Iliau, coconut pie, and nenes in Waimea Canyon

Whenever I visit Auntie in Kauai, we go to Waimea Canyon, on the west side of the island, in hopes of spotting the rare flowering iliau, an exotic plant, 4 to 12 feet tall, that produces hundreds of tiny yellow blossoms just once in its life and then dies in a blaze of glory. Sort of the Heath Ledger of tropical plants.

We have never actually seen an iliau in flower which I think is just as well; I think it would make Auntie too sad. But we always find dozens of the plant, pre-flower, which only grow in the western mountains of Kauai, along with many other island rarities—like koa and hala trees—along the Iliau Trail, an half-hour hike in Waimea Canyon, a ten-mile long, mile-wide 3,600-feet-deep chasm that everyone calls “The Grand Canyon of the Pacific.” (I have been to the Grand Canyon. I have hiked down to the bottom and I have traversed through it on a raft, and while Waimea is a fine canyon as canyons go, it is not the Grand Canyon.)

It was cool up at the top, a refreshing change of pace after spending a bit too much time at the beach yesterday. There were some clouds overhead; still, it was clear enough that we could see Waialae Falls on the other side of the canyon.

After doing the trail (and, no, we did not see a blooming iliau), we drove up the highway a bit farther to Koke`e Lodge just so Auntie could get a slice of their coconut pie (I’m sorry, but I detest coconut pie).

By now it was late in the afternoon and the sky was starting to turn dark. I feared a late afternoon thunderstorm and suggested we turn around but Auntie wanted to drive to the end of the road to Pu`u o Kila Lookout. From here, the whole Kalalau Valley with its emerald green peaks rising up to touch the clouds, opens up before you. We were both just standing there, lost in our own thoughts, when all of a sudden Auntie spotted two Hawaiian geese, called nenes. She looked over at me and smiled.

“Okay,” she said. “Now we go home.”