July 10, 2005

• Maui

  We spent June 13 and 14 on the Island of Maui. One of the interesting things about our time there was that during the night, the ship moved from the windward side to the leeward side of the island, and we were cautioned that all passengers must be aboard the ship when it moved. It seems that US law does not permit disembarking a ship in one port and reboarding in another, so anyone who did not reboard before the ship moved would not be allowed back on. When we were in Bermuda on the same cruiseline, our ship moved twice and we were told that if we were not onboard when the ship sailed, we should just take the bus to the next port. That would have been easy to do here, also, since Maui is very small, but all aboard was the rule. Go figure the law sometimes!

  One of the attractions of the Windward side of Maui is the Road to Hana. Hana is a beautiful little town about 30 miles from the port, but Hana is not really what matters. It is the Road to Hana that is the destination. If you do it right, it takes all day and it does not matter if you really get to Hana or not.

  After we picked up our rental car, our first stop was a gas station where we picked up a guided tour on CD. The voice on the CD advised us to buy lunch for the trip and suggested a place to do that, so, of course, we took that advice. Who wouldn’t take the word of a strange voice on a CD purchased in a gas station? The place actually did pack a good lunch, though, and rented us an ice filled cooler to carry it.

  The road winds up and down a mountain, and I do mean it winds! We counted 75 bridges over little creeks or gorges. Each of them was one lane with practically no view of what might be coming from the other direction because of the curves in the road. It seemed like every few feet we saw a sign that read “Yield to Oncoming Traffic.” Surprisingly, we did not have any close calls, in spite of the fact that it was a very busy road.

  There are scenic outlooks at frequent intervals, also. Parking is limited, but we were able to stop at most of the places that interested us. The entire road is a photo opportunity. I am getting ahead of myself, though. Our first stop was not a scenic outlook, but a little roadside market selling amazing tropical flowers and fresh fruit. We did not buy any flowers because we did not have a way to keep them fresh during the drive, but we really enjoyed looking at them.

  

  Our friends did buy some fruit, which we quickly consumed. (We had lunch for later in the trip, remember?) We had 3 kinds, I think. One was something called apple banana, which looked like a banana but was supposed to be similar to an apple. It just tasted like banana to all of us, but it was very good. Then we had lychee, which is kind of an ugly little oval thing that you peel to reveal an almost transparent fruit with a pit. It was sweet and tasty. I can’t remember what the third fruit was, but it was good, also.

  We stopped several times to look at views and take pictures, and then we decided we were hungry. We went into a botanical garden and found this lovely spot for our picnic.

  

  Remember that this was a botanical garden, so the plants were deliberately placed and cultivated, not the result of nature. The area was very beautiful.

  

  I particularly like this view looking out toward the sea. In fact, that is one thing I really enjoyed about Hawaii. You can almost always see the sea. I love the sea!

  

  The botanical garden was nearly at the top of the mountain. Looking down, we could see the road winding along.

  

  On our way out of the garden, we spotted several parrots sitting on a perch. When we stopped to look at them, a man appeared and told us that we could take all the pictures of the birds that we liked, but that we could not have any people in the pictures. He said that he was a photographer and for $20, he would pose the birds and take pictures of us with them. At first, we were not going to accept his offer, but as we stood there looking at the birds, I decided that it might be fun, so I gave him the money and he took several pictures of each of our 3 couples. The men were posed like this:

  

  Then the wives were invited in:

  

  Several pictures were taken with each couple, all of them on my camera. I shared, though.

  We stopped many times along the road, taking pictures most of the time. In fact, I took some pictures of people taking pictures. Here is our friend Pat immortalizing the view.

  

  I like this scene looking through the trees:

  

  We had to climb down an embankment to get a close view of this little waterfall. It was slippery, but a good picture is worth risking your life, right?

  

  We saw geysers

  

  and surf

  

  and near the town of Hana, we stopped to swim at a black beach.

  

  The sand is black because it is created by the weathering of volcanic rock. It is not as fine as most white sand, and the surf at this beach was pretty strong, so Pat and I were both knocked over and had our legs cut up. Each of us took about 10 pounds of sand back in our suits.

  

  We did make it to Hana, where we made a quick drive through town to look around. Then we headed back to return the car, stopping on the way to return our cooler. We had to make sure we were on the ship for the trip around the island, you know!

  Our second day on Maui, we visited the ocean center, then swam at another lovely beach. This one was at a hotel and had white sand and gentle surf. The remarkable thing about this day, though, was the contrast between the lush green of the windward side of the island with the desert on the leeward side.

  

  

  It’s very beautiful, but very different.

  Near the dock on the leeward side of the island, we enjoyed seeing this Banyon tree, the largest in the Hawaiian Islands.

  

  Believe it or not, that is not a grove of trees. It is all one tree. Banyons send out branches which reach down and form secondary trunks with roots in the ground. This tree covered a whole block. It was lovely to walk through it.

  After Maui, we headed for Nawiliwili on Kauai to see the Grand Canyon of Hawaii.

  • 6:04 pm
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