To Maui

Not a big change of plans, I am flying to Maui for a hale building symposium and the Taro Festival, back early next week to Kauai. Both events are located around Hana, where I will be staying -- but not at the fabled Hana Hotel -- in a hale fittingly enough.

The symposium (invitation only) starts Tuesday with organization and practice, then five teams will have two and a half days to construct their 8 by 10 foot hale. Teams are provided with materials consisting only of wood, stone, leaves, and nylon cord or sennit for lashings. Tools are provided (this is the first event I have been invited to that specified, "no need to bring knives").

This will be my first trip to Maui since a visit long ago. A friend of my mother's had a condo at Kaʻanapali that we visited for spring break of my sophomore year I think. I recall the drive on the Road to Hana as an amazing display of tropical lushness the likes of which I had never seen: blue ocean on one side, green jungle to the other, and a waterfall at every winding turn.

Maui has a reputation of being heaving developed that has kept me away, but I have no doubt that Hana is far enough away from the resorts that it won't disappoint. Visiting Hanapepe last week, my friend from Maui remarked that Hana was like that but smaller. Of course the road has become a major tourist attraction, in volumes now unlike anything way back when, but I will have locals shuttling me through all that and get to sit back and watch it all.