The Road to Hana
My friends and I woke up at 6:30 AM and hit the road by 7 to drive to Hana. The seven of us traveling together loaded up our eight-seater SUV (basically a civilian tank) for what would be a thirteen hour drive to Hana and back. We drove from Lahaina, a town on the west coast of Maui, down the southern coast, up highway 380 toward the airport, to the town of Paia where the famed Road to Hana begins.
Paia's colorful shops were just beginning to open when we arrived. During the 45-minute car ride from our Airbnb we had woken up enough to want breakfast, so we stopped at Choice Health Bar for acai bowls. Once everyone was fed, we crammed back into the car and started our drive on the Road to Hana.
Our first stop on the Road to Hana at mile marker 16.8 was Ching's Pond. Despite the cloudy weather, a few of my friends wanted to go into the pond. Three friends held up towels to make a portable dressing room for each person who wanted to change into bathing suits. Those in swimming gear took turns climbing over the rocks to get to a small ledge by the deep end of the pond. Then they jumped.
Once everyone was done swimming, we piled back into the car. At mile marker 18.8 we pulled over to look at the Wailua Valley. The stop was no more than a few minutes to marvel at the view.
Personally, I don't enjoy driving, and long rides usually bum me out. When I was young, I would always get viciously car sick. Plus, I'm from New England, where you can drive through four states in four hours, so road trips were never built into the family culture. All this is to say that I'm not your typical "road trip" fangirl. Yet, what turned out to be a thirteen hour road trip was one of the best days of my Hawaii vacation. At every turn of this winding road, we saw something to point at in amazement. Every five minutes we were in a different ecosystem, from the rainbow eucalyptus trees we didn't know were real, to the shaggy bamboo groves overhanging the road, to the banyan trees straight out of the Lion King. Plus, we were blasting music with our sun roof open and the windows down, giving our road trip a real-life soundtrack. Singing at the top of our lungs to throwback '90s songs, we continued to mile marker 28.8 to the Nahiku Marketplace, a small string of shops and food trucks along the side of the road. I bought a moist loaf of coconut pineapple bread to nibble on through the rest of the drive.
We intended to stop at black sand beach but couldn't find it. There are no signs along the way, so we decided instead to carry on to the town of Hana. The little town isn't as consolidated as Paia but still had enough for us to grab some food and cell phone service. The pumpkin red curry I bought at AE's Thai Kitchen food truck was some of the best I've ever had. It was even more satisfying after having carried it up a slippery, winding dirt road to get to the red sand beach where we had a picnic by the water.
One of my friends on the trip was sitting next to a couple on the plane to Hawaii who had recommended the Red Sand Beach. They said that if the walk to get there doesn't feel sketchy, we weren't going the right way. They spoke the truth. We cut through what seemed like private property and then shuffled up and down narrow, cliffside passages covered in pine needles. My fateful footwear choice and handful of takeout boxes were enough to tip the balance, and I slid on my bum long enough to cover one cheek in red dirt.
Once we arrived, we discovered a hidden gem of a beach, perfectly sheltered from the open ocean by a mighty dam of rocks. The beach, a burnt red, consisted of pebbles rather than sand. By that time, it was about 2:30 PM, and we still had one more stop we wanted to make before the trek back. We said goodbye to our perfect beach and hopped back into the car for a short drive to the Pools of 'Ohe'o, also known as the Seven Sacred Pools. It's in a state park, so we paid $5 to park and made use of the site's amenities (i.e., bathrooms and water fountains). Though we were disappointed to learn that we would not be able to bathe in the pools, we soon discovered why. The pools are in an ocean-carved inlet fed by gushing waterfalls on one end and fierce ocean waves on the other.
I'll admit I wasn't impressed at first, seeing only small flowing portion of dirty water. Once I stepped back to examine the full scene, though, it felt humbling. Still, one can only stare at water for so long, and we soon returned to the car for a long ride home.
It was well past dark when we returned to our Airbnb. The music on the way there--upbeat '90s songs and classic rock singalongs--turned to mellow country tunes on the way home. Though we had spent the entire day driving across the island, all we had done was encircled the edge. We drew the outline, but next time I would want to color in the picture. There is so much to see that if I went back, I'm sure the experience would be brand new again.
