One of the things that I wanted to do in Hawaii was do the Diamond Head hike. I guess that’s me and my landlubber mentality when you are on an island surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, I’m not going to claim that it makes sense but it’s accessible for my brain. There were other longer hikes that we could have done that were close by if it wasn’t February at the time; this one is popular with tourists and I was with teenagers who didn’t want to spend an entire day hiking.

One of the great things about this hike is that you can get relatively close to the park access by city bus. We jumped on the bus that took us around the base of the volcano and then we got on a paved path that wound upwards and inwards. Access to the inside of the crater is through a narrow tunnel (which is probably the least safe part of the entire hike as there is one lane of traffic in either direction and you walk on the shoulder of the road with only a series of yellow plastic reflectors bolted into the asphalt between you and oncoming vehicles) and once you come out on the other side of the tunnel, you’re inside of the crater.

The road is paved all of the way up to and including the parking lot out front of the visitor’s centre with a narrow shoulder and then bare dirt before the steep but short drop-off to the natural terrain.

I wanted to be prepared for the hike; I opted to carry my hiking boots and wear my flippy-floppies until we got to the trail and I also grabbed two large bottles of water… all of which went in my backpack. I knew the hike wasn’t that long but there were five of us and the weather could have been really hot. I didn’t want anyone to be without water but this added a lot of weight to my pack.

We had got through the tunnel and crossed an access road entrance that connected to the main road and had turned my attention to something off to the right in the distance, saying something to Finn. I can’t remember what I was raising his attention to but was mid-sentence when I either tripped over my flip flop or stepped on the edge of the asphalt surface and took a tumble.

I fell to my left and the first thing to hit the dirt was my left elbow. The weight of the bottled water in motion propelled me immediately onto my left shoulder and the rear section of the left half of my ribcage with my legs flailing upwards. The immediate pain was to my elbow followed very shortly after by my pride once I realized that there were about a dozen hikers headed our direction who had witnessed my clumsiness.

Once we got to the trailhead, I put my boots on to lighten the load in my pack. Because of the material of construction of the boots, it didn’t help much… the stupid things are actually pretty light. We completed the hike up to the summit and back down again without further incident. As the hike went on, however, I became more and more aware that I had re-injured my ribs (I broke three ribs midway through 2015) and that my shoulder had sustained more of a blow than I initially thought.

We rode the city bus back to the area where we caught it and walked the two and a half blocks back to the hotel. And I became fully aware of what I had done. Laying down on the bed was ok but getting back up again? Not so much. The pain in my ribs wasn’t as bad as when I had first broken them and my shoulder wasn’t as painful as when I’d first dislocated my shoulder. Thankfully. But dealing with them both at the same time was a new thing and a real inconvenience. At least I know what to do and what not to do while in pain.

The amount of pain has lessened somewhat since the incident but I know that I’ve extended my recovery somewhat. There are also certain positions that I put my arm in which are particularly painful and also a bizarre feeling if I put weight on it… like it’s going to dislocate if I continue any further. So I don’t.

I’m clumsy. That’s what it is.