Maui Hideout
After decades of marriage, we finally made time for a honeymoon and found ourselves elevated high above the jungle floor because our rental was built on piers. The ground below us sloped through the jungle towards open pasture and volcanic beaches. It felt like an exotic, well-appointed tree house with a view of the ocean and the hazy profile of Moloka’i. I’d never been to Hawaii before. My wife had, friends and relatives had told me about their vacations, adventures on mopeds and even a yearlong residence in Honolulu. After our arrival in Kahului on Maui, we picked up our rental car, some dinner, groceries for our stay, and headed to the Airbnb not far off the Hana Highway. We parked in the designated pullout, grabbed all our stuff, and followed the narrow jungle path across a small red bridge lit with string lights. We dropped everything off and explored the place before discovering a red dirt road that led to a lush green meadow, strong warm winds, and cows that greeted us at the fence line. It was getting dark, and the shore was very rugged, so we stopped where we were and soaked in the view.
The next afternoon we drove to the town of Makawao in Upcountry on the northwest slope of Haleakala and wandered through the small shops, found lunch and a spot to eat that looked towards the ocean. Regardless of how close it was, whether waves lapped at my feet, or we snorkeled in it, or it was just a distant silver band, the ocean always framed everything. I looked inward too—into the dense jungle, the waterfall pools my wife swam in, and the black sand beach that glittered like diamond dust.
After we finished our lunch, we wandered through town a bit more, spent time in a glass gallery and then drove higher up the slope passing through pastures spotted with black volcanic boulders, pineapple fields, tropical flowers, and palm tree groves. The steep road eventually switch-backed through the clouds until we reached the summit. After parking and reading signs about the climate and geology, we hiked a mile into the caldera before turning around because we remembered what the park ranger had said about hiking in this vast landscape at ten thousand feet. The crater is eleven to three miles wide on average and the trail gradually descends two-thousand feet. Sometimes tourists wearing flip flops and board shorts underestimate the distance, altitude, and their fitness and hike five or six miles in, then become stranded and need to be rescued because they can’t make it back out.
Maui is comprised of two shield volcanoes, and we were on top of the biggest one. When we spoke with the ranger about its geology, I asked him if there was a threat they could explode someday like Mount Saint Helens did. He said it’s unlikely they’d ever become active in our lifetime and if they did, they wouldn’t explode, they’d ooze. After a few hours in the caldera and on the summit, we drove back down and stopped at a botanical garden where the smells were thick like pollen. We explored it for a while and ended our day with dinner in Haliimaile and the Country Store—a large one-and-a-half story converted warehouse with wood floors and a large front porch. It came into existence because of the pineapple plantations that surround it and to serve the workers who lived nearby. It was past dusk, and the horizon was electric orange like there were distant fires somewhere. At our table, my wife’s face was lit by a cluster of candles next to a mason jar full of yellow hibiscus flowers.
Songs :: Lahaina by Loggins and Messina, Waterfront by Simple Minds, A Case of You by Joni Mitchell, Hot Sun by Wilco, and Gimme Shelter covered by Patti Smith
© C. Davidson