Growing up on Kualoa Ranch in Oahu it was only natural for Piko Elkington to learn about the native plants and agricultural techniques used by her ancestors for generations.
Her parents met and worked at the 1,600 hectare (400 acre) ranch, tilling the fields and eating the produce they farmed, like taro, one of Hawaii’s traditional foods.
Elkington explains taro is similar to a potato, starchy, but nutrient rich, grown on wetlands in taro patches called lo’i kalo. The root is mashed with water, on a wooden pounding board, until it is smooth and sticky to make poi, a Hawaiian staple. She adds it can be cooked in many ways and is eaten in every form from a chip to a stew.
“It’s sustained us in times of famine and it’s the first food that babies eat,” says Elkington, who lives with her husband and young son in one of the few homes for employees on the private nature reserve.
Elkington can speak the native Hawaiian language, which she says gives her an advantage in understanding the culture. Her role at the ranch is culture lead, doing agricultural tours for school groups and anyone interested in learning about the native plants “away from the hustle and bustle of the main ranch.”
Thousands of tourists visit Kualoa Ranch daily but the majority either go zip lining, horseback riding, ATVing or take the Hollywood tour, to see the location sites of the more than 70 movies and television shows that have been filmed at the ranches’ three lush valleys. (The ranch is known as the Hawaiian Jurassic, since all three Jurassic movies have been shot here.)
But for those wanting to give back, Kualoa Ranch, about a 40-minute drive from Honolulu, offers a unique, cultural hands-on Malama Experience.
The Malama Hawaii program has been offered statewide since late 2020 for the mindful traveller, and benefits the volunteers as well by teaching them how to care (malama) for the land they are visiting.
Tourists can help in a variety of ways, from removing invasive weeds from the forests to allow native plants to flourish again, to a beach cleanup, or they can do what we did at Kualoa Ranch, which was literally rolling up our sleeves (and pant legs) and getting into knee-high deep mud to pull taro out of a taro patch.
“It’s fun, lots of excitement, a sensory experience for sure,” says Elkington, who begins our experience with a traditional chant to acknowledge the land and her Hawaiian ancestors.
According to Hawaiian mythology, Elkington explains taro came into existence when the creator of the islands Wakea, fell in love and gave birth to a deformed son who had the appearance of a root. It is said the first taro grew from where the child was buried.
Taro cultivation declined after American and European colonization, but today taro farmers are hard at hard at work cultivating taro patches sometimes with the help from tourists, like Katherine Klebek, an accountant from Toronto, and mother and son Zachary and Corrine Livingstone from Mesa, Arizona.
“I wanted to do something that was more in tune with the actual culture of the island and I heard taro is a big part of their history,” says Klebek, adding when she travels to another country she prefers having authentic experiences with the locals.
She definitely got that after jumping into the mud alongside Elkington, who taught her how to use a long wood pole to first loosen the taro plant from the lo’i kalo before yanking it out.
Livingstone, a first year medical student, says while she and her son did do a horseback ride earlier at the ranch, they feel the Malama experience was also equally fun and worthwhile.
“The health of a community really relates to the health of the environment in that community, with the water, the plants and the animals…this is perfect to learn about plants and animals and sustainability, she says.
Our Malama experience lasted two hours, of which only one hour was spent in the mud and the other spent driving around the ranch to see four other agricultural sites and some ranch animals. As a bonus, we also stopped at a few of those Hollywood location sites but the best memories that day were surprisingly the ones we had in the lo’i kalo.
To learn more about the Mahalo experience visit Gohawaii.com.
Kim Pemberton was hosted by Hawaii Tourism, which didn’t review or approve this story. Follow her on Instagram at kimstravelogue.
If you go to Oahu:
Where to stay: I love a historic hotel, so split my time between the three “dames” of Waikiki, beginning with the “First Lady of Waikiki” the Moana Surfrider. This hotel, offering old world elegance, was the first resort built in Oahu and opened in 1901.
Be sure to check out its second-floor historic room, with memorabilia including video footage of the hotel and Waikiki beach in 1906 and old postcards and photographs from the 1930s.
The second hotel was the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, opened in 1927, and like the Moana Surfrider is in the heart of Waikiki, on the oceanfront where you can swim or surf with Diamond Head as your backdrop.
Every Monday and Thursday evening the elegant hotel hosts a luau show and dinner, with more than a dozen performers providing entertainment that includes Polynesian Hula dancing, a Samoan fire performance and a retelling of Hawaii’s royal past.
Lastly, I stayed at Halepuna Waikiki where the service and attention to detail couldn’t be any higher. This modern hotel, while not directly on the beach, has easy access to it just across the street. My oceanfront room had a panoramic view of the beach. There’s also a rooftop infinity pool and other amenities like a reflexology pathway in an outdoor lounge.
Where to eat: In Halepuna Hotel, UMI By Vikram Garg is a new restaurant from chef Vikram Garg who cooks up decadent, seafood-centric dishes that are innovative, delicious and wonderfully plated. The menu provided one of the best meals I have ever enjoyed, particularly the mushroom crusted abalone and the King Ora salmon. Garg combines interesting flavours that blend perfectly, from the popcorn soup with spiced lotus seeds to the tuna crude.
At Halepuna’s sister hotel, Halekulani, directly across the street, be sure to treat yourself at one of Waikiki’s iconic restaurants, House Without A Key. This is the perfect place for sunset cocktails with views of Diamond Head and the Pacific Ocean.
My friend enjoyed the island classic Loco Moco, which combines rice with a beef patty and Portuguese sausage while I enjoyed a crab sandwich and the restaurant’s popular coconut cake — a dessert so good it has been on the menu since the 1960s.
