BY ALL RIGHTS, Molokai should be one of the hottest tourist traps in the world. It’s part of the fabulous Hawaiian Islands and boasts a near-perfect climate (never higher than the mid-80s or lower than the mid-60s, with gentle trade winds blowing 11 months out of the year), lush natural beauty (it’s considered by many to be the most beautiful island in the Pacific) and incredibly clear, sparkling waters.
Molokai is a short 20-minute flight from Waikiki Beach – one of the world’s busiest tropical playgrounds -and on a good day you can easily see from Molokai’s high cliffs both the island of Oahu and Maui. Although Molokai is only 260 square miles in size (about two-thirds the size of Dallas), it has an incredibly varied terrain that ranges from semiarid to forested, mountainous to tropical. Molokai also has important historical sites, famous royal parks, deserted beaches and spectacular waterfalls.
With such an impressive array of natural resources, you would think that Molokai would be crawling with developers and tour operators. But so far, the island has no high-rise hotels or resort casinos, no fancy discos or four-star restaurants, no big-talent cabarets or chic shopping centers. You won’t find any museums or native crafts centers, amusement parks or crowded beaches, yacht-choked marinas or sprawling international airports. You won’t find any nightclubs or movie houses, singles bars or even bowling alleys.
There are, of course, significant reasons why tourism hasn’t developed on Molokai. First, its only commercial airport is in the middle of a small valley buffeted by crosswinds, which means that larger jets can’t land there safely. A lot of would-be visitors are scared away by the thought of having to fly in a tiny twin-engine commuter plane just to get to Molokai (although a few respectable-sized Boeing 737s fly in and out several times a day). And large passenger ships can’t berth at the island because there aren’t any harbors big enough to accommodate them.
Molokai does have more than 100 miles of unspoiled beaches, but volcanic rock terrain and riptides make most of them unsafe or uncomfortable for swimming. And there isn’t much land available to big developers since most of the island (and for that matter, most of the state) already belongs to either the Missionary Trust, several multinational cattle ranches and pineapple plantations or state and local governments -all of which are very reluctant to part with even an acre.
But the real reason tourism hasn’t taken root on Molokai is the belief that the island is haunted. Native Hawaiians have shunned the mysterious island for generations because of stories, legends and rumors about ghostly warriors, evil spirits and angry gods. Molokai was (and, in some people’s minds, still is) taboo. The Hawaiian Board of Health established a leper colony there in 1886 because it figured that nothing could do any more damage to Molokai’s fearsome reputation. While the rest of Hawaii eased into the 20th century, statehood and the tourist industry, Molokai remained an anachronistic backwater burg where strange and evil things were said to happen. Just about the only people who dared to live there were descendants of the original natives, members of Hawaii’s royal family and job-hungry foreigners who worked in the island’s only two industries, cattle and pineapples. Even today, if you mention Molokai to a native Hawaiian, you’re likely to provoke some uncomfortable reactions.
As scholars have discovered, there’s more than a grain of truth to Molokai’s haunted reputation. Centuries ago, an invasion fleet of Polynesian war canoes paddled across the Pacific and conquered all of Hawaii except Molokai. For hundreds of years after that, Molokai fought war after war to remain free but eventually became weaker than its neighbors. In desperation, the local king decided to use a little psychological warfare rather than physical force, so he manufactured legends of ghosts and ghouls, curses and magic in hopes that no one would invade the Mysterious Island, as Molokai became known. His scheme worked well -maybe too well. Despite recent high-powered publicity campaigns, Molokai still is a partial pariah among travel agents and land developers. Its permanent population remains a relatively stable, miniscule 6,000.
Obviously, Molokai would be a poor vacation spot for the average tourist who covets plastic pleasures and prepackaged programs. But if you crave solitude and beauty, you may just fall dangerously in love with Molokai. We did.
We stayed at the Sheraton Molokai, the island’s first resort hotel, a pleasant, low-key condominium-style setup situated near Kepuhi Beach. The bungalow-shaped rooms were large and well-planned and weren’t air conditioned. What ventilation we got was provided by Casablanca-type ceiling fans or through screened louvers, which was more than adequate since the temperature remains relatively constant throughout the year, and the trade winds keep things cool and breezy.
Most of our days were spent exploring the island in our rented car. Armed with a picnic basket prepared by the hotel, we drove across the island (although Molokai may be relatively small, it is still inaccessible on foot). But driving in Molokai is different-and more enjoyable -than driving anywhere in the continental United States. You won’t have to cope with traffic lights, parking meters or speed traps; the island’s police force consists of four men and two patrol cars. A traffic jam in Molokai is defined as any situation in which more than four cars meet at an intersection. But there are probably not more than a dozen intersections on the island, so you may not even encounter another road.
We spent our first full day driving around the west end -a semiarid, sometimes fissured terrain that resembles a hilly version of the African veldt. Since it is teeming with wildlife, the west end has long been famous as a hunter’s paradise. It also is the logical place for Hawaii’s only safari park -a rugged, enclosed area built on an isolated, abandoned ranch that shelters antelope, giraffes, eland, lions and other exotic animals. While much of this sandy, desertlike land requires irrigation, the region just a few miles away is covered with a tropical rain forest.
In exploring one of the island’s few side roads, we eventually dead-ended in a bittersweet tiny town called Maunaloa. Mau-naloa was once a picturesque village of houses, flower gardens and miniature shops set amid a sea of pineapples, but today those fields are overgrown and unhar-vested and the town is quickly and quietly going to seed. Dole -once the island’s number one employer -closed its plantation and left Molokai a few years ago when operations became less profitable. Since Maunaloa was a company town, it died an untimely death.
The next day we journeyed to the island’s windward coast. This is Molokai’s roughest and wildest area, and once you leave the paved road, the only way to traverse the terrain is by a four-wheel-drive vehicle, mule and, ultimately, on foot. We drove until the road ended, then walked another quarter mile to Kalaupapa Lookout, a 1,600-foot cliff that towers over a virtually inaccessible peninsula.
Inland from Kalaupapa Lookout is a hauntingly beautiful pine forest that is totally different from anything we had ever encountered in the tropics. The old Hawaiians considered the area sacred, and you can still find ancient artifacts and petrographs that stand as mute testimony to another time and a different culture.
Had we come prepared with hiking boots, rucksacks and sleeping bags, we would have attempted the 20-mile trek along the windward coast to the other end of the island. There is no other way (short of a helicopter) to get in and out of that region, for it is still a partially unexplored and poorly charted area that has remained unchanged for the past two million years. There are lava tubes and caves, primeval forests, empty windswept plains and hidden waterfalls that can only be seen from a boat or plane (and, unfortunately, marijuana patches guarded by men with guns, so don’t wander too far afield). Equipment rental is available for the intrepid and adventuresome.
Next, we drove to the island’s largest (and really only) town, Kaunakakai. Kau-nakakai has a population of about 600. It’s a friendly, relaxed place where no one remains a stranger for longer than 15 minutes. About the busiest place in town is Dorothy Kanemitsu’s bakery, which serves up all sorts of baked goods, ice cream and basic luncheonette food -and world-famous Molokai bread. As a very few privileged epicureans know, Molokai bread is a heavenly concoction of cheese, onions and a few secret ingredients, and it is made only at the Kanemitsu bakery in Kauna-kakai.
Just beyond the town is the sacred coconut grove of Kapuaiwa, a lush oasis planted in the 1860s by King Kamehameha V. Molokai had long been a favorite playground for Hawaiian royalty, and the coconut grove is only one legacy from the time before Western civilization invaded the islands. As we traveled along the coast toward the east end, we stopped to admire another royal monument, the fish ponds at Pukoo. The ponds were really fish farms that cover acres and acres of shallow water and are sectioned off by knee-high walls of stone. An explorer with a good map, hiking boots and a lot of time will have no difficulty discovering other unspoiled remnants of old Hawaii, especially on the leeward coast.
We finally reached the end of the road or, more poetically, the end of the world, for we were gazing at the mouth of the Halawa Valley. There, stretching for miles in every direction, is perhaps the most perfect valley in the world, a gentle green blanket that drifts off into tall volcanic mountains in the misty distance. Cascading down a faraway peak is a perfect waterfall hundreds of feet high; below is a cool, quiet pool surrounded by lush jungle. Legend has it that if you drop a ti leaf in the pool and it floats, it’s safe to swim, but if it sinks, stay away or Mo’o, the legendary lizard that lives in an underwater cave, will get you.
All in all, Molokai is a special spot for those who wish to discover the more meaningful things in life -like love, beauty and each other.
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