Hawaii - Road to Hana and Sunrise at Halakea Crater

Our first day in Hawaii, we splurged on a four wheel drive Jeep with soft top and to make the full use of it decided to checkout the sunrise at Halakea Crater. Above the cloud line, it was like a sunrise seen from an air plane, a ball of orange rising up from a sea of clouds. Geography of Maui is such that East side of Halakea is always covered with clouds, so sun rises are always breathtaking, though you will have to start at 4 am to get there in time. Skip the visitor center just below the summit where you will find a large crowd, the real deal is at the summit. Also stick around after the sun is up, most people start leaving as soon as sun is just above the horizon. About 30 minutes to an hour later, the sun is high up so that it will bath all the clouds in orange, all the way to your feet.

Done with that, we decided to take the famed road to Hana. Since we had a 4WD, we decided to do the full loop (including a section marked not allowed in our rental - but whatever). The “not in rental” is well deserved. The road is really crappy and we felt much more confident that we had a jeep.

Road to Hana itself was interesting, though living in California, scenic wise, not extraordinary. Though we did go through forests of Mango trees, laden with mangoes, mangoes in the trees, mangoes on the road, on the road side, everywhere. We stopped and decided to have them for lunch - yummy, much better than the ones form Mexico etc that we get in stores. Like mangoes from India. It was extraordinary just seeing so many mangoes just sitting there getting crushed under passing car’s wheels. Apparently Hawaii cannot export it mangoes due to some bug or something, a shame.

On the way back, after the desolate, barely paved road from Hana we ran into a group of people having a party in middle of no where. Well really Shailja ran into them because she wanted some shaved ice that they were advertising. It turned out that those bunch of people had just all decided to come have a multi day fete in middle of no where. Some brought shaved ice (which we had, very tasty), some had some handicrafts, tarot readers etc. There were an old baba with a really long beard and missing tooth, and small kids with wings on their backs. Frankly speaking, we felt they were some cult or something, or Hippies (though Shailja being did not think so, and she being from Berkeley, and I will defer to her). In any case, they did not try to convert us so that was all good.

Back from Hana, we checked into Marriott (the one in Wallea, not to be confused with one up north in Kanapali). Surprise surprise, the Marriott did not have a beach to speak of, still the sunset of beautiful, swimming lessons that we had been taking making sure we got into waters more than knee deep (thanks Candice). We ended the day in the hot Jacuzzi. There was a very nice romantic couple in the swimming pool next to the Jacuzzi, they were dancing in the pool, laughing. It was enchanting.