We’ve had a busy few days. We went to the south end of the island and saw Kihei and La Perouse bay. It’s much more crowded than where we are, so we’re glad to be in Kahana! We did see a natural area, which is fancy talk for “big field of lava that you can’t walk on and wouldn’t want to even if you could.” If you’ve never seen lava up close, there are two types. The type you can walk on and the type you can’t. The type that is very painful to walk on is called a’a – because when you walk on it you say Ah! Ah! as you cut your feet open.
We also went to “big beach” which is really quite big. But the swimming wasn’t good that day as the current was pretty strong. The lifeguards posted their flags and warned everyone that it’s the #1 site for head, neck and spinal injuries on Maui. So no swimming. But we did see some palm trees as we sat on the beach!
We went to Warren and Anabelle’s magic show/dinner on Monday evening and it was great! Warren is hilarious and the food was amazing. If you ever go to Maui, look them up. I did take some pictures of the divine cheesecake, but you probably don’t care about those so much – it’s not really a Hawaiian specialty or anything, although it was delicious!
Yesterday we went up the road to Hana. All you hear about is the road to Hana. Everybody talks about it as if it’s the most amazing road ever. We’re going to be the lone dissenters…we weren’t all that impressed. It was pretty, but we would have rather spent the day doing something else. It’s a long trip, the nature is nice – but we didn’t think it was that nice. Actually, we are probably spoiled – the winding road is supposed to be one thing that you notice, and it was pretty similiar to Oak Creek Canyon – which we’ve driven lots of times. And the vegetation is very green and lush – but we’ve seen that before on Oahu. So altogether, the road to Hana was just OK for us. I did get some nice pictures of it though.
The road itself is surrounded by greenery.
There are little shops all over the place. Not real big shops, but huts and stands selling food – shave ice, banana bread, etc. I got a lilikoi (passionfruit) shave ice. It wasn’t all that great, basically a snow cone. And there’s a BIG difference between snow cones and shave ice! But what can you get in the middle of nowhere?
We saw lots of plants and several waterfalls. Christmas berries are all over the place. They look edible, but they aren’t.
We also saw tropical fruit trees growing along the road – coconuts, bananas, mangos. And we saw some HUGE spider webs everywhere – with huge spiders to go along with it!
There is a black sand beach near Hana – very small but pretty and different from the usual beach.
The central area of Maui (which you have to drive through to get pretty much anywhere) is flat – it’s the area between the two volcanoes that built the island. It’s used now for sugarcane. 37,000 acres of sugarcane, all grown by one company. If you’re old enough, you’ll remember the C&H sugar commercials. It’s not C&H, but the fields look like the commercials!
