Short road from Hana is long on Paradise
[...] do not eat of the apple.
[...] do not drive the back side of Hana in a rental car.
Driving to the small town of Hana, a three-hour meander down an improbably narrow, twisty byway lined with Eden-inspired waterfalls and the kind of red and yellow flowers a kid buys for his prom date, is the grail quest of a trip to Maui.
The car rental companies all say turn around, you dope, what are you doing to our car?
Driving the back side of the Hana Highway “violates your rental agreement.”
If people read the fine print, they’d never do anything exciting, like journey to the moon or fall into the Pacific Ocean in a rental car.
There were rocks to drive around, branches to steer clear of, and gooey mud puddles that might have been deep enough to get stuck in.
Around the next blind curve could be a fellow dope equally determined to assume all liability, but coming in the opposite direction.
According to maps, it was the same Pacific Ocean that touches San Francisco.
Driving it was, for want of a better word, an adventure in a place where most other adventures — volcano bike descents, zip line flights, submarine voyages — tend to come pre-packaged at $100 a pop.
The narrow overgrown road opened up to long dry stretches that could pass for Highway 1 near Big Sur, minus the sea lions.
To the right, the flowers smelled like the lotion bottles in the gift shop, especially if you gazed at the breakers and listened to the crashing ...
A $24 bottle of pineapple wine signaled a return to the more familiar Hawaii born of the Enchanted Tiki Room.
The hardest part is avoiding a sheepish look when returning the rental car at the airport.
[...] with all the tourist taxes, collision waivers, facility fees and surcharges tacked on to most rental car bills, it’s clear that there are other, deeper deceptions in play.