Hawaii Travel Blog

To get to my cozy, 200-square-foot cottage “Sanctuary” — one of four cottages on the property — I walked a narrow trail. As I traveled along the path, I pushed aside the occasional fern frond, discovering intriguing knickknacks at my feet — a polka-dot ceramic frog, a shiny blue bowling-ball-size globe, a tiny brass Buddha. Overhead, a native forest bird sang in the branches. Along the trail, I caught glimpses of the three other cottages. Each cottage feels secluded thanks to a veil of jungle — ferns, gnarled native ohia trees, moss-covered logs and strands of fragrant ginger lilies conceal them from view.

Sanctuary has no key. Double doors slide open and you step into a room dominated by a queen-size bed. A sense of balance gives the room a feng-shui feel, from the slippers by the bed to the skylight in the ceiling. If this hexagon were a spinning top, it would not wobble one iota.

The walls are mostly tall windows framed by unpainted cedar. Urbanites may feel like they’re looking at wraparound flat-screen TVs tuned to the Nature Channel — which is the closest they’ll come to a television at Volcano Rainforest Retreat. A little sink is surrounded with just enough counter space for a toaster oven, an electric tea kettle and a box of teas. A cabinet underneath holds a small cooler filled with breakfast goodies — Kona coffee, organic fruit juice, soy milk, yogurt, muffin, bagel and boiled egg. Sanctuary is the only one of the four cottages here without a fridge (or a phone).

As I plopped down on the bed and made myself at home, with the huge spherical paper lantern overhead like my own full moon, I began to notice the subtle detailing. A small mango coffee table was bedecked with curios: two tiny Tibetan chimes, five colored pencils arranged in a bouquet, and yes, the obligatory reverential quartz crystal. Shelves held other treasures: one statue of Buddha and another of a wooden frog king reading a book, sprays of orchids and anthuriums, aromatic candles, a handcrafted photo portfolio of a boy monk and his elephant. Anchoring the room was an ornate, cast-iron gas stove for cold nights.

The CD collection, “Sedona Suite,” leaned toward the meditative, as did the library, which included not only mini-editions of Walden, The Way of the Jewish Mystics and the Bhagavad Gita, but also The Best Places to Kiss.