Posted 7:25 PM by Alfred

MAUI day 3, Friday: The road less traveled, Hookipa beach, and Paia town

Woke up early, at about noon
Just thought that I had to be in Compton soon
Gotta get drunk before the day begins
Before my mother starts bitching about my friends

I just can't start the sentence "Woke up early" without going off into Eazy-E's "Boyz in the Hood."

But anyway, we did wake up pretty early, but not as early as the day before. Coffee and Nutri-Grain were hittin the spot like polka-dot.

Got on the road and headed North. Time to take the "road less traveled" as they call it, which is the road around the Northwest corner of Maui, to check out the sites and have some good times.

About fifteen minutes on the highway north out of Lahaina, after we passed through most of Kaanapali, we hit a turn-off to a beach, and thought we'd check it out. It was already 10 AM or so, and getting HOT. The beach was pretty cool, but the wind was kickin up like crazy, so we kinda lounged for a little while but ducked out after being coated in sand.

Back on the road. The scenery getting a little dryer and dryer. The ocean was to our left, and the highway started to climb up into the cliffsides. After a bit we spotted a turnout with a lot of cars. Using my same strategy from the Hana drive, like Sherlock Holmes I deduced there was something interesting there. We grabbed towels, goggles, magazines, etcetera, and walked down a staircase to a beach surrounded by cliffside. There were a lot of people snorkeling, so I grabbed my goggles and jumped in the water. After a short swim toward the reef area I was tripping out!! Never in my life had I seen so many different and beautiful varieties of fish. I waved to the wife to jump in and check this out.

Green fish, blue fish, yellow fish, multicolored rainbow fish, big fish, little fish. Even spotted a snake, which aren't even supposed to be in Hawaii. Maybe it was an eel, but it looked like a snake. Anyway, all these cool fish occupied our attention for a good 45 minutes. Supercool!! Like I said, I've hit up some pretty good snorkel spots, but this place beat anything I've ever seen. I'm pretty sure it was called Mokuleia Bay, in the Honokowai district.

So after lounging on the beach for a spell, we got back on the road again. After a while, the road started getting really narrow and sketchy, but the views were outstanding. Crazy valleys, cliffsides, the ocean, the mountains, all that good stuff. We passed a few little shave ice stands, souvenir shops, and one teeny-weeny little town, but there was nothing almost except dope scenery for the next few hours. Not as beautiful a drive as the Hana Road, but worth the time if you've got it. This road is crazy though, wild switchbacks, super-narrow, and blind turns. The whole drive is really high up, through the mountains, with the ocean on the left.

So after our crazy out-there drive, we rolled down the hill into Kahului and stopped off for some Guri Guri ice cream. This is some unique-ass ice cream, which they've only got on Maui. Just two flavors, strawberry and pineapple, it's like a weird combo of ice cream and sherbet and muy delicioso!! Hidden in a strip mall behind a Long's Drugs, worth it if you can find it. A little local secret.

Back on the road, headed toward Paia, which was on the road to Hana, and Hookipa Beach, which according the guidebook was a must-see. Passed through hippie-ville Paia and on to the beach. Parked and went to set up towels and chilling base. If you want to score some drugs, this is the spot. I was offered weed at least five times, and one guy, after I said no need for weed, was like "cocaine, amphetamines, whatchu need?"

"uh, I'm cool man, thanks."

Besides the drug dealers everywhere, this beach was really beautiful. There's only a small section of beach that hits the water, though. Most of the waterline is along a reef which fronts the sand. We had a nice mellow time kickin it though. This is definitely a locals beach though, and if you're intimidated by people with tattoos all over their body drinking beers and slanging drugs, then you might want to skip it. But don't get me wrong, no one was acting like dicks or anything like that, everyone was real mellow.

So after chilling for a while, it was getting towards 5 o'clock. So we headed into Paia to walk around and look for a place for dinner. This little town is really cool, kinda reminds me of a smaller Berkeley Telegraph district, but right by the beach and cleaner. We stopped in a hemp clothing shop and I made the mistake of striking up a conversation regarding weed legalization with the girl working there. These people can go on for hours. She busted out her copy of "The Emperor Wears No Clothes" and everything.

After extricating myself from the Hemp shop salesperson, we headed down the way. Lots of really nice looking restaurants, but we chose a little place called Jacque's. This was the best meal of the trip by far. The setting is dope. We sat outside, and could see the sunset as we ate, drank, and made merry. Mrs. P had Seafood Curry and I went for the rack of lamb. It was the BOMB!! Damn that food was good. I mean I'm chewing on my mousepad right now thinking about it.

So that was about it. Had a phat dinner, drank a phat NewCastle, watched a phat sunset, and headed back to the hotel. We even decided to hunt down a nightclub in Lahaina that night for little dancing. I was afraid Lahaina town would be dead after 10 PM, but we found a Moose McGillicuddy's a few blocks down that was BUMPIN. They even played Cypress Hill, so I was like, gyeah. So we danced, drank, and partied the night away. Good times.

Next on Alfie's travelogue: Day IV, Kihei, Wailea, Big Beach, and cruising in the Lava flow

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