Maui Island Taxi Tour

Sunday, February 9, 2020

Today the ship docked in Kahului, on the island of Maui. We are here until 6 pm tomorrow.

imagecredit:http://www.illabirinto.com/travel/hawapic/maui/maui01.jpg

Maui is the second largest Hawaiian island and is called the Valley Isle because the center of the island sits between 2 huge volcanos. 

Maui is about 77 kms long and 42 kms wide. Population is 140,000 people.

The island Maui is named after the demigod Maui who is said to have pulled the Hawaiian Islands from the sea. Here he is from Disney's movie Moana:

imagecredit:https://www.bustle.com/articles/196388-all-of-mauis-tattoos-in-moana-show-how-culturally-important-the-demigod-is

Rather than take one of the ship's tours today, we pre-booked Nick's Taxi Tour.  We also found 2 other couples to join us, Rhonda and Roger and Kim and Irwin, which cut our cost significantly.  

A personalized trip in a 6 passenger van seemed a lot more appealing than a large bus tour, especially if we were going to tackle the famous Road to Hana!

The Road to Hana is an 87 km stretch of highway on the northeastern side of the island. The road was built by prisoners in the late 1920's, using small, rough pieces of hardened lava. It was paved in 1962.

imagecredit:https://joetourist.ca/the-road-to-hana/

The Road to Hana is a popular tourist destination with its parks, waterfalls, gardens, reserves, lookouts, and trails. The road has been known to be a bit dangerous because of its 59 bridges and 620 curves, and narrow lanes. 

imagecredit:https://www.bmwblog.com/2015/08/06/five-most-dangerous-roads-in-the-world/

These are called Painted Trees:

After lunch, Nick took us to the other side of the island, to some secret beaches.  

We passed by one beach that was gearing up for a BIG party tonight:

Back on board the ship, the show tonight brought local dancers on board for a Polynesian themed show.