Maui's Top Five

Last weekend, Brady and I took our first real inter-island vacation, leaving behind Zachary with friends and splurging on our first resort. It was better than it sounds! We'll summarize our trip with the five major highlights.

#1: Road to Hana

We can't tell you the number of people who told us to skip this adventure, citing it as a "long, boring drive," or the "scary, narrow roads." While we appreciate any and all advice, we are certainly glad we ignored the cautions, and binged a whole day on this drive. With guidebook in hand, we stopped every two miles or so for a hike or a quick scamper across boulders to swim in waterfall after waterfall. In the end, we swam under five falls and captured breathtaking views at many other lookouts.

The first excursion on the Road to Hana was called "Four Falls." It was about 4 miles roundtrip, if you don't get lost. We did--get lost, that is. It was a terrific diversion, leading us through more bamboo than we've ever experienced on hikes.

Back on the trail, we followed a series of three waterfalls--one that you had to climb a sketchy ladder to reach, and finally reached the fourth by swimming through a 200 meter pool. We were the only ones there, and it felt like a dream world, despite the small size of the last waterfall.

Waterfall 1:

Before proceeding, I should mention my mishap the night before our trip. As always, I was excited and could not sleep prior to our vacation. I went out on the couch to avoid waking Brady. At about 4am, I lurched awake after a bad dream, and yanked my neck up so fast that I pulled a muscle in my back. It was nauseating and painful, and I honestly could not turn my head even a tiny bit for the first 24 hours of our trip. I did learn that with enough Ibuprofin and adrenaline, it is possible to go on hikes with a pulled muscle in the back!

Notice my tilted head (this was my one and only head position for the first two days):
Waterfall 2:

Waterfall 3 is behind Brady:

We couldn't take our camera on the swim, so for waterfall 4, envision a tiny trickle and lots of foliage.

We gave a friend our guidebook to plan her vacation, so we don't have the official names of these falls throughout the rest of our Hana excursion. This falls was "Lower _______" (very long, Hawaiian name). It is a 200 foot drop! Trails cannot access this fall, at least that we know of.

This is the "Upper _____" (same name as above). We had this one all to ourselves again, and it was a lovely, cold swim.

Incidentally, I find myself using the same string of adjectives to describe anything here in Hawaii: pretty, magnifacent, fantastic, delightful, lovely, amazing, beautiful, breathtaking, unique, remarkable, outstanding, wonderful. None of them really say anything. I need some help improving my vocabulary! Give me some adjectives to describe Hawaii in the comments, and I promise to enrich my language selection in blogs.

It was fun to see "Spider Lily's" in the wild, after learning about them in the gardens:

A view from the road (doesn't this remind you of the NaPali coast?):

This waterfall had the heaviest flow, and amazingly clear water. It was one of the best swims of the day.

Another tropical flower in the wild:

This was our favorite waterfall. You can see it from the road. We cannot tell you how many people leaned out their windows--hardly slowing down--to snap this picture. That's why people don't like the Road to Hana: they aren't taking time to enjoy it. A few minutes hopping over rocks, and you get to swim in the "Three Bears," almost all by yourself:

The last waterfall we experienced was the most adventurous. You could get to the bottom of the falls by doing some boulder hopping, but to really swim in the falls, you had to rock climb 15 feet. I am not much for rock climbing (especially with a bum back), but we saw a couple up at the falls and knew if they could hack it, we could too. It was scarier than I thought, but really gave me a rush! Seriously! My heart was pumping for a half hour after climbing down (in the rain, no less).

#2: Snorkeling

Snorkeling in Maui kicks the tail off Kauai snorkeling. Rich colors with purple and yellow hues and abundant coral...not to mention the spectacular animal life. Between our four snorkeling excursions, we saw an eel, octopus, and 7 sea turtles. The eel looked so much different than I expected--less snake-like than my imaginings. The octopus was the highlight, and we watched it creep along the bottom, and change colors from light purple, to speckled purple, to rock-colored. The turtles came so close to us we could have touched them. We had to keep swimming away. They are HUGE.

This was the best of all four locations we tried. It is at a beach where no one seems to snorkel, so I will have to look up the name when we get our book back.

Here's Brady coming in. I never lasted quite as long as he could. The longest I made it was 45 min to an hour before turning blue with cold. I think it is probably time to get me a wet suit so I stop cutting our adventures short!

This is where we saw the eel. The lava rock on South Maui is fascinating in contrast with the aqua-colored ocean.

#3: Hiking

Yeah, it surprises me to have hiking rated this low, too, but it wasn't as good or spectacular as the Road to Hana and the snorkeling. We were stoked to go on the Swinging Bridges of Central Maui. We will admit, we would have been more excited to walk on them had there been raging rivers below, and a real threat of danger should we fall off the two bridges (that seemed to be held together via wire coat hangers), but this is the United States. It was still exciting to hike and notice the similarities and differences in Maui v. Kauai.

The hike took us to these man-made falls. Lame, but they were fun to swim behind and it was fun to jump off the ledge. Doesn't Brady's hair look incredibly red in this picture???

#4: Lahaina

The guidebook tells you not to pass up on Lahaina. We're sure glad we spent three separate evenings there. The dining, energy, and ambience of this "downtown" Maui is an experience! Most businesses in Kauai shut down at 4pm, or 7pm if they are really pushing it. To be walking around the town at 10pm, into art galleries and through dozens of shops, completely relaxed...very nice.

If you are ever in Maui, do not pass up "Pacific Os." It is delicious--a twist on most fish dishes. Brady had a lobster and steak combo that was hands down the best thing he's ever ordered from any restaurant. We also had a shrimp entree that makes my mouth water just thinking about it. This place mixes in fruits and Asian spices in such a delightful way!

#5: Sunrise/Bike Ride at Haleakala

I expected this $120/person tour to stun me. "It was only okay for me," to quote Randy Jackson of AI. The 2:15am pick-up time bites, followed by the nauseating van ride up the mountain (yes, I did lose it, and yes, I will always take Bovine with me in the car from now on!). The sunrise was gorgeous, even at the 40 degree temperatures we endured. Watching the sun filter in was like viewing a painter as he works, as more and more details came into sight with the light.

At least for all the cash, we've got a Photo-of-the-Month.

The bike ride wasn't terrible, it just wasn't thrilling. We expected 28 miles of "WHEE" coasting down the canyon. Instead, we got "watch the person ahead" and had to ride our brakes the entire way. It was like being on one of those guided horse tours, where what you really want to do is gallop, but you are stuck making sure you don't get sprayed from the horse ahead of you.

Mac Nut trees on the way down:

There's our top five. Other highlights include riding around Maui in this gigantic grandpa car--a Grand Marquis. We cracked up over this one over and over again:

A pretty drive on Sunday up to northern Maui:

Brady got covered with stickers:
We enjoyed sunset after sunset with all the sailboats. Notice how the sun is highlighting one in particular. That was beautiful!

We loved it. The real question is...KAUAI OR MAUI? We hear people say their favorite island, and it is almost always one of the two. Which is better??? I would say there are perks to both. Kauai has better hiking and water sports (boogie boarding and surf). Maui has more energy, shopping, and snorkeling. Kauai has the edge on scenary, but Maui has more to do. Personally, I say if you have the option of visiting both, do it. With the other islands, you can see things for the first time--a volcano, Pearl Harbor, etc. With Maui and Kauai, you can live it over and over again with thrills. Just my opinion.