Maui: Day 3

On our third day we checked out of our bed and breakfast and explored the town of Laihaina a bit before leaving West Maui. It is a really cute, historic little place. It used to be the capital of Hawaii with a very busy harbor. It has a great, old Hawaii feel to it, and I think I'd like to stay there again next time. We wanted to check out the huge banyan tree. 

 

Of all the banyan trees in Hawaii, this is the greatest - that's according to Frommer's. It was only 8' tall when it was planted in 1873, and now it's over 50' tall with 12 major trunks. It shades 2/3 of an acre, which is a whole block. In case you are unfamiliar with banyan trees, they look like lots of different trees but are actually connected together. A branch grows out, attaches itself to the ground, and grows a new trunk. Pretty cool.

There's all these signs that say not to climb or swing from vines. It sure looked tempting!

 I just like this picture. It looks like an ancient Mayan ruin or something. It's the corner of an old fort, and the bricks are made of lava.

Then we were on our way. We drove all the way around West Maui, which was an adventure. It started out fine - nice wide roads along the coast. It reminded me of Highway 1 in California. We stopped at a few places along the way.

 Here's a little jungle-looking area we stopped to see.

 It led to a great snorkeling spot, but we didn't have time for that. We had a long drive ahead of us.

We stopped to check out the blowhole. I love those things. They're fun to watch, and I especially like the loud roar they make. 

Soon after the blowhole is when things got exciting. Lots of VERY narrow, one-lane bridges and roads, sheer cliffs, no room to pull over, etc. Then we got to a dinky little town with a school bus food stand. We bought a mango passion fruit smoothie and braced ourselves for the rest of the drive.

We made it to the north side of Maui and stopped in the hippie town of Paia for lunch. We ate at the Flatbread Company for Pizza, which was good, but I was so hot I had a hard time enjoying it. I guess they go all natural there, and I sure wished they had A/C or at least more fans. Then we started the famous "Road To Hana." This is a scenic 50 mile drive to the East side of the island. It is also very windy with 1-lane bridges and overlooks and waterfalls. We pulled over a few times to look around and take pictures, but not too much because we didn't want to get there too late.

I love how they use lava rocks to build fences. We saw lots of beautiful, brightly-colored birds there; but it was usually while we were driving, so I wasn't able to get many pictures.

This is  Keanae Peninsula, one of the last coastal villages of native Hawaiians. They still grow taro in patches and pound it into poi (I don't understand why they go through so much trouble for something so odd), and they still cast nets to fish.

This is one of many one-lane bridges. We pulled over to look at a couple of waterfalls.

Not the best waterfall picture, but I like how happy we look. We saw t-shirts in Maui that said, "I survived the Drive to Hana." It really was something to survive. Beautiful, but a little scary. We saw a couple when we were coming back, so it was end of the drive for us and the very beginning for them. The husband was in the car looking bored while the wife was walking around taking pictures. We thought, "It's going to be a long drive for them!" Dave said they should make t-shirts that say, "Our marriage survived the Drive to Hana." Ha ha!

A couple more bridge shots of waterfalls.

One of my favorite things about East Maui was all the tropical fruit growing everywhere. The air always smelled so sweet! It was like the Garden of Eden.

Finally we made it to Black Sand Beach, which is pretty close to Hana.

 

 

We got there right before sunset, and the lighting was gorgeous!

 

I especially loved the contrast of the bright green foliage against the black rocks.

 

The sand is black from lava.

Here's inside a little lava tube cave. One of the things I kinda wanted to do but didn't have time was lava cave spelunking. Maybe next time.

 

I couldn't stop taking pictures. It was one of the prettiest places from our whole trip.

 

 

Afterwards we checked into our hotel, Hana Kai Maui, and shared a steak at Hana Ranch Restaurant. It's one of only 2 places to eat there (it's a tiny town!), and it was the "cheaper" of the two. It wasn't cheap, but at least it tasted pretty good. It's hard to mess up a steak. Since we were going to be there 2 nights without dining options, we went to a dinky little grocery store to stock up. I know we should have bought some things before we left civilization, but we didn't want to think that far in advance. We were on vacation.