(view from our room)
When we first got there we were VERY tired from waking up so early and going to bed late the night before. One of the first things we did was take a nap. We woke up around 5pm-ish (Hawaii time), which was also about the time the sun was about to set. We walked down and checked out our beach and watched the sunset. It was soooo beautiful! We got really excited for the week ahead of us. We splashed our feet in the water and took a few pictures, and then took a walk down the beach before getting dinner. We enjoyed a sunset and walk on the beach almost every night we were there.
Early in the week we visited the "Maui Ocean Center". It was fun! I like that sort of thing, and Ryan enjoyed himself too, but I think it would be a fun place to go with kids. It seemed like something that James would love. We saw all kinds of fish, jelly fish, ocean creatures, sharks, turtles! It was cool. After we went to the Ocean Center, we drove a little ways out of the way to have dinner together at a Mexican food place that we read about in our book "Maui Revealed". It was SOOO good! There was a beach over there that looked fun, but more crowded than ours.
One morning we drove over to another beach where we went PARASAILING. It was AMAZING! It was probably our favorite part of the trip. It was kind of scary at first but once we were up there it kind of just felt like you were on a ski lift or something (but a REALLY high one!) There was a great view from up there. We saw all of the water, the mountains, and the fancy hotels from up there. SO MUCH FUN! The even dipped us into the water at one point! Afterward, we ate at a restaurant called Lelani's which had a great view of the beach. (That's also where we tried HULA PIE for the first time... Oreo crust. Vanilla ice cream. Macadamia nuts. YUM!
Another really fun thing that we did was we drove about 30 mins over to a natural blowhole. It's basically a big hole in the ground, and ocean waves come up under it and cause a huge spray of water. You have to hike down a little bit to get right by the blowhole, but it's also a really cool view from on top of the mountain. We decided to hike all the way down to it. It's not a bad hike at all, but I planned ahead with tennis shoes. You can go right up to the blowhole if you want to, but it's not all that safe to get too close because you could fall in and you'd probably die. I got about 3 feet away and would run away every time it spit out water. Ryan stayed back about 10 or 12 feet because you'd literally get SOAKED if you got any closer than that. I was as soaked as I would be if I had gone swimming under water. Haha. It was really, really fun. The drive there and back was also kinda cool because it looked more "rainforest-y" than the section of Maui that we stayed in. I don't think Ryan enjoyed driving on those tiny, windy roads! I made sure to grab our camera before we left. Unfortunately, I left the battery charging in the room sooo... yeah... I didn't get any pictures which I'm VERY bummed about!!!
Throughout the week we had a few other fun adventures. We bought some cheapy snorkel gear and went exploring in the ocean in front of our hotel. We didn't see any fish for a long time, but we were looking in the wrong place. Finally when we got tired and were headed back to the shore, we found a TON of fish! They were sooo pretty. It was really cool. Then we saw a SEA TURTLE just below us! Ryan claims it tried to chase and kill him. His boss who is an avid scuba diver told him that a sea turtle is about as agressive as a bunny. Still, he swears the turtle had red eyes and a severed human head in his "claw". Ummm. Okay. Still, we got nervous and swam away. haha! We saw Cirque De Polynesia show which was cool and weird all at once. They performers did some really cool tricks & stunts. There were some talented musicians. Although, the drummer looked like he was trying to look like Michael Jackson so I was obviously pretty frightened. We didn't get pulled up on stage, so that was good. :) We did a little bit of shopping on "Front Street" and visited a few of the ABC stores which are on almost every corner. They have some cheap, fun stuff and some suvioneer stuff too. On Front St, we found a cool restaurant that we ended up eating at a second time. It was called Cool Cat Cafe. YUM! It was tasty, affordable, and there was sometimes live music and a view of the famous Banyan tree.
We got a lot of rest, relaxation, good food and FUN adventures while we were there. It was awesome. The weather was perfect. I kind of wanted to MOVE there by our second day there. :) It was hard to leave!!!
(no, I don't know why I have a comb-over)
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