As part of my little excursion to the I'oa Valley State Park, we stopped by the Maui Tropical Plantation. This plantation I though might be a nice stop and it could be cool to see a farm of tropical fruit and trees.
We arrived and the entrance to the plantation was a door which led you right into the gift shop. The only way to get into the plantation was through this gift shop which I thought was pretty tacky. I browsed around and took note of their products. Lots of coconut, taro and mango foods as well as many others.
I made my way to the entrance and noticed that they wern't only a plantation, they were also a low budget soap factory, a zipline service and also a chocolate factory. Upon seeing this I started to get the idea that this place might be a tourist trap. I held my tounge until I had seen the rest of the tour.
I walked over to where the Tram Tours were suppose to pick us up and waited for it to arrive. Next to us was a table with several wooden Tiki scupltures on it. Next to the table, was a gentleman handcarving these idols. They came in all sizes and styles and in different woods. He was also offering a service where he could make any engraving into the sculptures for you at a price.
While I was watching the gentleman carve another figurine, the Tram pulled up. It was a small tractor which was pulling several pea green, plastic compartments for passengers. It looked like somebody disassembled the tea cups at Disneyland and shipped them to Hawaii. I hopped into the very back compartment and took a seat.
The driver was a young-ish Hawaiian fellow who introduced himself as Eon. He wore dark sunglasses and as he went to take a head count, I figured out the guy was high as shit. He was making some strange noises as he took the head count and came off as kinda dopey. I crossed my fingers as the tram pulled out.
At a snails pace, we were taken through the Papaya plantation first. The trees were fairly small at only about 8 or 10 feet high. They looked like sticks out of the mud with the green and yellow fruit dripping out of the top like sap. At the very top were a few darker green leaves growing outward. The trees were kinda silly looking; like something out of a Dr. Suess illustration.
Moving on to the next plot, was a small area for the Pineapples. Red little bushes that almost ressembled Aloe Vera plants. We saw only one small Pineapple growing from them. Eon said that you can only get three good harvests from them, the third being the best, before you have you tear them out of the ground and replant.
We pulled forward a little further to a gazebo where we stopped and were asked to get out to observe a coconut husking demonstartion. We all gathered around and Eon grabbed himself a coconut and stood next to a table in the Gazebo. A young girl who was leading a seperate tour, asked for our attention and began to describe the coconut husking procedure. While she was doing this, Eon would go through the steps with the actual coconut with some help of a "Lowes pick axe" head bolted to the log stump table. The procedure I'll admit was entertaining but at the end when Eon finally cracked the hard interior and exposed the water and meat, we were dissapointed to find out that they were not going to let us try the meat or the water and poured the water onto the ground. We all got back onto the Tram and continued on.
We continued to the Coffee plants which they really only had a few of. Not the most exciting part of the tour. You could fit more plants into a suburban backyard.
The Tram moved on to the mango trees which were relatively small compared to the other mango trees that I had seen on the side of the road and peoples backyard. Eon described that these are a small variation of the mango trees and that they are easier to pick the fruit from. It being February, there were no fruit on any of the trees.
The last part we drove by was the macadamia nut trees. These were much larger than the mangos and on the ground, were hundreds of macademia nuts lying about. We stopped for a short while and some people stepped quickly out of the Tram and picked up a few off the ground. The actual nut was encased in a hard brown shell. In manufacturing, they would roast the nut until the hard exterior cracks and then they can remove the meat inside.
We pulled away from the Mac Nut trees and it dropped us off in the parking lot in front of the gift shop entrance. Even though some of the sights were semi-entertaining to watch, a lot of it was not very entertaining and I felt like it was really more of a tourist trap. The funny thing is though, is that your still in Hawaii - and even though the place pretty muched sucked, the fact of being in Hawaii and being surrounded by plants and tropical fruits had its own unique appeal. I would'nt go back.... or even recommend it, but any time spent in Hawaii is still time well spent. -DB
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