Maui: Day Three

The first Friday we spent in Maui ended up being one of my favorite days there. I thought I fell love with Hawaii the 36 hours prior, but that love affair grew tenfold this day.

Before we left for the trip, I’d booked several tours and experiences knowing that Don wouldn’t want to sit at the pool all day, though I would’ve been perfectly content. One of the trips I read the most about was a bike tour down Haleakala.

Haleakala is considered an active volcano, but it hasn’t erupted since 1790. It’s part of Haleakala National Park, and the summit is more than 10,000 feet above sea level. And for someone who hasn’t spent a great deal of time around mountains (me), it’s massive.

We drove up to the North shore of Maui and hung out at a beach park while we waited to be picked up for the tour.

Apparently, you haven’t lived until you’ve watched the sunrise from the summit of Haleakala, and there are several tour companies that offer to pick you up at your hotel at 2:00 in the morning and take you there. We passed on that option (though might do it on our next trip to Maui), and instead chose to bike down the volcano after the sun was already up with the guys from Maui Easy Riders.

The waves on this side of the island were much, much bigger than the south side (where our hotel was), and we saw several people out surfing.

We were picked up along with another couple from San Diego, and took a ride in a van for 40 minutes or so up the mountain. I don’t think the volcano is technically a mountain, but everyone seems to refer to it as one, so I will too.

The road to the summit is narrow, extremely winding, and (obviously) uphill.  Though our tour guides, appropriately named Billy and Billy, were really fun and engaging (and from Indianapolis!), I wasn’t feeling so hot by the time we reached the top. Right before we were let out of the van, we were handed a laminated sheet of paper with rules and guidelines for the tour. I stared out the window, pressing my nausea pressure points, and wondered if they were laminated because people had thrown up on them like I was about to do.

Fortunately, I was let out of the van just in time, and I puked off the cliff directly behind me in this photo. Thanks, Don, for capturing that memory AFTER it happened, and not during.

I felt quite a bit better after that and was ready to get on a bike. It’s a Maui County law that you have to wear a full-face helmet on these tours, so we put on our fancy motorcycle helmets and headed out.

It was COLD at the top of the mountain, and I immediately regretted my wardrobe selection. It was probably in the 40s, but the further we got down the mountain, the warmer it got and I took back my regret pretty quickly.

95% of the bike ride was downhill, and we almost never had to pedal. We coasted along, making hairpin turns that had me completely convinced I’d fall off my bike (I didn’t). Around every curve, we were hit with another breathtaking view. I muttered to myself the entire time about how amazing this experience was, and how I was so glad I wasn’t sitting by the pool instead.

Because we were going downhill, we were going pretty fast. The Billys told us that we’d average about 25 miles per hour, but hit 35 mph at one point. It certainly felt that fast and my heart was pumping hard the entire time. It felt like a 3-hour roller coaster ride. Clearly we weren’t allowed to take pictures while we were riding, but we did stop every 7 miles or so and the Billys were happy to take some photos for us.

I hate that you can’t tell how big my smile is in these photos. Enormous.

It took us about 4 hours to ride those 25 miles down Haleakala, back to the beach park where we’d left our Jeep. It was terrifying, exhilarating, and absolutely worth puking on a volcano. That morning ranks right up there on the list of favorite life experiences. I kept telling Don how very, very lucky I felt that we got to experience it.

Knowing we wouldn’t be able to top the awesome morning we’d had, we took it easy that afternoon and ordered fruity drinks by the pool, reading and dozing. We watched another sunset from the hot tub at the Serenity Pool.

That night, we asked the concierge for a pizza recommendation and landed at Matteo’s – an excellent choice. We ate leisurely, basked in the amazing day we’d had, appreciating Maui, and went to bed happy that night.

 95% of the bike ride was downhill, and we almost never had to pedal. We coasted along, making hairpin turns that had me completely convinced I’d fall off my bike (I didn’t). Around every curve, we were hit with another breathtaking view of Maui and the Pacific Ocean. I muttered to myself the entire time about how amazing this experience was, and how I was so glad I wasn’t sitting by the pool instead. As an added bonus, most of the route was lined with eucalyptus trees so we got a good dose of aromatherapy on the way down.