“Let me show you something,” Witek says to me. 

            I have just dropped my things off in his guest room, where I will be staying for 10 days.  I look at him as if to say, “What is it this time?  Please don’t let it be like our sushi picnic in a tent.”  A good friend from college, Witek is a most adventurous spirit.  We once prepared an elaborate picnic lunch and planned to eat it in the Arboretum in Jamaica Plain (near Boston) only find our plans squelched by a sudden downpour.  We decided to brave the storm regardless, and enjoyed sushi in the fairly dry quarters of his tent.

            Witek is finishing his year following graduation working as the farm manager for Aikane Kona Coffee in Holualoa on the Big Island.  The estate, well-hidden from the main road and often eclipsed by clouds at 2,000 feet, includes a modest ranch-style home with guest quarters and several acres of perfectly manicured Kona coffee trees. 

            “Let me guess,” I say.  “You’re going to show me how coffee is made.”

            “Coffee’s boring,” Witek says.  “This is way more exciting.  You’ll need your sneakers.”

            Witek leads me outside, putting a small flashlight in his pocket and carrying with him a sturdy length of rope.  I am able to spot Kailua-Kona from this vantage point, but the mid-afternoon clouds are beginning to swoop down the mountain toward the house.  We walk along the misty driveway, almost making it to the main road before we walk uphill. 

            “It’s somewhere around here,” Witek insists, “I swear.”  He leads me farther into the green brush.

            “What is it?”

            “This.”  He steps aside and looks down to show me.

            It’s a hole--a deep, dark hole in the ground. 

            “It’s a lava tube,” he informs me.  “It runs under the entire estate.  Do you want to go down there?”

            He knows it’s a rhetorical question.

            This is where the rope comes in.  We tie one end to a tree and repel down the tube. 

            “You’re in for a real surprise,” Witek tells me when we reach the bottom.  He clearly knows something that I don’t. 

            I look around the tube.  The lighting is obscured by the trees and brush above us, so I can only see 15 feet around me.  Being in the lava tube is like being in a lengthy, dark green cave.  Thick and thin roots hang and coil above us, but the walls of the tube are solid rock.  The tube floor is hard but lumpy, with little soil.

            “This way.”  Witek grabs my arm and leads me to the darkest side.  He shines the flashlight on a very large, bony figure lying on the ground.  “It’s a horse,” he says.  “It probably fell in a long time ago and couldn’t climb out.”

            The ribs are sticking up from the ground, forming a round barricade before us.  The head is still intact and the gaping eye sockets face the tube opening.

            “Where does this tube lead to?” I ask.

            “I’m not sure.  I spent 30 minutes walking down that way and still didn’t get to the end.  And look at this.”  Witek shines a light on a very delicate plant with a single stem.  “It’s growing from this single crack of light.”  He turns off his flashlight and a small ray of light glimmers down, shining onto the green stem holding on to dear life. 

            We spend some time poking around the dark tube and get far enough down the tube where the day’s dim light is no longer visible. 

            “All right, we should turn back,” Witek says after we’ve finished exploring the lava tube.  “Time for some coffee.”

            We return to the house and he brews for me an amazing cup of Kona coffee.

           

FACT BOX:

•   Aikane Kona Coffee is an award-winning coffee brand that accepts phone and online orders.  Toll-free #1-866-371-6892; http://www.AikaneKonaCoffee.com

•   Kailua-Kona is famous for its dark, rich coffee and its fertile land allows for the coffee’s unique taste.  Kona branded coffee must be grown in this area of the Big Island.

•   Lava tubes are formed where lava previous flowed down from the volcano’s summit.  They resemble extra-long underground tunnels.  While some lava tubes are still active on the Big Island, visitors to Hawaii’s Volcano National Park can safely explore real lava tubes.  One is nearly a mile long.