The Aloha Spirit

  Lahaina, Hawaii
Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Friends in high places
We head to the enchanted island of Maui, where one shore hosts tourists who shop in Beverly Hills style stores and sport recent plastic-surgery enhancements, and another shore transports tourists along a narrow and windy highway along a cliff to sacred Hawaiian waterfalls. We find ourselves among friends and friends of friends who demonstrate true aloha spirit and hospitality.
 
 
We stayed with Ryan's family in a classy hotel at Ka'napali Beach. We savored the pristine beaches, cliff diving, and fine dining. When we moved on to our friend Toben's house, we experienced more of a local perspective. Toben and his roommates were so welcoming, it was the friends we made in Maui that really set the island apart from the others. With them, we visited a spectacular blowhole fueled by massive waves, played improvised music at the Fuzz Box studio, and had a private sunset zip-line tour. 

NYE
New Years Eve is always a holiday that gets talked up to a point where the high expectations of a raging party are difficult to achieve. On January 30, 2007, the word circulating through the Maui telephone lines was that there was to be a very special party in the jungle on a remote coastal road. We gathered fireworks, champagne, turntables and speakers and headed to the YMCA on the Hana Highway. At 10:00 pm, the room was set up, and people began to trickle into the gymnasium dance floor. By midnight, there we enough people dancing and toasting to merit a worthy NYE party.
 
The sunrise exposed the land to be an epically scenic peninsula surrounded by blazing blue ocean and steep jungle cliffs. We spent first day of the new year harvesting coconuts and cleaning and painting the YMCA buildings. At the YMCA in mid-February, the same crew of friends will be facilitating a Burningman-style festival. Aaron and I plan to return to Maui Feb. 22nd for the festival.