Assuming all liability is best route in paradise
The rules in paradise are no secret. First, do not eat of the apple. Second, do not drive the back side of Hana in a rental car.
The human species doesn’t obey rules in paradise.
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. But after you get there, you’re supposed to turn around and go back the way you came.
“The heck with that,” my wife said. “Let’s keep going.”
The road does continue, all the way around the eastern tip of the island in a giant loop, but its condition is said to get worse. Lots worse. Rumors thunder, loud and ominous, like the drums at an all-youcan-eat luau. It’s a one-lane dirt road. There are perilous cliffs. You’ll get stuck. You’ll plummet into the sea. You’ll get stranded. Go back. Last chance. Abandon all hope, ye who enter.
The car rental companies all say turn around, you dope, what are you doing to our car? It’s in the fine print. Driving the back side of the Hana Highway “violates your rental agreement.” Driver “assumes all liability.” 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.
We set off the other morning at daybreak. Past Hana is the shack that sells huli huli chicken, whatever that is, and the seven sort-of sacred pools and their sacred picnic trash. Then comes the Place Where You’re Supposed to Make a U-Turn.
“Straight ahead,” my wife said.
Right away, the road got lumpy and bumpy, like macadamia brittle. 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. It was a one-lane road with twoway traffic, and it was about as wide as a ukulele string.
On a road like that, you beep. Most of Maui is too tranquil to beep a car horn. Not the back side of Hana. Around the next blind curve could be a fellow dope equally determined to assume all liability, but coming in the opposite direction. Beep. Beep. Beep. The hairpin turns got hairier. The potholes got pottier and the blind corners blinder. The road hugged a ledge between a cliff face and the sea. There was the barest suggestion of a guardrail, full of rust holes, more porous than a chunk of lava from Haleakala on high. Had we struck it, it would have bid us a fond farewell.
On the other side of it was the Pacific Ocean, all right. According to maps, it was the same Pacific Ocean that touches San Francisco. But its horizon was farther, its azure-ness more azure. Could this exotic body of water be the same one that got its start at the end of Taraval Street?
“This is the best part of the whole trip,” my wife said.
The driver was too busy not running into things to notice the things he wasn’t running into. But it was true. The backside of the Hana Road turns out to be worth the broken legal covenant and the frazzled nerves. It was a long, slow, sinuous way from any place selling three-packs of Mauna Loa cans. It was 50 miles from the nearest Hilo Hattie franchise. 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 islands looked like clouds, the clouds looked like islands. Seabirds swooped. The foliage swayed like grass skirts. 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 ...
“You’re watching the road, aren’t you?” came the voice from the other seat.
That broke the spell and so did the appearance of the Ulupalakua souvenir store and pineapple winery, about two hours after leaving Hana. A $24 bottle of pineapple wine signaled a return to the more familiar Hawaii born of the Enchanted Tiki Room.
It turns out that the slow drive around the back side of Hana, while not for everyone, is neither impassable nor impossible. The sketchy, gravelly parts are short. Most stretches have been paved, albeit in a decade long ago. Most of the potholes have been filled, sort of. Successfully assuming all liability is not as tough as it sounds.
The hardest part is avoiding a sheepish look when returning the rental car at the airport. But 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.