"Aloha.", said a man who came out on the second floor balcony. He was barely dressed in a white pair of underwear. "How did you get here?"
"From the black sand beach over there.", I yelled, "Where am I?"
"This is Kalapana.", he said. I'd read about this place in a magazine. Kalapana was once a prominent Hawaiian community, home to the Royal Gardens, but was buried by a lava flow in the 90's. Now it was nothing more than a field of glossy black volcanic rock. Back then, a handful of residents had refused to leave and rebuilt their houses on top of the cooled lava. This was an isolated community of stubborn, rustic people.
"What you did was very dangerous. People often try to cross this lava field and twist their ankle. Just 3 weeks ago, a fella and his son was airlifted to the hospital.", he continued to say. The old man was wrong. Crossing the rocks was easy, but I preferred not to argue with him.
"I suppose I should count myself lucky.", I said. "How do I get out of here?"
He showed me the road out and asked me if I could make it. It was a few miles. No problem. "So long", I told him
"Aloha", he said in departing.
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