Maui - Trip to Hana

  Hana was more about traveling than being a destination.

  Hana is located on the eastern side of Maui. Lahaina is on the western end of the island. The trip to Hana from Lahaina involves a circumnavigation of nearly the entire island, a trip of over 150 miles on narrow roads that twist and turn so much that the trip (with stops) took us eleven hours.

  The trip to Hana is about going through various climates and ecosystems. Maui is very mountainous due to volcanic activity thousands of years ago. The ecology one is experiencing at any given time is influenced by altitude and being on the windward or leeward side of the island.

  The harbor in Lahaina is much, much too small for ROTTERDAM, so we were taken ashore in a tender.

  Once ashore we boarded a mini-bus, the roads being unable to accommodate a full-sized bus. Fortunately our bus was only about two-thirds full, so it did not feel crowded. No one in our group experienced motion sickness, but our driver said it was not uncommon for passengers to get queasy given the gyrations of the bus as it navigated its circuitous route. 

  Our driver repeatedly expressed surprise at how green thinks were on the leeward side. The tremendous quantity of rain that side had experienced in the past week had transformed it.

  Had we arrived on Maui two days earlier we could not have made the trip to Hana because the heavy rain had caused mudslides and rock falls that necessitated closing the roads.  Thanks to those rains the waterfalls were abundant and impressive.

  [Note: If you take this trip sit on the left side of the bus if the circumnavigation is clockwise; the right side if counterclockwise. The views of the coast trump those of the falls. Of course, there are numerous opportunities to get off the bus to see both.]

  The people in the picture were walking on one of Hawaii's famous black sand beaches, the sand being composed of grains of lava rock. If you think your feet get warm on a white sand beach on a hot summer day, imagine what they would feel like on black sand.

  One of the stops was a small churchyard where the famous aviator Charles Lindbergh is (allegedly according to a woman from St. Louis) buried.

  We saw a variety of plants life.

 

 

  These 'tentacles' are part of a banyan tree. Banyan trees put down supporting trunks and root systems as they grow resulting in a single tree sometimes spanning an acre or more.

  This one banyan tree covers an entire block in downtown Lahaina.

  When we returned to Lahaina, we walked around for a short time, watched the sun set, then returned to the ship for some dinner and bed.

  Did you notice there was no text mentioning photographs taken in Hana? I saw nothing there that interested me enough to take a picture. The lunch there was good...or maybe we were just hungry.

Location:Lahaina on Maui