The Seven Sacred Pools of Maui

Day 4 and our next stop would be Maui. Our flight was planning to leave at 8:29 am, and of course me wanting to be on time, I said we should get there no later than 7 am. We had a car to drop off, so give me a break. I don’t like feeling rushed or stressed when it comes to airports. Considering they already stress me out to begin with, being rushed to catch our flight would not help. We boarded the plane, and thankfully I had a seat next to Lucas. :) We got the usual Hawaiian Airlines juice cups, and had a quick 40 min flight to the Island of Maui. Once we arrived we grabbed our luggage and headed to the rental car station, which was extremely nice, might I add. It was definitely different than when Lucas and I were there 4 years ago. There was as train to and from the airport that took you to a parking garage building with all the rental cars and the companies. Really easy process, besides the fact that the line at the rental car place was really long, but we had gotten there just in time to beat the crowd. We picked up our mini van, Kona, which is what we named it. I don’t know if I mentioned in the first blog, but we named our car there, Hokulani.

Our first stop after the airport, would of course be some food. We headed to Paia, where we found a lovely quaint city, with a very delicious Coffee shop, Paia Bay Coffee. We walked into this place, and OMG, it was so stinking cute. When you walk in, you think its going to be an indoor restaurant, because there are walls around, a door etc, but when you walk inside the middle is completely open and outside, but covered by some trees, and partial pergolas. I said it in the vlog, and I will say it again, “if I lived here, I would go to this coffee shop ALL. THE. TIME.” There was a “bar” where you placed your order, and tables and chairs everywhere. The very middle section was on a lower level and there was a guy sitting there playing his Ukulele for us. He was great too. We all ordered some bagels, with salmon, avocado, bacon, sour cream, etc. You name it, it probably had it on there. Lucas and I shared a mocha with Mac milk. What is Mac Milk you ask? Well Hawaii is known for their macadamia nuts, so just like almond, cashew, coconut, milk, this milk is made of macadamia nuts! How cool?! And it was delicious. I swear they can make “milk” out of anything these days. We enjoyed our breakfast, and drinks, and sadly (for me) had to start making our way to Hana, because it would be a long and windy “Road to Hana” (see what I did there?)

We took some quick pics of the outside of the coffee shop, because there was a cool wall with a sea turtle mural on it, and packed into the car to begin the long drive. There are many different spots you can stop along the way to take some hikes, or see waterfalls, but we were saving that for the next day because we had a long drive ahead and lots planned for today (Road to Hana would take about 2 hours from where we were). Not going to lie, this road freaked me out. It was very twisty and turny, there were tons of cars going both ways, and some parts of the road were one lane. Several (and I mean SEVERAL) times you had to “yield” to on coming traffic, because there were sections of one lanes that would be going over bridges. The problem: half the time you couldn’t see if there was a car on the other side waiting for you or choosing to go. Let me just say, I am glad I wasn’t the one driving. Props to Lucas for the patience and skills because I was freaking out and wasn’t even the driver. I mean can you imagine if it was raining, or there was a flash flood? I feel like you would be screwed; and the roads are this way practically the entire 2 hour drive. KILL ME NOW. But we made it through with a quick pit stop in the actual city of Hana (our drive was taking us past Hana). We stopped at a little Thai food place on the side of the road, literally. It was like a food truck but not, because it was in a set location, but they definitely were making their food out of a truck. We scarfed down some Thai Food by Pranee, and then kept on our merry way. The city of Hana is very cute, but if I lived in Maui I would NOT want to live there. To get basically anything or do anything of importance you would have to drive two hours out and back, which to me is not worth it. But the locals love it, and are used to it.

Side note: while in Maui we saw signs everywhere for a missing woman, which made me so sad, because since we had been there she had already been missing for about 10 days. I figured there was no chance of them finding her. She was missing around the Road to Hana trails etc. Thankfully while in Oahu later that week they found the girl! Here is the article for the story about her, really incredible how she survived this.

As we continued on our way, we realized we were heading into Haleakala National Park, which was pretty cool because we had no idea that the pools and trails would be in the National Park. (You do have to pay for the National Park, so keep that in mind. We did have an annual pass, so we didn’t have to pay. You can purchase them at any National Park) Our first stop in the park would be to hike the Pipiwai Trail to the Bamboo Forest. Along the way there are several places you can go off the trail to see waterfalls etc. But here is the thing: it can be VERY dangerous, and people have died trying to do this. Please be careful and please take care of yourself and others with you. Don’t hike alone, especially if you want to do stupid things like not follow what the signs say. We had an argument among ourselves in regards to this (well mostly Lucas and Richie. I was only slightly involved, and Nate didn’t get into it like usual haha!). I want to be completely honest. Lucas and Nate, they are rule breakers, and are willing to test the limits. Richie and I, are cautious, realistic, and I am a HARD CORE ruler-follower. In a sense this is a good thing to have on a trip because it balances things out nicely. Anyway, I will say this argument did kind of ruin the hiking mood afterwards. We were maybe a half mile in and had more than half to go, Lucas and Richie were mad at each other, so that made things a little less fun. Don’t worry guys, we worked through it later on ;) The hike did continue on to the Waimoku Falls, which literally means, “flash flood falls”, which we heard is a beautiful place to see as well, so we would recommend it! But we were running short on time and wanted to go to the pools, so we didn’t make it to the falls (our main goal was the Bamboo FOrest anyway)

The Bamboo Forest was pretty dang cool. We passed over several bridges and through a “cave” which was the halfway point. It was literally just a bunch of random bamboo in the middle of the forest in the National Park. Pretty weird, but pretty cool. We took some fun pictures, and turned around to head back so we could visit the Seven Sacred Pools. Now, technically the pools were “closed” because after a big rainfall the water levels are much higher, and the bacteria ( in the water gets stirred up and is more likely to be in the pools (you can always calls this number: 808-572-4400 Option 2 to find out if the pools are closed the day you are going). Remember a paragraph before this, when I talked about rule breaking? Yeah. This time we all did it, along with many other people who were visiting. Usually when the pools are closed, they close the gate to the staircase leading down. BUT….its so easily able to be jumped over, so of course we did. I did not want to swim because of what the rules said (see rule follower). So instead, I took some pictures of the boys swimming, and Richie did some drone shots. The views were BEAUTIFUL. The pools started right below a beautiful arched bridge, and poured its way in different levels to the ocean water. Absolutely gorgeous. After watching the guys swim, and watching my watch because it was getting late, I decided to take one jump in, which I am glad that I did, because I can now say I swam there. FYI: it was colddddd water. We really REALLY enjoyed our time on this side of the National Park, and would go back in a heartbeat. We hadn’t eaten since earlier that day, so we had to find some food.

At this point it was getting pretty late, and the sun was going down. (The sun does go down earlier in Hawaii than in Dallas, TX) We started heading back, and had some sections of the pools to walk through that were a little rough. Nate had Richie grab the camera, and a couple minutes later, we see Richie go down, in the water, with the camera. Our first thought was to make sure he was okay because it looked like he took a pretty bad fall. The camera did end up in the water, but for literally a split second. Needless to say, the rest of the night we kept the camera off, so you will notice in our YouTube video (see link below) we stopped our day at the Sacred Pools because of this incident. And yes, Richie was OK, but he did feel a little sore after the fall.

Our only option for food was to drive 20 mins back to Hana and see if anywhere was open. Sadly by the time we got into the city it was so late that most places were closing right then or gearing towards closing. So we settled for a little restaurant that was open until 11pm I believe. Honestly I don’t remember what it was even called, because it wasn’t all that great, but hey it was food and it was open. Our waitress was funny, but not necessarily nice though. Let’s just say, she was feisty. We asked her what secret things there were to do around the area, which wasn’t a good idea, because she got feisty and said she didn’t know of any, and that people are idiots and try to do “secret” things and end up getting hurt and hospitalized. So we kind of ended the conversation there, but she was still funny and told us about her grand kids, and how she makes the two hour drive when she needs to etc. We still enjoyed her even though she kind of had an attitude haha!

We ate and paid for our meal (not worth the $ we ended up spending) and headed to Waianapanapa State Park where we would be camping for the night. At this point, it was late, dark, and we didn’t know exactly where we were going. When we got to the park, the parking for one was extremely limited and very confusing. We had a permit to camp here, but we didn’t think everyone else did which is why it was so overcrowded and didn’t have much parking. But, don’t let this part fool you, we LOVED this state park. While we were trying to squeeze our van into a spot that wasn’t actually a spot, Lucas ran over a tree stump and ended up pulling off part of the front fender by the tire, leaving it partially latched, and partially hanging off. Richie was able to nudge it back together though. At this point, we were all tired, frustrated, and ready for bed. Lucas was pretty mad at himself because he was afraid of what the rental car place would charge us for the damage (Comment below your thoughts: Did they charge us for it, or didn’t they? :D) He was able to cool off a little after and we got to set up camp (in the dark of course) and finally go to bed, which would be the end of Day 4 in Hawaii!

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