There was a choice in how to return to Kihei.  We could drive back the way we came, retracing our steps, or continue along the backside of the island and make a complete loop.  The waitress at dinner the night before recommended the full loop.  We proceeded to go this way, despite the warnings about narrow roads, dirt roads and one lane bridges.  It turned out that all these warnings were greatly overblown.  Even the supposed unpaved part was minor and easy.  Our biggest issue was getting our car stuck in the mud before we even began our drive on the backside.

maui294I was driving and L’ wanted to find a waterfall that we did not see the day before.  She saw a driveway that might be a parking area to get to the waterfall and I turned in.  Thanks to the heavy rainfall the night before, the ground was wet and muddy.  The turn in was a mistake.  It was not a pull off, but just a random driveway and it was all muddy. We realized it didn’t seem right before we even got out of the car.  I put the car back in gear to drive us on our way, only the car didn’t move.  We were stick in the mud.

The two characters who were asking why we pulled in to their driveway were eventually helpful.  They helped pull our car back to the road and out of the mud (while I had my stress attack along with visions of our rental car flying down the cliff).  In the end the locals got us out and we gave them some money for their trouble. (Note that if you work for our rental car company and are reading this, none of the above actually happened).

maui278Back on our way, we stopped at a few pretty places on the road and had a glimpse of the waterfall we were trying to find in the morning (which was very neat – the waterfall went into the ocean).

The road was nowhere as bad as the hype, and it was quite easy.  We stopped at a Lavender farm Lonely Planet recommended and that was just okay.  We finally made it back to our hotel and it was good to be back in civilization again.  We had definitely earned our umbrella drinks today.

View all the trip photos here:

http://sanjoseabrams.com/photos/MauiDecember2010/