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Indonesia volcano eruptions force thousands to evacuate as airlines cancel flights

Renewed eruptions from a remote Indonesian volcano have triggered fresh evacuation orders and sparked flight cancellations and airport closures this week with smoke, lava and volcanic gasses spewing out of the fiery mountain.

Mount Ruang, a 725-meter (2,400-foot) volcano on Ruang Island, North Sulawesi, has been erupting in spectacular fashion on and off since mid-April, posing a growing threat to those living nearby and to air traffic in the region.

The volcano erupted three times on Tuesday, sending lava and ash clouds into the sky and prompting Indonesia’s national PVMBG volcanology agency to issue its highest alert, warning that a tsunami could be triggered by “volcanic material collapsing into the ocean.”

RELATED ARTICLEA powerful volcano is erupting. Here’s what that could mean for weather and climate

Ruang lies just off the coast of the larger Tagulandang island, where authorities have called on more than 12,000 people to evacuate, according to Reuters.

Footage released by the National Disaster Management Authority (BNPB) on Thursday showed huge crowds of people awaiting evacuation at ports and towering ash plumes.

PVMBG raised alert levels on Tuesday, warning of “new eruptions and continuous earthquakes” while advising the public to wear protective masks and exercise caution.

The latest eruptions have also forced closures of at least seven airports in the vicinity, including the Sam Ratulangi International Airport that serves the city of Manado, capital of North Sulawesi province and a well-known scuba diving destination.

Nearby schools have also been shut to protect children from volcanic ash, BNPB said. Dramatic footage shared by the BNPB on Thursday showed ash cascading into the air.

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Indonesia's Mount Ruang volcano continues to shoot volcanic ash

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Mount Ruang is a stratovolcano, which are typically conical and relatively steep-sided due to the formation of viscous, sticky lava that does not flow easily. Stratovolcanoes often produce explosive eruptions due to gas build-up in the magma, according to volcanologists.

Volcanic ash from Ruang has reached eastern Malaysian airspace, Malaysia’s meteorological department said. “We are monitoring the volcanic dust movements continuously and will update the information and issue aviation weather warnings if necessary,” said Met Malaysia chief Muhammad Helmi Abdullah

Regional carrier Air Asia said it canceled 21 flights following Mount Ruang’s latest eruption.

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“Guests traveling to and from affected destinations (between Malaysia and Indonesia) are encouraged to check their email and phones for cancelation notifications,” the airline said Wednesday.

RELATED ARTICLEIndonesia issues tsunami alert after volcano erupts on remote island

“Air Asia is continuing to monitor the situation closely and will provide more information on the latest developments.”

Malaysia’s national carrier Malaysia Airlines also issued similar travel advisories on Wednesday, following the cancelation of several flights in the area.

Indonesia, a Southeast Asian archipelago of 270 million people, sits along the Ring of Fire and has more than 120 active volcanoes – more than anywhere else in the world.

Mount Ruang previously erupted in April, disrupting more than 200 flights on April 18 and 19 and affecting tens of thousands of passengers, officials said.

Hundreds living in the volcano’s vicinity were evacuated due to fears it could partially collapse into the sea and cause a tsunami as it did in 1871.

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What it’s really like to live in Macao

I only go to casinos once a year, on Chinese New Year,” says Vivian Lai, a second-generation Macao resident who is training as a nurse. The tradition of gambling is said to bring good luck for the year to come, whether you win or lose.

Macao, the Chinese special administrative region (SAR) often twinned with Hong Kong, is known as the Las Vegas of Asia. As the only place in greater China where gambling is legal, the city’s skyline is a who’s-who of the biggest names in the gaming industry.

Home to just 600,000 residents – compared to seven million in Hong Kong – visitors to Macao might feel like the rest of the city lost in the shadow of the towering hotels and casinos. But travelers who are willing to dig in a little deeper can explore Macanese culture, which mixes Portuguese, Chinese and Southeast Asian heritages.

Macao is comprised of two islands – the north one, Macao itself, and its southern neighbor Taipa. For a long time, Taipa was relatively rural, and people had to travel between the two islands by boat. The first bridge connecting the two was completed in 1972. Now, there are three, with a fourth in construction.

RELATED ARTICLENot just casinos: Macao reimagines tourism post-pandemic

A world in 40 square kilometers

While the rest of the world may associate Macao with gambling, its citizens don’t necessarily feel the same way.

“In Asia, [people] think that Macao is full of casinos, and I think they do not understand the other parts of Macao,” says Lai. “When I go to Europe, when I say I come from Macao, actually they don’t know where it is, so I have to say it’s a small city next to Hong Kong.”

Marina Fernandes agrees. She is an eighth generation Macanese, from one of the oldest families on the island.

In this photo from the mid-1800s, Macao was a busy Portuguese colony. Michael Maslan/Corbis/Getty Images

“The locals seldom go to the casinos,” she says. “It’s a very small number of people who really go to the casino to gamble. We don’t gamble. We do other things. And actually the civil servants, they are forbidden to enter [casinos]. The gambling is more for the tourists, it’s not for the locals.”

Due to rising costs of living in Macao, many employees of the casinos and luxury shops are increasingly likely to commute to work from Zhuhai, the less expensive mainland Chinese city just across the water from Macao, and to speak Mandarin Chinese instead of Cantonese.

Though Macao’s special status as an SAR means that people traveling between Zhuhai and Macao still have to go through border control, the process is speedier for permanent residents and citizens with Chinese national ID cards thanks to express lanes.

According to Macao’s 2021 census, about five-sixths of Macao’s population is ethnically Chinese. Only a few thousand are Portuguese. While Portuguese is still an official language of the city and must be used on signage and in government literature, many locals opted to learn English or Mandarin Chinese instead, especially ahead of the handover – when Macao was returned to Chinese rule – in 1999.

Getting around

Macao’s airport, located on eastern Taipa, is small but modern and easy to navigate. Home to a single terminal, most of its flights are from around the region, with regular connections to places like Singapore, Jakarta, Hanoi, Bangkok and Beijing. However, for longer-haul routes to North America and Europe, locals will have to head to nearby Hong Kong, Shenzhen or Guangzhou.

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The mammoth Hong Kong-Macao-Zhuhai Bridge, the world’s longest sea-crossing bridge, was completed in 2018. It is just one of many Chinese projects intended to connect and promote the “Greater Bay Area” region.

Despite the $20 billion bridge, infrastructure within Macao is a different story. Locals who don’t have cars rely mostly on public buses. While Hong Kong has an efficient, well-organized metro system, Macao’s LRT (light rapid transit) system started in 2019 and only has one line so far. Uber suspended its services in Macao in 2017, and taxis only accept cash.

Cultural power

Fernandes spent several years living in Portugal, but says she felt alienated there and decided to return to Macao.

“We learned the Portuguese history. We know every city of Portugal. We sang proudly the Portuguese anthem,” says Fernandes. “Especially after the handover, they do not know us. They do not understand us, that we feel Portuguese.”

She says that the stereotypes she encountered about Macao involved gambling, triad gangs, and prostitution, as well as old cliches about Chinese people like that women still wore traditional qipao dresses and that men had the single braid or ponytail hairstyle.

A Portuguese-style tram in Taipa, the southern of Macao's two islands. Eduardo Leal/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Due to its small size, Macao is strict about working policies for foreigners.

Ricardo Balocas, a Lisbon native who moved to Macao in 2013, has held a variety of jobs since relocating from Europe, including management roles at the Macao International Airport and at St. Joseph’s University, the only Catholic four-year university in Asia.

Most foreigners – like Balocas – who move to Macao are eligible for permanent residency after seven years of living, working and paying taxes. That means that they can live in Macao without a work visa and do not need a company sponsoring them.

Residents with local ID cards are also able to use the city’s socialized health care. Macao citizens and permanent residents get an annual perk in the form of 10,000 patacas ($1,240) a year from the government.

However, the rules are different for many of the workers who come from poorer parts of the world, namely the Philippines. Many Filipinos come to Macao to work as domestic helpers or as security guards in casinos and luxury shops, but they cannot qualify for permanent residency or citizenship – unless they get married to a local.

According to the annual Henley Passport Index, which ranks passports by how many destinations their holders can visit visa-free, Macao has the 33rd most powerful passport in the world, and Portugal is tied for the fifth best. Meanwhile, the Philippines’ passport is ranked 75th.

RELATED ARTICLE‘Like the tart, I never change’: The secret behind Macao’s most famous dessert

Life in ‘Little Lisbon’

Balocas estimates that about half of Macao’s expat Portuguese population left during the pandemic, as Macao had some of the strictest requirements in the world, including a 21-day quarantine.

That’s why he counts on places like Albergue 1601, a restaurant housed in a heritage building from the colonial eral, to keep the city’s Portuguese heritage alive.

“This neighborhood has the lamps in the street exactly the same as in Lisbon,” he says. “So if you walk around, you almost feel that you are in Lisbon. Sometimes I even joke that you can come here and take some pictures and say that you are in Lisbon without being in Lisbon.”

However, Balocas says that whether you love or hate casinos, it is impossible to ignore them. He sometimes joins a poker game on his day off: “I like to play against people, not machines.”

He cites a recent government program that “pairs” casinos with specific local streets and shops and encourages their guests to go there and spend money, as a positive move forward. In his opinion, getting hotel guests to venture outside into Macao – which is densely packed and easy to navigate on foot – helps the whole community.

“What I want people to explore when they come to Macao, it’s to get out from the casinos, honestly,” says Balocas. “There is a lot to explore. We have beautiful museums, beautiful neighborhoods.”

These days, Balocas is working at a hospitality group, managing Albergue 1601.

When he has friends or family in town, he says, the first stop is the Macao Tower observation deck, so they can see just how small and compact the city is.

“Even nowadays that I’m 11 years here, sometimes I like to get lost. Don’t just explore the center, explore the alleys.”

#macao

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The remote destination serving some of Turkey’s most exciting food

Just off the D515 state highway to Kuşadası, a meandering asphalted road cuts through the pine trees and undulating olive groves of the Mediterranean landscape to reach the village of Caferli.

Few people would think to come this way, but it’s exactly here that you’ll find one of Turkey’s most groundbreaking destination restaurants, where the menu - connected to the natural environment - is unlike any typically found in a country known for its delicious food.

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Çiy restaurant created by chef Damla Uğurtaş, overlooks an evergreen valley and Aegean Sea from its outdoor terrace, where tables rest in the shade of a large olive tree.

For Uğurtaş, who comes from the Turkish west coast city of Izmir, about 60 miles (100 kilometers north of the restaurant), the remote location is the result of her own meandering journey, one which saw her veer from a degree in English literature to enter the world of fine dining.

“Since the inception of Çiy, I dreamt that it would be located in a village, which reflected the character of the Aegean, in a place where we could feel the spirit of the trees and even the sea,” she tells CNN.

After graduating from MSA, a highly regarded culinary arts academy in Istanbul, Uğurtaş climbed the restaurant career ladder, becoming kitchen chef at 7Bilgeler, a renowned vineyard in the nearby village of Gökçealan.

But, determined to open her own restaurant, she undertook an arduous renovation and building project to transform and expand a collection of traditional buildings in the obscure village of Caferli into her innovative dining establishment.

Love for nature

Çiy Restaurant is situated in the countryside above the Turkish west coast city of Kuşadası. Courtesy Çiy Restaurant & Konukevi

From the main gate, the restaurant and an attached guest house appear like a village-within-a-village. Its natural stone structures and descending pathways stand among herb gardens and terraces overlooking the expansive valley.

The main building – which includes the restaurant on the ground floor and three rooms upstairs – is newly built, while three guesthouses on the property are renovated village houses.

All the interior design has been specially chosen down to the smallest details, from vintage furnishings and traditional carpets in every room to the small lace doilies that rest on the water glasses.

The restaurant itself is an anomaly for this unknown village. It’s a fine-dining endeavor with a tasting menu that is both shaped by the imagination of its chef as well as the ingredients of the region.

“Çiy is a reflection of my love for nature,” says Uğurtaş. “I prefer a cauliflower that happily resisted the cold in winter over a bland pepper that is harvested by forcing the soil. I tell the producers I work with, ‘I will only buy what grows beautifully, non-toxically and with a high yield in your soil.’

“Instead of expecting my farmers to produce ingredients they’re unfamiliar with, I ask for the best and most low-intervention product that they know and already produce. As such, I believe I leave room for them to do their job, while I do mine. The region is already multi-layered and fertile. Playing with existing products makes me happy.”

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Translated to the plate, the chef’s dishes embrace simplicity, allowing nature’s flavors to present themselves fully, but are also enhanced through technique and experimentation, which lift them from flavorfully satiating to very memorable.

A menu highlight is the savory eclair. Courtesy Çiy Restaurant & Konukevi

Uğurtaş’s savory éclair has powdered shrimp shell within the pastry, is filled with a shrimp cream and accompanied by a cup of peach kombucha. Her homemade pastas, which she learned to make while training alongside a renowned Italian chef in Istanbul, are topped with veal ragout, or composed of ancient grains such as Kızılca wheat and served with thinly sliced calamari in a sauce of egg yolk, Bergama Tulum cheese, olive oil and fermented mussel juice.

Plates are paired with wines from a list that focuses more on Turkey’s boutique vineyards.

The more casual lunch service at Çiy differs according to the day. On Sundays, there are brunches with croquembouche towers of puff pastries filled with cream and gilded with caramel threads. On Saturdays, the Çiy burger takes center stage with its homemade pickles, ketchup, peach mustard, and buttery bun. And on Wednesdays, Uğurtaş and her team, who already love to make their own sourdough bread, make a signature sourdough pizza.

Food for the soul

Chef Damla Uğurtaş undertook a challenging renovation process to bring her restaurant to life. Courtesy Çiy Restaurant & Konukevi

Preferring to define her food as “healing Mediterranean cuisine,” Uğurtaş is part of a newly burgeoning gastronomical movement in Turkey, which focuses on not only satiating the palate, but also the soul.

Chefs are leaving the cities to open restaurants in remote locations, closer to nature and to the rich culture and ingredients of the country’s different regions. Among them, Osman Sezener and his restaurant Od Urla, Ozan Kumbasar’s Vino Locale in Urla, Tuncay Gülcü’s Chayote and Serra Beklen’s Capra Çukurbağ in Kaş.

“Damla Uğurtaş is breaking new ground with her fusion cuisine in a very unknown location,” says Adnan Kaya, a columnist for Hürriyet newspaper focusing on Aegean culture. “This trend seems to be the new philosophy in Turkish gastronomy and Çiy will be among the pioneers.”

“We are aware as humans that the planet can no longer meet our demands and this is where chef Uğurtaş arrives with her healing cuisine,” adds Kaya. “She creates her own dishes without rushing, with true ingredients from the region, with respect to the seasons, and every member in her staff is integral to this, they all present their unique contribution.

The restaurant has views over the countryside to the Aegean sea. Courtesy Çiy Restaurant & Konukevi

Guests visiting Çiy bask in its serenity, a far cry from the hustle and chaos of Turkish mega city Istanbul, which has until now been the driving culinary force in Turkey.

The restaurant sits quietly in its village, the soft hum of conversation on the terrace, the surrounding valley vast but silent. A cold signature cocktail rests on the bar, sipped by guests wearing the restaurant’s own fragrant mosquito repellent made from local herbs.

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RELATED VIDEOTraditional cooking with Turkey’s first two-Michelin-star chef

It’s a striking scene that makes it easy to believe that a small but significant revolution is taking place in Turkey’s food scene. One that’s closer to, and in harmony with, nature.

Uğurtaş says that customers who make the journey will be rewarded for their efforts.

“Hosting guests requires a detailed execution from top to bottom and in a remote village you can’t achieve this with food alone,” says Uğurtaş.

“That’s why a holistic way of living prevails at Çiy. We welcome our guests with a philosophy formed by the contribution of the village, the region, the people we work with and our own personal values.

“Every detail exudes this philosophy, from the fabric to the colors, the plates to the food, the staff to the music played, the glasses to the wine list. This is what I love most about my own restaurant.”

Feride Yalav-Heckeroth is a freelance writer based between Istanbul and Lake Constance and the author of her own guidebook, The 500 Hidden Secrets of Istanbul. Her writing has been published in Kinfolk, Brownbook, The Travel Almanac, Wallpaper*, Travel + Leisure and Conde Nast Traveler.

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At this national park in Hawaiʻi, a natural paradise and a medical purgatory

On the north side of Molokaʻi — the least-visited Hawaiian Island — a piece of land called the Kalaupapa Peninsula juts out from the rest of the island.

Lay eyes on it for the first time, and your reaction might be to call it a paradise.

About 17 square miles (44 square kilometers) in size, the peninsula emerges from the base of sea cliffs that tower thousands of feet above it. A seemingly idyllic village sits on its west side, surrounded by acres of green space. A historic lighthouse stands tall along the coast, and the sea laps up onto a series of beaches. Look east and small offshore islets appear as if created by an artist.

Looks can be deceiving, however. Learn a little bit more about Kalaupapa, and you realize that this part of Hawaiʻi entered the National Park Service system not for its scenic beauty but for its dark history.

Kalaupapa today is the world’s most famous colony for patients with Hansen’s disease, more commonly known as leprosy. As of April 2024, eight people were still on the patient register at Kalaupapa, with about half living full-time on the peninsula. Remarkably, the oldest will turn 100 this year.

Though often referred to generally as “patients,” these eight people are actually former Hansen’s disease patients. They have long been cured — drugs introduced in the 1940s effectively curtailed the disease and eliminated the need for forced isolation. The former patients are not contagious and are of no threat to visitors. Those that remain at Kalaupapa do so under a unique agreement, adding to the complexity and mystique of this secluded peninsula.

With National Park Week upon us, it’s fitting that we take a closer look at this remote national historical park.

But the timing is appropriate in other ways, too. Despite no remaining federal or state health restrictions, the park has remained closed continuously for the past four years, with no visitors allowed. Recently, the park has come under increasing public pressure from tour operators to explain its ongoing closure and reveal its plan to reopen to visitors.

Come along as we take a journey through an area that has been affected by first an epidemic, then a pandemic.

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The epidemic: Patients become prisoners

In the 1800s, an epidemic broke out when leprosy arrived in the Hawaiian Islands for the first time. With locals having no cure or immunity to the disease, it spread quickly through Hawaiian communities.

The strong social stigma associated with the disease — along with its caused deformities and misunderstandings — created panic. People with mild reactions to the disease were treated at the local health clinics of the time, but advanced cases were seen as a threat to society.

The Hawaiian monarchy, led by King Kamehameha V, decided that patients with advanced forms of leprosy needed to be quarantined. The Kalaupapa Peninsula, surrounded on three sides by the ocean and the towering sea cliffs on the fourth, was deemed the best place.

In 1865, the Hawaiian monarchy took control of the peninsula, forcibly removing native communities who had occupied the land for 900 years.

A historical photo of Kalaupapa shows the colony where patients with Hansen's disease — more commonly called leprosy — were forced into isolation. KGPA Ltd/ Alamy Stock Photo

“The physical impairments caused by the illness [of leprosy] and the devastating effects on skin and nerves brought prejudice, fear and segregation in all societies since ancient times,” notes a scientific study from the University of Bari, Italy, on the history of leprosy. “Patients with [the] disease were socially isolated and forced to live in poverty and loneliness.”

Unfortunately, it was not a compassionate process at Kalaupapa. Patients, in fact, became prisoners. Husbands were separated from their wives; children from their mothers; families were never together again. Anyone diagnosed with the disease, no matter their age or responsibilities at home, was sent to Kalaupapa, without the right to leave.

In the end, the numbers are dark. Since the first “patients” arrived in the early months of 1866, more than 8,000 people have died at Kalaupapa, a world away from their loved ones.

Most of those deaths occurred in the first 75 years or so. After World War II, new treatments emerged for leprosy, essentially curing the disease. Barriers between those with and without the disease began to be removed. In 1969, the laws for mandatory quarantine were abolished. Patients — those that remained — were free to go.

Despite the advancements in medicine, society was not so quick to catch up. Social stigma, stereotype and prejudice continued to exist toward those with the disease. Even though patients were free to leave if they wished, some decided to remain and live out the rest of their lives at Kalaupapa (including the eight currently on the register). In time, it had become their home, and adjusting to life outside the confines of Kalaupapa proved difficult for many.

In 1980, Kalaupapa became a National Historical Park with the intention of “preserving the memories and lessons of the past,” according to the National Park Foundation.

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Beauty and suffering

The combination of Kalaupapa’s visual beauty and human suffering has proved to be a potent mix for writers, artists and historians alike.

Check out the collection of books, poems and paintings of Kalaupapa, and one will see these two emotions mixed up over and over again. Book titles such as “Bittersweet Beauty” or “A Land of Beauty, Pain, and Suffering”; portraits of smiling patients with deformities, backdropped by the beautiful sea cliffs; stories of hope and service in the face of dark reality.

The obvious conflation of beauty and pain captures many who learn about Kalaupapa. The more you dig in, the more you find that the beauty of the place is not just physical, but also reflected in the acts of kindness, hope and service that sprung up around the pain and suffering.

Father Damien is pictured with the Kalawao Girls Choir, circa 1878. Kalawao is a settlement on the Kalaupapa Peninsula. Alamy Stock Photo

There are countless unremembered people who dedicated their lives to the medical, clerical and communal duties necessary to care for the patients at Kalaupapa. But one famous example is Father Damien (now a saint), who spent more than 15 years serving patients at Kalaupapa before contracting and dying from the disease himself at the age of 49 in 1889.

Today, a statue of him stands in front of the State Capitol on Oʻahu. Though his remains have been returned to his homeland of Belgium, his initial grave can still be found on the Kalaupapa Peninsula.

As with many acts of history, a dark time was slowly but surely lit by hope and humanity.

The National Park website sums it up best with its description of Kalaupapa: “A place exhibiting the worst and the best of human responses to the challenge of sickness.”

That statement probably resonates with us now more than ever after living through the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Covid-19 closure continues

Today, Kalaupapa remarkably still operates first and foremost as a refuge and active “colony.”

At any given time, about five of the eight former patients still on the register are living down at Kalaupapa (patients leave for non-Hansen’s-related medical treatment and other appointments nowadays, so the number of people “living” there is a bit in flux).

They range in age from 80 to 100 and get support from medical workers, National Park Service employees and other staff. They live in a settlement of nearly 200 buildings.

Today, the uses for these buildings often vary from their original use. But when the colony was populous, they included houses, a post office, social hall, churches, bars, a gas station, stores, a jail, police station and warehouses.

Though we don’t know exactly what tours will look like when they resume, previous tours of Kalaupapa utilized an old school bus to take visitors around the peninsula to lay eyes on these old buildings, learn the history and perhaps even meet a resident. Visitors either arrived by air or on foot or via mule down a trail from “topside” Molokaʻi.

Back in 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic emerged, daily tours and public access came to a halt. Flash forward to 2024, and all Hawaiʻi public health restrictions have been rescinded. But the National Park Service is still not allowing visitors.

This fact was recently brought under the microscope by local news organizations, which featured frustrated tour operators claiming they were being stymied by the National Park Service.

The delay in reopening, says Kalaupapa Superintendent Nancy Holman, is because of a number of factors.

First and foremost, the patients. Holman said the tours that visited Kalaupapa in the past have always been sponsored by a resident; a former patient at Kalaupapa was either directly involved or a partner in a business that organized the tour.

Once the health restrictions of the pandemic were lifted, the National Park Service again offered this option to the former patients. Holman said one person is currently interested and “working very hard” to get their business in order.

“Until there’s no longer a patient who wants to provide tours, we need to offer that to them and only them,” Holman explained.

A plaque explains some of the area's history at Kalaupapa Lookout. The peninsula emerges at the base of towering sea cliffs. Craig Ellenwood/Alamy Stock Photo

Access by air has also been diminished by a consolidation of local airlines and cuts brought on by the pandemic, Holman said.

The Park Service, she said, is still figuring out how to welcome back visitors without taking up resources needed by locals.

“How do we provide [visitors access to Kalaupapa] and not compete directly with Molokaʻi residents [for those airline seats]?” Holman said. “We want to be thoughtful and sensitive in our work … not extractive.”

“I know we are closer than ever [to resuming public access],” she added.

Mikiʻala Pescaia, an interpretive ranger at Kalaupapa, also said the park is “so close” to reopening to tours. But both Pescaia and Holman declined to give an estimated date of reopening.

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The future of Kalaupapa

At some point, Kalaupapa will reopen for tours.

In the meantime, there are still several ways to experience Kalaupapa when visiting Molokaʻi. The Kalaupapa Overlook is located atop the sea cliffs, providing a breathtaking view of the entire peninsula. Bring binoculars if you want to see the settlement more clearly.

In Kualapuʻu, the Molokaʻi Museum features a moving photo exhibition full of portraits, landscapes and explanations that look back at what daily life was like for the patients at Kalaupapa.

Looking to the future, when there are no patients left on the peninsula, is one of the main objectives of the Kalaupapa Transition Interagency Working Group.

The goal in the short term is to protect the privacy and wishes of the former patients, Holman said. This includes putting a cap on the number of daily visitors, which before the pandemic closure was 100 a day. But once all the former patients are gone, the Secretary of Interior, who oversees NPS, can consider changes to this policy, perhaps allowing more people to visit.

Land ownership rights will also need to be addressed once the former patients have gone.

As previously mentioned, the monarchy forcibly removed Hawaiian families to create this colony. Currently, a third of the buildings and surrounding area is owned by the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. Among other duties, the department provides native families with homestead leases. In this way, much thought is being given to how the peninsula might be managed going forward.

In the near future, though, tours will resume, and Holman said “big fanfare” will surround the reopening. She said that while people can read and learn about Kalaupapa on their own, visiting is still the best way to understand it fully.

“Nothing beats first-hand experience, putting your feet on soil,” Holman said. “Nothing is going to be better for truly understanding the scope of the place and what it would have been like to live there.”

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Stranded cruise passengers in Spain race to catch up with their ship

The Norwegian Viva cruise ship is seen in a November 2023 file photo in The Bahamas. Richard Tribou/Orlando Sentinel/Getty ImagesCNN — 

A month after eight Norwegian Cruise Line passengers were stranded in Africa when their ship left without them because they were late getting back, a US couple – ages 84 and 81 – were also left behind by the cruise line in Spain.

Richard and Claudene Gordon of Salt Lake City, Utah, were on a Mediterranean cruise aboard Norwegian Viva with family and friends and looking forward to celebrating Richard’s 85th birthday later this week.

While the ship was docked in Motril, Spain, on Monday, the pair took an independent excursion by themselves to the historic city of Granada, not organized by the cruise line. On their return, their bus was delayed for an hour by a rain storm, Richard Gordon told CNN by phone.

“I am a very experienced traveler and have probably been on as many as 30 cruises during my lifetime,” Gordon said. “Never before have we ever missed catching a ship on time at a port. So we are not someone who abuses the system.”

The pair missed the ship’s all-aboard time of 5.30 p.m. local time, for a sail away at approximately 6 p.m. Gordon said that at around 5.45 p.m. he spoke to a relative on board who raised the alarm that they were nearby and running late, but the relative was told by Norwegian Cruise Line staff that as the ship needed to sail on time, nothing could be done.

According to the Gordons, they arrived at the dock by taxi at 6.10 p.m., while the ship sailed away with Claudene’s medication, Richard’s eyeglasses and both their spare hearing aid batteries and phone chargers on board.

“Our cruise began in Lisbon and we departed from Lisbon about one and a half hours after the scheduled departure at 4:00 p.m.,” Gordon told CNN. “Then the next night or two, at least a half-hour late from the dock, so it is clear that they do not always leave on the exact moment scheduled.”

“They looked around and they looked around and no one was there,” Marilee Barker, the couple’s Utah-based daughter, told CNN by phone. They got a taxi to the police station where “the policeman helped them call back to the dock. And they said, ‘there’s nothing we can do.’ ”

The couple says they received no further assistance from Norwegian Cruise Line at that point, from the ship or on land.

No medication, no hearing aid batteries

“Luckily my dad has traveled, but he’s still 85,” Barker said. As the Norwegian Viva wouldn’t be docking again until Tuesday on the island of Ibiza, “they took a bus up to Granada and found a cute, cheap little B&B.”

Meanwhile, Barker says she and her husband were up to 3 a.m. finding flights and a hotel, eventually getting them on a plane to Palma de Mallorca, where their ship would be docking at 8 a.m. local time on Wednesday May 1.

Claudene Gordon texted her daughter late Tuesday afternoon Spanish time to say that Norwegian Cruise Line had made contact with them for the first time since the incident and had offered them a taxi from their Palma hotel in the morning to reunite them with their boat.

“We really received the royal treatment today,” Gordon told CNN after being reunited with the ship on Wednesday morning, two days they disembarked at Montril.

“They picked us up at the hotel in a beautiful black BMW limousine to take us to the ship. There we were met by the head of ship services who escorted us inside the ship to meet the general manager of the ship, then they escorted us to breakfast, then they escorted us to our cabin.

“We simply told them that we were abandoned at the dock with no one to meet us or tell us where to go, and they said they have already complained about the harbor master who was supposed to take care of things for them. But of course the ship had not contacted us directly for two days so that doesn’t speak so well for them.”

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Norwegian Cruise Line said it disputed the time of the couple’s arrival at the pier. “The two guests who went ashore independently arrived at the pier approximately an hour late and missed the all-aboard time of 5:30 p.m. local time, for a sail away at approximately 6:00 p.m.,” a spokesperson said via email.

“A cruise ship follows a set itinerary with designated arrival and departure times. Itineraries are carefully coordinated and planned out well in advance of each voyage to ensure that all of our guests have the experience they are expecting,” they said. While there is a small window of time where late guests can be accommodated, they added, the Gordons arrived outside of this.

“After several attempts to contact these guests with the phone numbers provided, as well as trying to phone their emergency contact, we were unable to speak to them directly. However, we worked closely with the local port agents to make arrangements for the guests to rejoin the vessel.”

The spokesperson said that, prior to the hotel pickup on Wednesday morning, the cruise line had coordinated an airport pick-up for the Gordons at Palma de Mallorca the evening before but were still unable to contact the couple by phone.

In the similar incident last month, eight passengers were late getting back to their Norwegian Cruise Line ship on the African island nation of São Tomé on March 27. They then struggled for days to catch up with their ship as it made its way up the western coast of Africa.

In that case, Norwegian emphasized that the delayed guests were on a private tour that was not organized by the cruise line.

CNN’s Sarah Dewberry contributed to this report.

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