More on Maui - day 2

Starting on our second day in Paradise, we sat outside and ate breakfast overlooking the Hana Bay. I had seen on Martha a story on pineapples, and she had said that the most sweetest, the BEST pineapple where from Maui. So of course, being a Martha follower, I had to try one. Boy, was she right. We had a "Maui Gold" pineapple for breakfast and we ate the entire pineapple. So sweet.

The flower above is a Plumeria flower. These are absolutely the most sweetest smelling flowers I have ever smelled. I saw fallen petals on the ground and had wished I had picked up more. Later on in the trip in Kauai, I actually bought some linen spray that is made from boiling of these flowers in Kauai, and then they extract the oils out of it. So beautiful!

Anyways, after eating our yummy Maui Gold pineapple, we left behind our Yurt and continued our drive east on the Maui Coast. We were going beyond Hana and our destination was the 7 sacred pools. This is a state park that has pools of water descending from the mountain into the ocean. There are more than 7 but the story behind it went something like this: Each of these 7 pools represented one aspect of your spiritual soul and if you swam through each of these 7 pools in the correct order your soul would be cleansed. We did not swim in these pools because of the high rip tides due to it being winter. But it was a great adventure getting to these pools, or the O'heo Gulch as it is otherwise known.

So, our first stop that morning, along what turned into a ONE lane highway along the coast, as we ascended the mountain WITHOUT a guard rail, was Hamona Beach. It was already a beautiful morning and it was probably about 8:30, so we decided to go for a morning swim. Ahhh, to feel the ocean water on your skin. A strange sensation, scared at first with the chill of the water and then refreshing and enticing once you get the courage to take the plunge. Such a great feeling first thing in the morning.

This next picture is for my friend Leanne, to see that they too have cows in Hawaii. In fact, Maui has a large amount of beef cattle, that are exported for sale on the Mainland. You can see that on this Sunday morning, these cows had decided to go for a stroll, taking our road. We met them actually on a one lane bridge. Quite a sight to see some cows sitting on a bridge in a tropical paradise.

Along this beautiful drive, which was somewhat nerve racking, because of the inability to see around corners and that the ocean was below us, or a rocky cliff, we did see some spectacular sights. Here is one of the water falls and ocean views that we saw along that drive.

Our destination of the 7 sacred pools, where we ran into Canadians from a town near Pickering where Ryan grew up, Courtice. Sure does show you how small of a world it is. The second picture is of the ocean where the pools dump out in to. You can see that there was a strong current that day. I read in one book that the sharks hang out down there and wait for the people who get swept out to sea! I don't know how truthful that really is though.









After that we hopped back into our convertible and headed back the way we came towards the town of Wailea. The road that continues around the island is pretty tricky to drive, as roads get washed out over there and stuff. We actually heard that due to the earthquake that hit Hawaii in the fall, some of the bridges were out. As well, rental companies won't insure your if you drive down this road, so we opted to go back the way we came.

We got to our hotel, which was the Renaissance Beach Resort and it was somewhat overcast. We went swimming in the ocean and then spent the rest of the afternoon soaking in the hot tub. We had some tropical drinks and some chips and salsa, yummy! Around sunset we headed down to the beach, wrapped up in our towels and cuddled up to watch the sunset.

We then had a real low key night, we actually had a prime room. We had an ocean view room that we were able to hear the live Hawaiian music from our lanai (balcony). So we decided to have room service to our balcony and have a private dinner which had live music. Here I am enjoying my room service. I love room service, I always want to get it. Something mesmerizing about a person bringing you warm food to your room and you don't have to lift a finger.

We did find the best dessert that night - Hula Pie. It is like a ice cream pie with macadamia nuts and a chocolate wafer crust. So good! I am going to try to make it... I think you can put some pineapple on it as a topping.

Hula Pie

Posted by Shaz at Recipes To Go

1 box Oreo cookies

3 ounces melted butter

1/2 gallon macadamia nut ice cream

Heavy, dark chocolate fudge topping

Diced macadamia nuts

Whipped cream

Grind cookies to the consistency of ground coffee. Blend in butter. Press firmly onto the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan or cake pan. Freeze until hard.Soften ice cream until you can mold it with a spatula or large "putty knife." Fill cake pan evenly, molding an even dome of ice cream. Freeze 4 hours or until very hard. Spread with dark fudge topping (use hot water to smooth it) as thick as you like. Freeze for 1 hour, unmold, cut with hot, wet knife and garnish with nuts and whipped cream.

Serves 8-12.