Hannah is a joyful name to us, yeah to our dear grand girl.  But this Hana is of another variety.

A 25 minute flight drops us on Maui, the island most recommended by those who have been before .      Unlike most, though, we have opted to stay on the north shore, outside the town of Hana, a little populated rain-forested area (1200 souls) most known for the road to get here.   Hugging the volcanic coast for most of the way, the road dares you with over 617 u-turns, 51 one-lane bridges, and although no one flaunts this stat, there are almost no straight-aways in between.   The 48 mi drive can take between 2-5 hours one way.        We manage 9 miles in 40 minutes with no traffic.

The migration of return trip day tourists means traffic.     A young local guy with smiley eyes tells us there are often Mexican standoffs – with a local's car hugging the edge of the road, the tourist’s rental smack in the centre.     He says you just sit there until they figure it out and move over.     Says it helps when all the people behind start honking.          

We have landed in a nest as our home base – like an honest-to-goodness tree house (sans the tree) up on the mountainside, with windows surrounding us giving a panoramic view of untouched rainforest, the ocean in the distance and an ironwood wraparound deck .      

The cacophony of the local bird choir starts about 5 am and doesn’t stop unless rain interrupts or darkness descends.  A lightning storm in the wee hours was a cosmic cirque du soleil, and the deluge of rain afterward and a full-arch rainbow as the encore.      Wow.

The locals tend to be opt-outs of the commercial world.     One young couple grow enough coffee beans to have a coffee hut open on the road, but not enough to sell them unbrewed.     Another guy has a vegan coconut ice cream stand, which by the way was profiled by Conde Naste and also was rated as the second best vegan ice cream in the world (source unmentioned).  

The local fisherman Troy creates a stir anytime he puts up his surfboard sign on the road - means he'll be serving his catch at an open beach hut for lunch that day - usually only one or two days a week.    Banana bread stands pop up every few miles, as do "ice cold coconut" stands .      As one person put it, everyone makes their own work unless they work for the one hotel in town.        

Highlights here are the Seven Sacred Pools, a series of cascading waterfalls and pools great for jumping (despite grave warnings to not), swimming and climbing, beaches, like the black volcanic ash one, snorkeling and hiking – anything with water and nature abound here.     

Most people who come are hikers, surfers, nature lovers all of whom never want to leave.