Saturday morning consisted of driving out to Hana. Getting to Hana is all about the drive to Hana and not particularly Hana itself (the guide books say its boring). The road to get there is the twistiest and turniest road I have ever been on. The picture above shows the terrain it traverses; Hawaiian mountain sides. There are many sections that are wide enough for only one car. It's a touristy drive (27 miles) and you can definitely see the difference between locales and tourists.
There are fruit stands everywhere and most are un-maned and based on the honor system. Basically you take and pay for what you want. It's great to see the trust that people still have in certain places on this Earth. Also, the fruit is so delicious that I could see myself living here forever.
This is Peace of Maui and that is where we spent Saturday night. Basically it is a B&B without the breakfast (even though the owner offers fresh star fuit and bananas). It was relatively cheap ($65/night for a couple in a queen bedroom) and you had the luxury of sharing a kitchen, bathrooms/showers, and a jacuzzi. I would definitely recommend staying here if you are visiting Maui. It has a nice homey feeling that hostels and hotels don't/can't provide.
Sunday Kristine and I ventured up to the 10,000 ft. active volcano that is known as Haleakala. Yes I said active, but it hasn't gone off in years and it's the certain type of volcanoes that don't blowup when they erupt like Mnt. Fuji. Anyways, it was freezing up there (40-50 degrees) and raining. We had some nice veiws and decided to hike it a bit. Really, I wanted to see what all the hype was about with regards to participating in activites at altitude. Conclusion: It wasn't that bad.
This is the inside of the volcano. It's slightly larger than the size of Manhattan. It is not a crater since the hole was created by erosion. Kristine kept saying it looked like we were on Mars and by looking at the picture above I would have to agree.
One of the favorite things that we did was visit the town of Pai'a (pie-A) on the central north shore. IT was an old sugar plantation town turned hippie town. IT has the best health food store either of us has encountered named Mana. We liked it so much we visited 5-6 times in the matter of 24 hours. So if you are the area it is a must see.
Well, it was great to get off the island, but to tell you the truth it just made me realize how far from everything that we are. When you are up in the plane and you see nothing but miles and miles of blue ocean it is kind of scary. The good thing though is that each island has it's own identity and it was excellent to experience that. Maui's vibe active and rural, but we aren't so detached from everyone. Later!
