Page 47 - the NOISE April 2014

waylaid in honolulu
story & photos by Omar Victor
Tickets were bought. Plans were made. Metal detectors and security checks were gone
through. Arriving at the Ho- nolulu Airport with full intent of catching a bus to a remote natural spring on the island, a 1⁄2 mile from the ocean and offering free camping to the internet-savvy, my hopes were dashed when, after an hour at the luggage carousel, the bags with my tent and sleeping bag did not appear.
Airline representatives were bothered. Paperwork was filed. Assurances were made. Phone numbers were swapped, and a meandering city bus took me through China Town and the greater industrial complex to arrive at the famed Waikiki Beach and my choice of bud- get-conscious lodging: a color- ful youth hostel a block away from the imported sand of the Pacific.
While there are tourist similarities to our neck of the woods — breathtaking views, throngs of foreigners, tired kitsch, scheduled “native” per- formance art, and mild weather
— make no mistake: Honolulu is a full-fledged metropolis on the ocean, its boardwalk by the beach lost in a sea of hotels and ubiquitous convenience stores.
Here, folks from the world over flock to marry, to vacation, to taste the golden fruit of the tropics, to stretch out with the calming waves and dip into banyan paradise for a moment or two.
Yet the undertow of the is- land’s centuries-long history as an international trading post is juxtaposed with the last 66 years of American occupation; monuments and royal statues dotting nearly every public square tell a story of an arrest- ed queen, who rather than see her people caught in a bloody and impossible war with a su- perpower, relinquished author- ity even when ninety-six per- cent of native Hawaiians demo- cratically voted to “pass” on the offer of becoming the 50th state of the union.
But dockets were filed. Con- gress was convened. Assur- ances were made. And by a signature on a drafted contract, Hawaii became a de facto pos- session of the United States.
Five days passed, my lug- gage still lost in the air. My hair moist, my skin salty, bags were packed with island kitsch, and my corpus boarded the tin bird, swimming from elegant nec- tar as the desert beckoned me back.
| Omar Victor is a Camp Verde photographer. omar@thenoise.us
TRAVELFEATURE
thenoise.us • the NOISE arts & news • APRIL 2014 • 47