Horses are fun. I have friends who don’t like horses, but I think they’re just great. But I had never ridden a mule, nor had I been down to Kalaupapa. My friend Jen had horror stories of riding down into Kalaupapa. As we got ready to go down, my only concern was the potential need to pee while riding down. You know, morning bladder, the rocking back and forth motion pressing on the bladder, the sound of a mule going… all of that raises the potential to inspire the need to pee. I didn’t think anything about the ride down, or up. I figured, just have faith in the mule and everything would be find.
My donkey turned out to be Baluga. I was disappointed since we were never really allowed to make friends. Baluga was the only donkey there that was born in Hawaii. All the other donkeys had been imported into Hawaii. Riding Baluga down was fun, if you discount when he slipped (but it was always just one foot) and hearing one of the hands calling in saying Baluga needed to have one of his shoes adjusted so he would need to rest the next day.
The views were spectacular and breath taking. For the views alone it was worth it. The valley was special in itself. There was a quality to it that is hard to describe and can only be experienced although there were places that did make my skin crawl. As I took pictures in the valley though, I encountered technical difficulties and suddenly, all my photos taken with my Minolta suddenly disappeared as the CF card was partially ejected. I guess it wasn’t meant to be documented.
Going back up was quick. Baluga was a veritable powerhouse and he kept wanting to go faster than the donkey in front was moving. I can say one thing though, that donkey in front was really gassy. I don’t know if it was planned, you know, because Baluga was making an ass out of himself (Ha! I crack myself up) or he had something that disagreed with him while we were down in Kalaupapa. Oh yeah, Baluga would always turn around at each switchback, and I couldn’t blame him. I don’t think I was ready to be heading back up just yet. But back to the gas, I nearly fell off Baluga a couple of times. To be honest, Baluga did have a few gassy spots of his own but they weren’t as bad. I’m serious.
While we were riding up, a humpback was breaching away and playing near shore. It was fantastic...
Oh to be back on Molokai...
