Story and pictures by guest writers Nancy and Eric Anderson
George Kahumoku, Jr. has won four GRAMMY Awards. Hosting the Slack Key Show at the Napili Kai Beach Resort and playing his guitar with Richard Ho’opi’i, a Fellow of the National Endowment of the Arts Folk Heritage, you would expect their conversation to be about music. But no, George K wants to tell us about the land. “I’m a musician by night,” he says, “but a farmer and a teacher by day.” And Richard H wants to advise visitors how to see his Maui: “Instead of taking an organized tour,” he says as he detunes his ukulele for the slack keys performance, “rent a car and travel through the villages most tourists miss. Stop and talk to the people who were raised on Hawaii. Ask them their history and about their families.”
We ask the musicians about theirs, George K has 15 children and 34 grandchildren; he has had five wives. Richard H (on the left in the photograph) and his wife (doing the hula for us) have six children, 18 grandchildren and two great grandchildren. We resolve, first, family is important to Hawaiians and, second, a great grandmother can still look gorgeous dancing the hula.
OK, we’ve got the car. Where do we go?
First, pick up some maps at the airport; the best one is probably the Drive Maui map offered free by Air Maui. Head to Paia about four miles away. Paia is Old Hawaii, a funky town, its residents surfers from the nearby Ho’okipa Beach, merchants selling ice cream and hand-crafted jewelry, and professionals offering psychic counseling and real estate advice. You can buy organic food here and antiques in this town that time has passed by and, more to the point, get a great crepes breakfast at the Café des Amis, one block off the Hana Highway, South on Baldwin Ave.
Leave the long drive to Hana for another day and take Baldwin Avenue. It leads into Maui’s celebrated Upcountry, the Hidden Hawaii that lies on the slopes of Maui’s extinct volcano, Haleakala.
Makawao is one of the paniolo Hawaiian cowboy towns on the way. There you will find a general store and an old fashioned barber shop, a yoga center and a heath food store, a Chinese herbalist and a cappuccino counter — and a restaurant where, by chance, a notice that invites patrons to “Take your seat, we will be right with you” is posted closer to the toilet than the dining room tables! Here are art galleries whose owners brag: “Makawao has been called the Sedona of the Pacific. Visitors coming this far into the interior are discriminating about art. They have done their research and are great customers.” The Upcountry is a hoot and when they say “Hawaii is more than a beach” Makawao proves it.
Chris Lowry has been blowing glass for over 25 years. Like all artists he is clearly a romantic but does not want you to know it. Asked if he gives names to the glassware he has created and if it hurts to let them go, he smiles and says, “No, I’m getting rid of my mistakes!” He picks up a gorgeous piece and says, “Names? This is a lava tube amphora vase, 20 inches tall and weighing 20 lbs. Its colors are 23 and 45.” He looks wistfully at it. This is an artist who bonds with his work.
Billy Campbell is a man who bends with his work. He is bending over his bicycles as we go by. This, on the side of a volcano, not a place as flat as Amsterdam. “Why so many bikes?” we ask him. “So you can bike down our volcano,” he replies. “We’re Easy Riders, the first biking company to set up on Maui in 10 years. We’re small so we cater for small groups. That means you have more fun!” He pauses and says earnestly, “We bike the most miles in the business.” With memories of how our buttocks felt after the famous Molokai Mule Ride, we ask, “What does that mean?” He explains: His company runs the trip from the crater all the way down to Baldwin Beach, 25 miles. Any farther and you’d be in the surf. One of his four competitors offers rides less than 14 miles. His company, only four months on the island, has new bikes, made in America and specially designed for this ride — and is owner-operated. Ah! The enthusiasm of young entrepreneurs.
And the enthusiasm of visitors who come to Maui! A comparative study once showed tourists who come to Oahu arrive with long lists of things to do: shops, restaurants, night life. Visitors to Maui arrive with hiking boots, golf clubs and snorkel gear. Maui has different attractions.
If you wander a little you’ll get on the road to Pukalani. Ask a local where you might find the mother of all antique and junk dealers: Endangered Pieces. The store itself (“Furniture, art, crystal, bronze, copper, fountains, stone carvings, planters, gates) is on the right as you drive along but they sometimes close early. If so, they have ten warehouses still open up the side street on the left across from the store. Such stuff! You might feel like a poor relative of William Randolph Hearst when he pillaged the warehouses of Europe to fill Hearst Castle.
Get back on Highway 37, the Kula Highway, and take it about 15 country miles to about as far as you’d want to go on this winding road that overlooks Wailea and Makena. There’s no connection with the coastal road below so you’ll be heading back the same road but first comes Ulupalakua, the famous ranch of 23,000 acres developed by a whaling captain, James Makee in 1856. Makee nearly died aboard his whaler, Maine, when, in 1843, he was viciously attacked by the ship’s cook using a cleaver. After he recovered he put down roots on Maui and became a successful business man. The country store is worth a visit: it seems to sell everything. Sit on its lanai with a sandwich and maybe a bottle of wine bought at the Tedeschi Winery across the street.
State laws seem to prohibit private signs on the byways so before you leave Ulupalakua ask for directions to the nearby Ali’i Lavender Farm. The farm with its 12 perfumed acres was always a favorite on our visits to Maui but unfortunately Ali’i Chang, the remarkable and gentle Hawaiian who co-owned and ran it, died two weeks after we had a cup of tea (and of course a Scottish-style scone) with him this visit.
At a time when Maui is creating great interest among its farmers in developing their fields, it was fascinating to hear him talk so lovingly about his land. “If I’m working with a plant,” he said, “Everything has to be done just right. When I put a plant into the ground I want it to look like it just had a facial!”
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