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September 29
Intro & Arriving in Maui
September 30
Beaches & A Lava Flow
October 1
Iao Valley
October 2
A Helicopter Ride
October 3 & 4
A Bird, A Dog, Work & Drinking
October 5
Haleakala & A Luau
October 6
Lahaina & Heading Home
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October 5, 2005
Haleakala & A Luau
Wednesday morning's view of West Maui
I left the apartment at the same time Paul went off to work, picked up some coffee and a delicious
almond croissant at the Honolulu Coffee Company and struck out for
the East Maui Volcano. My goal for the day was to see the
Haleakala crater at the top of East Maui.
It's really not a crater at all, it's a volcanic basin, but it looks like the surface of the moon so people call it a crater.
One of the popular things to do is to
bicycle down the volcano. There are several companies that will drive you to the top in a van and give you a bike to coast
down the mountain. I met several such groups on my way up. Here's a picture I took through the windshield. No
one was pedalling. |
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The vegetation changes significantly on the way up. The valley floor is like a desert. It changes into
green farm lands and then into forests, including a few redwoods. In spots, the houses look like ski chalets. It feels like
the Alps.
This picture is looking down on a forest I just came through. That's the valley, the ocean and the clouds over West Maui
in the distance. The little white spot just in front of the woods is a car heading downhill. |
The road zig zags up the mountain. There's a guard rail here but most of the curves didn't have any.
It reminded me of a similar road in the Outer Hebrides
without a guard rail. When I asked why there wasn't one on the lip of a cliff, my Scottish friend Al said, "We
have common sense. If you drive too fast, you deserve to go over the edge." Hmmm, I guess he has a point. |
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On Sunday, I looked down on a rainbow from the helicopter. Today, I looked down on a double rainbow
from a mountainside. The outer rainbow is difficult to pick out in the photo, but it looked great in real life. |
I kept zig zagging up the mountain, past the treeline and reached the clouds somewhere around the 6,000 foot mark. I had expected this, and also
expected to emerge from the clouds sometime before I reached the top. That didn't happen. At the park entrance, I heard a
ranger say that the top was enveloped in clouds at the moment. He said it could clear up in ten minutes or ten hours. There's no
way of knowing. So I just kept driving.
At the top, I had a fellow tourist take a picture of me. There was nothing else to take pictures of
except the inside of a cloud.
I had felt a bit silly packing my gloves to go to a tropical paradise, but I'm glad I brought them. It was cold up there!
And yes, Peter, that is my bandVillage hat. |
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I followed a trail down into the crater a little way, but I couldn't see much of anything. The great
otherworldly vistas were completely hidden. |
| I imagine this is it would look like to be on the moon...if the moon had clouds. |
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This overlook is supposed to give you a view of the entire crater. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to
come visit Paul again! |
| Driving down the mountain was a little more difficult than driving up. I had to keep the car in
second gear most of the time. I had been worried about how much gas the car used to get me to the top. It hardly used any on
the way down. |
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I filled the tank (At $3.67 a gallon!) and grabbed some lunch in Kahului, then headed back to Paul's place. I did some work
for bandVillage and waited for dinner time to roll around because we
were going to a Luau!
In my typically jaded fashion, I though Luaus were cheap and cheesy dinner shows put on for tourists,
but Paul assured me that Luaus keep traditions alive. Without them, not many Hawaiians would
hula or
fire knife dance.
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We arrived and were given shell leis and mai tais. Paul opted to get our drinks in carved out pineapples with the frou frou
umbrellas and I'm sorry I didn't get a picture of them. I did get this shot of two men taking the pig out of the pit where it
had been cooking. The guy on the left would do the fire knife dance later. |
The food was awesome, and I had my first taste of poi.
I really enjoyed the pig, the steak (with poi) and the noodle salad. Paul liked the chicken but agreed it was all good.
After everyone had time enough for two trips to the buffet, the show started. Parts of it were a bit cheesy.
The emcee was corny and almost stereotypically Vegas, but the musicians and performers were top notch. Check out this
5MB Quicktime movie of some amazing hip action. |
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Most of my pictures came out blurry due to the lighting, but I got a couple good ones. These four
maidens are doing a bridal dance. |
| Four men carried in the princess. Paul thought she was sexy; I wondered where the ancient
Hawaiians got double-stick tape. |
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There was a lot of dancing and they even had ways to trick audience members up on stage to hula.
The highlight though was the fire knife dance. Here's a 23MB Quicktime movie that doesn't even
begin to show how cool it was. |
| Afterwards, we had our picture taken with some of the dancers. See if you can spot the non-Hawaiians. |
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