My wife and I were going on a tour of the Road to Hana, and we waited with great anticipation for our van to show up and wisk us along Highway 30, towards our goal. I don’t even remember the name of the tour company… that is not important now. What is, was our luck in finding to irrepressable Kowie… from Maui. Kowie showed up in Male Daisy Duke shorts and a blue/yellow Hawaiian shirt. He enthusiastically introduced everyone as they boarded the bus, and made embarrasingly candid small talk with them and the group. 2 Black women from Atlanta entered — «Are you Sistas… sisters…or just naughty friends? « Kowie then proceeded to load his Road to Hana mix tape he brought along, amazing stuff! Brotha IZ, Fiji, Don Ho, amongst others was played throughout our journey, and boy did it add to the experience. Kowie has a mischievious little snicker that he invokes when he gives you off-color or controversial Island facts: «The original natives were involved in incest and underage frivolity… it was not perversion that drove them, it was just the natural state of events». «The Island was just a blend of manism, until the White Man came and brought his Christianity». As far as driving the tricky route, Kowie is the master. He dares anyone foolish enough to fuck with him(i.e. incoming traffic containing unsuspecting tourists) with a taunt of «You wanna Dance? Well let me take my ride and dance with you Babeee». He takes turns with expert precision, and keeps the tour going with short stops with an emphasis on Camera Worthy Locations in an area just beaming and chockful of Camera Worthy Locations. What a character this Kowie dude is: Along the route, he stopped in the middle of the road to retrieve a fallen avocado and nearly got run over, we stopped so he could heckle a dude taking a piss on the side of the road while his embarrased girlfriend stood gaurd, we stopped so he could make fun of a trust fund baby at the Hana Bus stop for no good reason, and he fed Hostess Crumb Cakes to greedy baby mongooses near Black Sand Beach. We didn’t take the pre-ordained cookie cutter route either. We trespassed on Oprah Winfrey’s private beach, stole mini pinecones from the Red Sand beach, and parked illegally on the other side of the road many times to get a good shot. «Here comes a pure beauty» he would cackle as we passed yet another waterfall. Along the way, Kowie made small talk with nearly every local that passed us on foot or incoming traffic. He dropped off some local banana bread to the hippy dude selling orchid arrangements along the road, and asked about tomorrow’s surfing conditions with a random marijuana induced local at the end of our journey. Kowie generously gave us a copy of the mix CD as we tipped him on the way out. If you are EVER going on a van tour of Hana, You MUST have Kowie as your guide. Anything else would be pure folly.
