Maui Vacation 2011

There are a lot of birds in the trees around here, and there are also 5 lovebirds in a large cage out just past the porch.  They can be amazingly LOUD sometimes, and boy do they get up early.

Also, Marla the kitty cat lives here.  She is a funny little cat; she doesn’t meow so much as to be making noise or to announce something, it seems more of a statement that also contains annoyance that she’s having to tell you something in the first place.  As I was trying to get a picture of her, she jumped up on top of the birds’ cage and stretched and rolled around.  The birds were happy to have a completely different side of the cage to fly to.

We got up very early this morning, and drove to the end of the road.

I’d read that the snorkeling at La Perouse Bay, down on the southern tip of Maui, was great, and if you got there early enough in the morning you very well might run into some spinner dolphins and lots of sea turtles.  So we got up at 5am and headed out.

To get there you drive south past Kihei, Wailea, and Makena, eventually driving through the Cape Kina’u lava flow.  The lava flow is an amazing and very….other-worldly…place.  I’ve been there once before, years ago, and I got the same visual then as I did this time.  The lava looks to me like huge piles of the biggest Oreo cookies in the galaxy all crumbled up, as if giants or maybe the gods were making my grandma’s Oreo-cookie-crusted mud pie and got overzealous making the crust.

I’d only gone as far as the lava flow on my previous visit to Maui so wasn’t sure what to expect continuing further down the road that is obviously not meant for tourists.  I could imagine that this area is included in the Maui car rental agreements along with Hana as a place car renters promise not to take their rental cars.  But going slow, our friend’s borrowed car did just fine, and eventually we found ourselves at the end of the road in a very rough parking lot.  It was a little confusing trying to figure out where we should or could enter the water as its still lava flow at that location, but some words with a local and we chose our path and managed to find a safe entry point among all the somewhat stabby lava rocks all around.  Now, it had rained the previous night, but we’d thought it only rained up north, hoping that the dryer Kihei hadn’t gotten any the previous night.  We were wrong, and the water was extremely murky; almost no visibility.  We did take some pictures, but they are so sad I’m not going to bother posting them.  So we swam back in, traversed the stabby rocks, and headed back to town for breakfast.

So, failed turtle-dolphin-snorkeling mission, but totally worth the early morning swim, the crazy driving adventure, and lava flow experience.

Today we left early with no specific plan other than to head to Lahaina and eventually end up in the water somewhere.  We tossed the snorkeling gear in the back (and unfortunately two cameras ill-prepared to take photos all day) and took off towards Lahaina, stopping on the way at Ho’okipa to appreciate the view and watch the surfers.

In Lahaina we checked out the Cannery Mall, and then went down to Front Street, Lahaina’s old town. We did some shopping (aloha shirt and hawaiian patterned sundress acquired!) and checked out the huge banyan tree.  We had lunch at the Mai Tai Lounge, which has a fantastic dining room that hangs out over the ocean, serves pretty decent drinks, but has only mediocre food.   We also visited the Hard Rock Cafe, skillfully dodged an aggressive tourist package salesman, and had some ice cream at a local shop.   And we bought tickets to see Ulalena on Monday, a show about the story of the Hawaiian people; we’re told its very inspired by Cirque du Soleil, and very good.

After strolling around in town it was time to find swimming and cool off.  We drove up to Kaanipali and after driving around for quite a while looking for a place it was ok to park (not being a guest of any of the hotels there) we ended up on a little piece of beautiful beach.  We hung our towels and clothes on tree branches above where little crabs kept cleaning out their little holes/homes in the sand when the tide would push a wave up past their home.  It was SO NICE to swim in a warm Pacific Ocean, we just bobbed around for an hour or two, just letting the waves pull us out from the shore and push us back again.

After that we figured we’d just continue driving north to get back home, knowing that the road did go all the way around the island…more on that later.

At one point we saw a woman with a truck of goodies parked in a pull-out so we stopped, hoping for cold beverages.  After purchasing drinks from her we almost got in the car and drove off, but at the last moment I decided to go look down over the side of the cliff there only to find the most beautiful blue bay below, very sheltered from the rough waters further out, and with some small pods of snorkelers.  Turns out we’d stumbled upon Honolua Bay; you have to walk through private land to get to the shore but the owners are very nice (as long as you are respectful too) and allow people to walk down to the beach there and snorkel.   The snorkeling was great, we saw all kinds of fish, but the special guest stars were an octopus and the biggest puffer fish I’ve ever seen – he looked about 3 feet long.  There was also, hugging the shore on one side, a massive school of small silver fish we’ve as of yet been unable to identify (6-8″, silver).  As we were leaving we spoke with the owners who said come back first thing in the morning and there are lots of octopus and turtles!  We will go back, and this time the underwater camera’s batteries (unlike today) will be charged!

Back on the road we continued clockwise around the northern tip of Maui, eventually passing a sign that said “End of State Hwy”.  Hm, I wondered if that meant anything important?  As it turns out, the road became a crazy narrow winding path of asphalt that reminded me a little too much of an episode of “worlds deadliest roads”.  It really wasn’t THAT bad, but most of the road was pretty sketchy when we met another car going the other way; occasionally they or we had to back up to a wide spot, or would wait in one if the driver saw us coming ahead of time.  And 20mph was definitely the max speed.

Along the way we passed several signs declaring that the World’s Best Banana Bread was up ahead, and then one proclaiming that the green shack was the authentic place we wanted to go and the pink shack was not.  So, when we found ourselves passing a very brightly painted pink shack (with accompanying pink covered seating area and pink decorative boulders across the street) we kept driving, until we found the very bright green shack on the side of the road.  We bought two loaves of banana bread and some cans of juice, and if we’d had the necessary $15 more we’d have purchased some of the coconut candy nuggets (the sample I ate was deeeeelicious).  We also got her card because she said, “We ship pretty much everywhere.”  And guess what? YOU can have some too!

Oh, and did you know chickens and roosters abound on Maui?  They do.  There is practically one around every corner.

After miles of very slow crazy narrow windy road driving we finally hit the state highway again.  We made a few stops on the way home for supplies, including when we managed to find the small Haiku grocery store all on our own (ice and coke for the rum!), and then home.

TW cooked garlic gorgonzola ravioli made with spinach pasta + turkey meat balls with 4 cheese pasta sauce and corn on the cob, and we ate it while watching The Muppet Movie.

Now he is snoring in bed, and I’m ->this<- close to falling in beside him.

Wonderful first full day here.  Here’s hoping tomorrow is as perfect an adventure as today was.