Chris and I went to Maui over my reading week this year. While we were only there for 6 days, we saw so much of the island and collapsed each evening from pure exhaustion at having done so much. On our first full day there (the first day was spent travelling 16 hours to get there, and checking into a small hotel near the airport for the night), we picked up our rental Jeep and headed west. Since all of our belongings were in the Jeep, and our jungle house rental wasn’t ready until 3:00pm, we decided to spend the day taking a scenic drive along the Kahekili Highway. The Kahekili Highway is considered to be one of the deadliest roads in the world. It snakes along the volcanic cliffs of Maui, and is often a dirt one-lane road. This makes it particularly difficult when the turns are 180 degree switchbacks, which are usually blind, and often free of any barrier or curb. At one point I looked to my right as we crawled around a turn, and saw the sheer drop-off less than a foot next to me. Needless to say, I got goosebumps and thanked my lucky stars when it was over.
The amazing thing about being on a dangerous road is that it is relatively empty, and tourist-free! We got to enjoy some picturesque look-out points, a large blow-hole, and a cute fruit stand named “Curley’s”, all on our own. At Curley’s, the woman used a large machete to chop up a ripe pineapple for us, throwing it into a bag. It acted as our snack for the next few days, and was so so sweet and delicious.
I was surprised at how rural Maui is compared to Oahu. While driving the western “highway”, we constantly passed by pastures atop cliffs, with cows grazing peacefully above the ocean. I kept thinking how nice a life those cows have…for now at least!
For the week we were in Maui, the “plein-air” painting competition was taking place. We frequently saw artists set up around the island with their easels, painting the landscape in front of them. On our last night there, the championships were set up on the beach in Lahaina, where we saw artists from all around the United States painting the landscape free-hand. We stumbled upon the painter below in Honolua. A Jeep with a father and two sons was parked nearby, surfboards crammed onto the roof-rack, checking out the surf quality below. We could see a ton of surfers bobbing expectantly on their boards in the choppy ocean, and the two young boys were giving a detailed surf report.
At the end of the day we drove towards Maui’s north shore, following the instructions we received from our jungle house rental. It was down a one-lane very bumpy dirt road. As we turned onto our driveway, vines slapped the top of our Jeep and Chris kicked it into 4W-drive. The jungle house was gorgeous – completely secluded and perched above the tree tops, with only (massive) spiders and tiny geckos to keep us company. We drove out in the dark, in the pouring rain, to the town of Haiku to find groceries. It was quite the experience navigating the incredibly twisty roads in the dark, but Chris managed like a pro. We stocked up on provisions for the week: more pineapple, ice-cream bananas (why don’t we have these fruits in Canada!?), kona coffee, and a bevy of meat and vegetables. When we returned home, we cooked up some chicken quesadillas while listening to the Hawaiian music our hosts had provided for us, and cheers’ed to the start of a wonderful Maui adventure.
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