Maui Mahalo - The road to Hana

We had another early start today as our plan was to drive the whole south Island. The road to Hana is known for its beauty and it is one of Paul’s favorite trips. There were lots of amazing waterfalls along the way, some ranches and can farms, and many incredible plants along the way. Our only diversion before Hana was a stop at Kahanu Garden, home of the Hale O Pi’ilani Heiau, the largest sacred temple ruins in Hawaii. The site was breathtaking and I felt like I was at last connecting with some authentic Maui. You could definitely also see how the ahupua’a system worked. This was by far one of my favorite experiences in Maui. I hope to spend more time here and learn more about the site and ancient systems next time I’m here.

We had a short lunch in Hana and were then off again on our tour of the south island portion of Maui. There were lots more amazing plants and small villages along the way, some more taro farms and a beautiful old church near the seashore along the way. I was quite amazed at the change in biogeography on the route…from lush to complete desert. There were a few more small ruins along the way as well, demonstrating that the local peoples made use of all the island no matter what the conditions.

After a miserable but usual traffic jam from Kahalui (the main city on Maui) to Lahaina (the town just south of where we were staying) we made it back just in time to catch the Feast at Lele…essentially a Luau that featured food and dance from around Polynesia. WOW! Absolutely amazing. Being a conservation biologist that as in to culture as I am biology I was really blown away.

Maui Mahalo - Janet's Bio Beetle to Julias banana bread

Whoa! I think I’ve met at true force of nature in Maui. I came across Janet Six’s name and email when searching for “sustainable” and “maui” on Google. She’s a Ph. D candidate at University of Hawaii and is in charge of special projects at Maui Community College. One of MCC’s special projects is called Sustainable Living Institute of Maui. The project has a lot of great partners that ensure it will be a success including MCC, Steve Case, founder of AOL, the Maui Land & Pineapple Company, and Earth University. I think Janet, an archaeologist by education, knows EVERYTHING sustainable that has gone on and is going on in Maui, in Hawaii, and in many other island nations. She told us about how things used to work in Maui, dividing up resources in the ahupua’a system (a division of land from mountain top to sea shore that allowed groups to hunt, farm and fish) and how Maui is moving away from sugarcane as a primary monoculture and more towards other, more drought tolerant plants…including sunflowers which can be used as a biomass fuel source. Even better, Janet had just bought a new diesel Volkswagen Beetle and was going to be putting the first tank of biodiesel in the tank. Couldn’t pass up the photo op so we raced off with her to Pacific Biodiesel, the first biodiesel station in the US. She gave me many more sustainability contacts in Maui and the rest of Hawaii that I hope to meet up with during my trip. Janet also solved a great mystery for us. We noticed early on in our trip that the wiliwili trees all looked dead across the island. According to Janet, the Ethrina gall wasp, a stowaway from Taiwan, recently invaded the island and is responsible for the tree sickness. The wasps got the non-native Wiliwili's and has now spread to the native wiliwili forests. We’ve seen a few trees that are making a comeback, hopefully more will in the future. No question, Janet’s one of my new favorite people.

After the great morning with Janet it was off to tour the north part of Maui. Lots of beautiful scenery, winding roads, cattle ranching, taro farming and even a great pit stop for Julia’s best banana bread. The bread was great but it was also a chance for me to see taro farming up close. I’m fascinated at how resources were divided in earlier times and plan to spend a lot more time learning about Hawaiian practices past and present. The rest of the trip up north was mostly filled with more beautiful scenery and more resorts as we approached Kaanapali. One interesting story that we had heard and Janet retold us involved the Ritz Carleton Resort. Story goes that they were leveling the area by the shore with sandblaster for the resort foundation; before long bones started dropping out of the hillside. Over 1100 were unearthed before they stopped. Well, no surprise, the site was a sacred burial site. In the end, the bones had to be returned properly per proper ancient Hawaiian protocol, the ground reblessed and the hotel had to be moved up the hill. Thankfully, there is less of this sort of thing happening these days as the tourist industry has come to respect the local culture much more and the state has become much more aggressive about such sites.