Road To Heaven And Hell

The road to Hana is known as the road to Heaven. The way back is known as the way to Hell, I think mainly because all of the more than 600 turns are on the outside edge of the cliff. It's a long way down and some sections are only one lane wide. It made for some tight squeezing past cars with no shoulder to allow for a margin of error. Lindsay drove the Heaven road and I drove the Hell route. Both ways were driven in torrential rain. I wonder for how many years I will have nightmares over this?

It didn't occur to us to bring an umbrella or rain coats. Even though the conditions were bad, this was Hana day, so we just got wet. What else can you do? We were on a schedule. We kept the heater on in the car to try and warm up between stops.

The rain did have one advantage. The waterfalls were huge, raging torrents of water and there must have been hundreds of them. Below are just three.

We had wanted to go swimming in Seven Pools. It is a series of seven water falls with a pool at the bottom of each one. On this day, instead of seven pools, there was just one raging creek roaring past on its way to the sea. The pools were off limits. I guess the Park Service is tired of scooping out the bodies that get washed down the falls and out to sea.

The trip was worth it. Wild guavas, bananas and papayas lined the road, along with flowers that are only seen growing in greenhouses here. There are few places I've been that are prettier. And, it only took us 9 hours to drive there and back. The road is less than 40 miles long.