Maui: Day 2: The Road FROM Hana


We were pretty much exhausted by the time we headed out of Hana, continuing on our 'around the east side of Maui in one day' trip. Heading south now, we stopped briefly at the Pools of 'Ohe'o (aka the 7 Sacred Pools) in the south end of the Haleakala National Park. We renewed our yearly National Park pass we get since last year's pass was due to expire soon. We hiked a little bit by some newly constructed ancient huts and some interesting trees that seemed to be supported up by its roots in a unique way above the ground. When we reached the pools it was a madhouse of people everywhere, climbing up on rocks and jumping off into the three pools (we only saw three pools, but I hear there are five pools and not 7 pools). We took a few pictures and headed back up to the car. Zenia was exhausted and I had a little bit more of energy left in me. We snapped a photo of us just before getting to our car. She appeared to be wide awake, while I look like I'm the one exhausted.

We continued down the highway, heading west now, on the south side of Maui. Between mile markers 38 and 33 were probably the most stressful part of the whole entire drive. Much like the northern part of the island, the roads narrowed down to one lane total, sharing the road with oncoming traffic, but this time, the roads became increasingly worse. The roads went from poorly paved to just plane dirt. Most of this stretch was a long, winding, edge of the cliffs dirt road. It was stressful for Zenia, who always seems to drive the hardest part of any of our trips. We never knew what car would come around the corner, since we could not see it. This road seemed to go on forever, but the scenery was amazing. This part of the island was more dry, with the colors of brown and yellows sweeping all across the area. The area became vast and wide open with the coast on your left and the mountains heading toward Haleakula to your right. It was quite beautiful. It was even more beautiful when we finally hit beautifully paved roads again. "Ahhhhh" we both said as we hit the smooth pavement.

We finished up our day continuing around the eastern part of the island completely exhausted. We arrived at our hotel room at the Maui Lu in Kihei, ordering Dominos pizza and crashing hard. Very hard. We were in preparation for out last day in Maui before leaving at 10pm that night. Our plan was to see the sunrise at Haleakula.