Drving through the country in Maui is a vaction with in its own. I'm on a tour bus headed for the 'Ioa Valley State Park for a little sight seeing. Looking out the window and driving in and out of small towns, I admire the lush landscape as it whizzs by my window. The tour guide/bus driver is narrating the ride but her voice is so mono-tone, I find my mind drifting off. The ground and mountains behind them are covered in small, light green brush. Almost every inch seems to be covered only intill the reddish-orange dirt bleeds out from under it.
As we start up into the Mountains and closer to the 'Ioa Valley, trees seem to become more rampent. Large tropical trees start to cover the bus. Mango, Bread Fruit, Avacado, African Tulip and Banyans are some of the larger ones as well as the Hawaiian state tree: The Kukui nut. Flowers also start to close in on the bus as we gain more and more elevation. Finally we reach our destination.
I climbed out of the bus after about 25 slow moving senior citizens slowly shuffle their way to the exit. We are in the pit of the Valley here and on both sides of me the green monsters shoot up very quickly into the bright sky. To the right of me is a particular mountain formation which is unusual and different from the rest. Its skinny peak resembeles a mossy falic symbol but the sign in front of the park entrance states it as "The 'Ioa Needle".
I walked up one of what seems like several different trails. Trying to get by these geriatric, slow moving obsticles, I skip steps two by two, trying to get to the top as soon as possible. Before I knew it I was at the top. Just a look out at a slightly higher elevation. Nothing too exciting although it did give me a closer view of the needle for me to photograph.
I made my way down the steps when I was suddenly stopped by a old man in a baseball hat. He reconized me from the ship and as I tried to humor the man's coversation, I tried my best to cut it short so I could continue with other trails. He kept talking at me for a while and started somehow to talk about his horses. Right as I was about to strangle the guy, his wife sneaks up from behind me and asks me to take a photo of them infront of the valley. I gladly take her camerea/phone and take a photo. I give them back the camera and as the look at the photo, I ran back down the stairs with nothing more that a distant "Bye!".
Once again, jumping down the stairs two by two, I finally come to a fork in the trail and head down the other trail. It gets down lower into the valley and suddenly the large shade trees cover the sun. It startks to get dark. In the distance iI can hear running water to I make my way to it. Finally I make it to the streams edge and there are several people swimming it. I walked beside it slowly as to enjoy the sound and look of this beautiful stream (minus the dirty people washing their feet in it).
The trail by the stream is short lived and before I knew it, I was heading back up to the main trail. I got up to the main trail again and took the third and final trail down into the botanical garden. The first tree that I saw was the Kukui nut tree with a few ripe Kukui nuts still on it. The nuts were onced used a fuel to light candles in the early days of Hawaii. The forigners used to call it the Candlestick Tree as they were used to make candles and torches. They are also used as powerfull laxatives so needless to say, I didn't try to pick one up and eat one.
Kukui Nut Tree (Candlestick Tree)
The rest of the garden had a variety of Taro, Ti plants and Plumaria trees. The garden was very pleasent an peacefull. I had wished I had gone to this one first. It was a place you could imagine yourself living if you ever flipped out from the constant chaos of the modern world and needed a place you could put yourself back together. I spent a few minutes taking photos of the beautiful plants before I headed back for my bus. The visit was short but worth getting a glimpse into how the ancients may have seen the island for the very first time. -DB
Taro Plants
Taro
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