Love your mother.

Oheo Gulch, or more commonly know as the Seven Sacred Pools (although there’s more than seven…) and a walk through the famous Bamboo Forest to a 400 foot waterfall, is claimed as a must see in the Hana area. Yesterday, Chelsea (she’s returned! ) Larissa and I ventured down the long stretch of road to that must see destination. Being a part of the Haleakala National Park and knowing some sort of payment would be charged, we cleverly squeezed in where the fence ended, and took a dip in one of the many pools. A nice change from salt water, these pools are fed from waterfalls, making it quite possibly one of the most refreshing swims I’ve ever taken. We even furthered that experience by washing off our already submerged bodies in a small fall directly emptying into the pool. Next off on our hike!

An INCREDIBLE hike through the bamboo forest left us in awe and I can’t even begin to interpret the powerful feeling of walking through hundreds of thousands ( I’m not exaggerating in the slightest bit) of skinny, yet amazingly strong bamboo trees. A slight darkness comes over you as you first walk in. The small, yet abundant canopies of bamboo trees let little amounts of light in, but once those tree tops start swaying, it’s a true testament to their strength. As soon as a wind blows, all of the thousand of trees in your vicinity, above your head and completely surrounding you, sway and rock, moving and spiraling around in the sky. A loud crackling sound echoes throughout, and if you didn’t know how tough these trees were, you’d probably be peeing you pants at the thought of them crashing down on you. The path leading through this miraculous forest lasted for about a mile (I could have walked it for hours,) and eventually it brought us to the 400 foot falls. My neck hurt by the end of this excursion if you haven’t guessed yet….  

 

An avid people watcher, I love to sit and watch the tourists that experience these natural wonders along with me, a tourist all the same. Before we hiked, we swam when the pools weren’t as crowded, just us and some gypsies who were hanging out and wishing for more Mary J. Later after the hike, we jumped back in, this time with families making sure their children were jumping far away enough from the rocks, couples deep in each others embrace at the top of picturesque falls, and other couples who seemed more concentrated on getting a perfect shot of each other under the falls than anything else… People are funny, but it’s this unspoken awe of Maui’s wonders that combines us all. That mother nature is somethin’ else…

Aloha. <3