Mōʻali

[muckefuck]

So, since nobody asked for them, here are my chief reactions from my first visit to Maui:

1. It's overwhelmingly rural. I mean, duh, but I didn't really think through what this meant in practice (such as cattle wandering around on the road to Hāna). Also, the contrast is so stark. There are stretches of the Honoapi'ilani Highway in West Maui where the makai (shoreward) side is solid homes and the mauka (upland) side is open pasture all the way to the slopes of the volcano. I was even told that the island supports the largest cattle ranch in the USA and, while I find this hard to credit, much of the interior doesn't have enough soil to support much else.
2. It's small. Again, duh, but the maps don't really give you a sense of scale, not like driving along Route 37 and realising you can see both coasts at once (a mere 12 km as the myna flies) will do. But--because of (1)--a 100 km can easily take two hours or more. By the end of the trip I learned to estimate travel time effectively but it was a steep learning curve.
3. It's incredibly diverse. Once again, duh, but nothing brings this home like a drive up and around the mountain. Monday we decided to go up to the summit of Haleakalā on a lark after hiking a bit in the ʻĪsao Valley, completely forgetting about the accompanying 20°C drop in temperature. On the way you see tropical rainforest, high desert, and just about everything else inbetween. I despaired of ever learning the name of more than a handful of the enormous number of plants species that thrive there.
4. Hawai'ian is ubiquitous. I didn't expect this. After all, Maui isn't Niʻihau. But there's hardly an Anglo toponym on the island. Not only were the historical names preserved but new ones continue to be given. And there's a widespread effort to use orthographically correct spellings (like the ones in this post); apparently the Park Service (which also produces bilingual brochures) made them official in 2000 and others are following suit. Even some imports commonly have Hawai'ian names there (like passionfruit, universally known as lilikoʻi).
5. Locovorism is in. I imagine the islands' close connexions to California are responsible for this. Regardless, I was struck by how often the word "LOCAL" appears on signs; even the most humble food shacks proudly displayed it and food stores segregated native produce from imported.