Good bye Hawaii!

 

We have a late flight (10:00pm), which means we had the whole day to enjoy this beautiful resort, and even part of the evening Luau at sunset.  I could stay here a few days more doing just that….  But then again, we are now eager to go home.

 I went for an early snorkel, because the waves are calmer in the morning.  Well, not that early….  9am-ish… we had to have a luxurious breakfast first….These common myna’s like breakfast too…. They stalk the tables and even though the waiters are very prompt at clearing them, if there is a 10 second delay, they descend on them!  

I love snorkeling almost as much as i love helicopter rides…… and it is a lot cheaper….There were not quite as many fish as last  time (there were plenty, see bottom of blog), but the corals were very beautiful!

 I was glad to get a better picture of the Hawaiian official fish - the HumuHumunukunukuapua’a (not making that up, it’s its actual name).  They are plentiful, but shy, so I’ve had a hard time getting a good picture.  Then I swam a bit in the clear and warm water, before sitting on the beach for a good long time, reading my book.  It was wonderful!

Joe met with another one of his grad school friends from Stanford (apparently, Hawaii is popular with those that got a PhD in Chemistry at Stanford in the 1980’s….)

In the afternoon, I walked along the Wailea Beach path, which follows the seashore for few miles.  

On the one side are many (MANY!) resorts and luxury condos.  But you don’t have to look at them.

 Instead, you can look at the ocean and the rocky coast, and sit for a long time watching the turtles swim around.  

There were 3 or  4 in this little cove, but they refused to stay still long enough for me to take a picture.  This is the best I could do.  

  

In spite of the many resorts, the beaches are not very crowded, and in fact, if you walk a little bit past the hotels, you get the beach all to yourself.   

Our guide told us that there are many homeless people in Hawaii (I have to say…. Not a bad place to be homeless….), and indeed, along the farthest beach, there were homeless encampments.  They have a nice view. 

In the evening, we had time to join our group for a luau at sunset, before heading out to the airport.   That’s always bittersweet, and we hope to see some of them again (maybe in Perth, Australia??) or maybe in NYC.

Flowers and egrets from the walk:

This is a breadfruit, which is in fact a type of fig:  you can see this well from the shape of the leaf.

Fish and corals from snorkeling.  

Koy fish and heron from hotel pool:

 

Rainforest and waterfalls (and cliffs).

 

Maui, like all Hawaiian islands, has several microclimates, depending on which side of the tallest volcano you are.  So in this case, the north side is very rainy on average, while the valley and south side are very dry.  So today, I went to the rainy side to experience the rain forest, and it’s many waterfalls.  It has actually been unusually dry, even on this side, but the forest itself is still lush and verdant.  

The guide who took us on this mostly easy 2.5 miles hike was very knowledgeable about local plans, as well as about secret trails and swimming holes.  We started in a local orchard, where we tried some passion fruit (it’s very good, if a bit slimy), and it’s flower is very pretty.

We saw some of the apple bananas grown here (not sure why they are called that, maybe because of their size- they are very good).  

This is the female part of the plant (the banana requires no pollination).

 There is also a very impressive bamboo grove - just like everywhere else, bamboo tends to be invasive, but here, with all that rain, it invades with gusto!!!!

The trail took us through a forest of large tropical trees, with many flowers (see flowers at end of blog),

and a very cool hibiscus “tunnel”:  this is just one single tree, with branches extending for at least 50 feet and creating a dense network. 

 This is the single main trunk that has created all of the branches.  And here is one of its flower:

The entire trail smells of wild ginger, which smells really good!  And our guide taught us how to set a sip of nectar from it by sucking on the flower stem..

The main goal though was to go to several waterfalls, and enjoy the cool deep pools they form.  We got to swim in several of them.  The water was perfect.  

As mentioned above, it has been very dry, so some of the falls were barely flowing, but that means that in the “twin falls” pool, it was possible to climb up what would be the second fall, and jump of the cliff (see top picture). I only went about half way (I’m old!) but a couple of the teenagers on our tour jumped from the high cliff (and said it was very scary!). The water temperature was perfect!

The pools have many little minnows in them, and you can get a free “fish pedicure”, where they come an eat all the dead skin.  It tickles a lot!!!  People pay a lot of money for that!!!

Along the trail, we saw the network of irrigation pipes and tunnels that divert the water from the mountain the agricultural valley below.  It was particularly critical when sugar cane was grown, because it requires a lot of water.  That is one reason it stopped.  Most of these are dry right now and we could walk through the drainage tunnels.  

The trail itself was mostly easy, with a couple of of very shallow water crossings (probably harder when it rains), and one short scramble.  

I came back with plenty of time for a quick dip in the ocean, which had waves exactly the way I like them:  high enough to dive in, but small enough to not be scary.  It’s weird how un crowded the beach is:  there are quite a few people around the pools, but you get pools anywhere, you don’t get that beach!   Well, to each it’s own…

Tomorrow, which is our last day, we were supposed to go to the top of Haleakala.  But it is a national park, and thus closed.  Fuck Trump!!!!  I guess i”ll just have to spend the day at the beach…..  there are worse fates…..

We’ll just take a deep breath and enjoy the sunset….

Some flowers from the hike: