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All those frequent flier miles from all those trips to Australia came in very handy; we got the two of us from Philadelphia to Maui for a mere $20. Sweet.
We left very very very early this morning and watched the sun rise over the airport parking lot before taking our first leg to Denver. I'd hardly slept at all last night because of a fever...
(Okay, let me just stop there for a second. While I'm on a whinge about how we never get to go anywhere just for vacation and all that rot, I would also like it noted for the record that I almost always get sick on vacation. In fact, as far as I can tell, I only get sick on vacation. Remember that France trip from last year? Fever and chills. Tasmania? Head cold. Melbourne? Horrible nausea. My honeymoon? Don't even ask. It's like my body can manage to keep it together while it's being distracted by work, but as soon as I let my guard down and start to relax a little --- bam! So unfair. Anyway. Sorry to interrupt you there, let's get back to the program.)
...so I slept for pretty much that entire flight. We had a bit of lunch during our stopover, then boarded up again for the seven-and-a-half hour flight to Maui. That should seem like child's play after the trans-Pacific flights we're used to, but it's still a long damn time. Luckily, the movies were good (the True Grit remake and The King's Speech), and the flight crew provided their own little distraction in the form of the "Halfway to Hawai'i" contest. The goal was to calculate at what time we would pass over the halfway point between Denver and Maui, given the distance, time of departure, air speed, and headwind, which were announced by the pilot. Michael made the calculations on his napkin, but it's a good thing I was there to check his math: 3.46 hours is not the same as 3 hours and 46 minutes, pal. But with a little more fiddling we came up with the exact answer, which Michael submitted as his entry. I
figured that, because there was a slight headwind, we wouldn't make it to the halfway point in quite that time, so I added 7 minutes to the exact answer and turned it in. And I won! I was within 18 seconds of the true time, and collected a bottle of wine for my troubles. (The brochure for the contest said I'd win a ukelele CD, but this was definitely better.)
When we arrived in Maui, we picked up our rental car and headed up the coast to our --- well, I'm not sure whether to call it a hotel, really. Judge for yourselves:
Those are some pictures from the website of the place we stayed, the Maui Eco Retreat (also known as Kahua O’Malio, which means "a place of happiness and comfort"). Unlike the huge resort hotels, which are located on the south and west coasts of the island, the Retreat is on the north side, where actual people live --- presuming you're happy calling leftover hippies and hardcore windsurfers "actual people." The idea was to go off the grid for a while, avoid paying $400 a night for some nice but anonymous hotel, and actually get to know the island as the residents might. Also, we booked a room with a kitchen, so we planned to eat in quite a bit in order to save on food costs. Plus, after flying so much to get there, it felt good to stay in a place that ran on 100% solar power. So, literally off the grid.
Given that we had a kitchen (and a bottle of wine!) we stopped in the closest major town to the Retreat, Pa'ia, to pick up some groceries for the next few days at the Mana Food Market. The prices were horribly steep, but the selection was good and the crowd was pretty much what we expected: think Whole Foods after being squeezed through a Grateful Dead concert, with a side order of hemp. (Or is that redundant?) We also stopped at the overlook at Ho'okipa Beach, famed as one of the best and most dangerous windsurfing spots in the world, to get our first view of the ocean. Then it was on to the Retreat.
If you want to get a feel for how that part of trip went, you should really check out the Directions page on the Retreat's website. They kinda lost me at the part where you turn off the second dirt road onto the third dirt road and bear right at the statue of the Hindu goddess of music. Thank goodness Michael was driving.
Here's a view of the turnoff to the road (ha!) to the bamboo farm where the Retreat is located. They call it "the magical driveway." Right, because it takes some magic to find the damn thing. (Oh, and because they're stoned, but that should go without saying.)
After many a bump, we finally made it to a grassy area that seemed to qualify as the parking lot, but there wasn't anyone at the reception desk. More precisely, there wasn't any reception desk to speak of. There was just a lawn with some statues and a gazebo and a yellow house draped with Tibetan flags. The wind was whipping through the trees and kicking up dust, and the flags were snapping happily, but not a soul in sight. Okay...
As we were looking around in consternation, we were spotted by one of the "interns," a young man of indeterminate hair color who was somehow managing to be more bleary-eyed and confused that we were, despite the fact that we'd been flying for over twelve hours and driving for two on about six hours of non-restful plane-seat sleep. We told him we were there to check in and asked him where we could find Rafael, the owner, with whom we'd made the arrangements. He didn't know. He beckoned a second intern who offered the opinion that Rafael was, um, probably in his tent, but he could totally check on that for us. They both disappeared and returned a few minutes later without Rafael but with a middle-aged woman who had lost her reading glasses but was nevertheless trying to read a printout of our reservation that had been left on the breakfast bar in the house.
At some point during this transaction, the first guy, in a nice but misguided attempt to be helpful, suggested that we could just take our stuff down to our room and Rafael could, like, come find us later. Sure, we could do that...if only we knew where our room was. It took a minute for that one to sink in for him, but eventually he handed us a map of the property and showed us down a winding path behind the yellow house to a lower lawn, where we found our accommodations. Thanks! But we can't get the car or our luggage down that way, so could you...nevermind, he's gone.
To make a long story short (too late), we managed to find our driveway and our parking spot in spite of their help, and unloaded the groceries and our luggage. We unpacked, opened the wine, and cooked a simple pasta dinner. To my surprise, as we were settling in, Rafael did indeed stop by to welcome us and give us a brief orientation to the room. Then we had dinner and sat on the floor in front of the big picture window, watching the moon gild the palm fronds. It's been terribly windy all day, the room feels a bit like we're on a ship being tossed in a tropical tempest. Well, it may be unconventional, but it sure is lovely.
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