Day 3: Maui adventures

Hi! Day three started off insanely early (like day two) but that's ok! Caught up on my blog, and was ready well before we had to be to meet the van for our hike. Did the 45 minute drive and met Kate, our guide. She was really amazing! Interesting and fun and really informative. We Drove through the small town of Paia, and she explained that it was created to house the sugar plantation workers, but then in the 60s became a hippies and surfers paradise, due to the strong surf on the north shore of Maui.

Hawaii is made of shield volcanoes, which provide a slow lava flow and not a huge burst from an eruption of a composite volcano. The west Maui mountains are young by comparison at 1.3 million years old, and are extinct, though Haelakela is the large volcano on the island, which is dormant, but could erupt.

We drove through areas of sugar cane fields, and but the sugar cane museum. They take 2000 gallons of water to produce 1 lb of sugar. The farmers them shut off the water and burn the fields to harvest. Sugar is harvested year-round.

The north shore, as I mentioned, is a world-renowned surf area. Jaws is what it's called when there's huge waves ranging from 10 feet to 100 feet twice a year, in January or February. It's not announced when Jaws is to keep most people from going there, as the waves are so huge and really require a lot of talent and experience to navigate!

Oh, and the person I was referencing yesterday in Iao State Park is King Kamemea, who united the islands as ruler. Oh, and I learned that Captain Cook was the first westerner to arrive at the islands!

There are no native fruit trees-- all of them were brought from elsewhere.

We went to H'o'lava valley to the rain forest for our hike. It was drizzling when we set off-- hey, it's the rain forest.. go figure! We saw a ton of flowers and fruit, and Kate showed us them all. We got to snack on lots of interesting things like guava, and tried something called an ice cream pod which was described to us as a coconutty-banana flavor with the consistency of a q-tip. Serious, but interesting! We saw shy grass, which if you smack, the water gets sucked out of it into the stem and it looks shriveled to protect it. We saw a jackson lizard, which is similar to a chameleon and has horns on its head. It turned green when we put it back on the tree it came from. We saw several types of ginger, avocado, papaya, apple bananas and more.

We hiked through the woods for a couple of hours and saw three waterfalls. The second of which was by a large cave, where we enjoyed lunch. There was a big pool under it and some people swam. Brrr! We had to wade across a low stream and it was ankle deep-- my poor hiking shoes! But hey, it was worth it. The third waterfall was very intense and we couldn't get all that close to it.

It poured for most of the day, and we were quite ready to be done at the end. By the time we got back to our cars and out of the rainforest it was warm and sunny! So strange how different the two sides of the island are weather-wise!

Tonight we went to a luau at our hotel. It was ok.. about what I expected: very commercial. Food was so-so but the folks at the table were quite entertaining. A couple from Wisconsin who were a hoot! A couple from CA that we were chatting up in line, and a couple from Boston who just got married. Man, did I sound like that when I lived in Boston??? He had such a strong accent. She was a total b*tch and we are speculating how long it will last if she's already that unhappy. Yikes.

We had a mai tai or five, and stumbled over the the restaurant for our ahi tuna tacos that we are hooked on. Yum! Another early night and got up by 6 to get ready and head out for the ride to hana. It's POURING so we're hoping today won't be a total wash out given that this is the dry side of the island!!! The ride to Hana is supposed to be quite windy and twisty, so this may be interesting in the rain!

Have a great day! Sam