot.

On the windy road up, our guides, Koko and Chris, gave us some background on Hawaiian zip lining and wildlife, including the native wild boar that has known to be spotted by zippers with a keen eye. I personally didn’t feel the need to see a wild boar; its name is aggressive enough for me to know we shouldn’t be friends. Think about it, how would you feel if I invited you over to meet my friend Stabyouintheface. “He’s a great guy,” I’d say. But something inside of you would think otherwise. Regardless, I nodded along, giving Koko the thumbs up that I’d keep my eyes open for a boar.

This was my second time zip lining, and as such I felt confident in the line’s ability to get me from one side to the other without feeding me to the wilderness. I wasn’t prepared however for the multitude of ways our guides would teach us to jump. We had the walk it out, the walk and jump, the run and jump, the run, jump, kick and smile back at the camera, and the trust fall. Each had its own adventure associated with it, none of which made us look this cool:

But I think that was somewhat of a strategy, Koko couldn’t teach us all of his moves.

As we walked between zip spots, Chris and Koko would teach us more and more about Hawaiian culture and I was continually impressed with how much they knew. On one walk in particular, after Chris ran ahead to use the restroom, we walked slowly with Koko as he told us about the origin of the Hawaiian Luau. It has been used for a variety of celebrations including the first birthday of a baby, because at one point disease was so widespread, that a full year of survival for a newborn was rare. I looked down, smiling as I thought about the preciousness of a baby, when all of a sudden, the bushes to my left started to shake. I threw my hands up to the side, not in a way that would have offered me any real type of defensive, in fact a bystander may have thought I was hastily beginning to hula dance, but it was in fact my attempted defense from the boar I believed for a split second or so to be lurking. I should have known better. This boar was actually just Chris hiding in the bushes and snorting his heartiest boar snort, successfully making his second boar scare of the day. I had to hand it to him though, the timing was perfect, every single defense was down. Hell I was smiling at the dirt thinking about babies! If there really had been a boar, it would have offed me before I even knew what was happening. Thankfully, there was no death by baby diversion, just a bunch of laughs and a temporary distrust of everything Koko and Chris said.

It was hard to hold a grudge though, especially when they were guiding you to places like this:

On the way back to the hotel, we spotted a beach that had tangly rooted trees lining the shores; two of which looked perfect for hanging a hammock. So, after we showered and ate dinner, we headed back over to catch the sunset.