11.02.2007 :: Maui

Maui

The Hawaiian mythology says that the demigott Maui once stand on the top of the main volcano of this island and caught the sun with his lasso. He let the sun not free until it promised to slow down passing over this island. The thankfull Hawaiian people named the island Maui because of this and the volcano got the name Haleakala - Hause of the Sun.



Saturday

Our flight was at 8 am. We (Marlene, Tanja, Eva and I) were very tired, we had to get up around 5.30 am.
When we arrived in Maui, we decided to go to Hana first. It's a little village in the east. In my guide book it's written that the journey is the reward. I agree.
The whole island is very green and really beautiful. We saw some other waterfalls and also the place of the beginning scene of the film "Jurassic Park".



In my opinion the most impressive thing we saw on saturday was the black sand beach... I have never seen this before. It's amazing... the blue of the water looks much deeper with this contrasting black... I could have stayed there much longer then we did, it was worth the 2 hour drive...



We spent too much time in the car, we should have gone more into the nature to walk or hike, like we did last wekend in Kaua'i, but it was just Eva and I who wanted to do this.

In the evening we checked in the youth hostel "Banana Bungalow". The rooms were acceptable. We just changed our clothes and then we drove to somthing like a shopping center. There we ate in a typical American diner (like in the serie "Beverly Hills 90210").




After that we went back to the hostel. It was already late. We slept until 7.30 am.

Pictures from saturday.

Sunday

On sunday we (Eva and I) had some conflicts of interests with Tanja and Marlene. Little test for you: Imagine you were in Honolulu (Oahu) for about more then 1 month. You can always go to the beach. You will stay another month in Honolulu. Now you have 2 days to spend in Maui. What would you do? 1. Spend the time on a nice beach in Maui?  - 2. See the famous crater of Maui and some other interesting things?

So we brought Tanja and Marlene to the next beach and we drove to the top of the famous crater (Haleakala). It was very impressive to see how the landscape changed as we drove higher and higher. First it was very green with lot of flowers and trees. Then there was a dry part and on the top it was very stony.

The top of this crater is 3000 meters over the sea. We could see other islands and it was unusally cold there. Our ears began to hurt, because it was so cold and after a little while we decided to drive back to the beach. The experience was incredible.



After that we drove all together to the west of the island. This side of the island is more touristic, but there is also a very adventurous street along the seaside... Smile. It was nice...



Pictures from sunday.


All told it was a very wonderful trip and I shot a lot of pictures. Maybe it's easier to understand the pictures than what I try to write hereSmile. I'm very tired...