Maui Part 3....

Wow, it has been a while. Sorry everyone!

Here is the 3rd and last leg of our Maui trip. It was amazing! When Andrey and I travel we love to get in with the locals and experience the lifestyle they live, instead of doing the normal tourist-e stuff.

On Maui in the mountains is a place called Iao Valley. This valley features the "Iao Needle", which is a natural rock pinnacle that presides over the Iao stream and is surrounded by walls of the Pu'u Kukui Crater. It was once used as a natural alter. It stands at 2,250 feet and is a pure stone pillar made of basaltic core that has survived eons of swirling water, and is covered in green. It is a magical place and the stream has natural ponds, where locals go to soak. Nikolai loved it. The pictures are nothing to what it really looked like. I tried and tried and tried to capture the real ambiance of the place but couldn't. Andrey finally told me to just give up, so I did! (I guess I need to borrow my sister new camera $$$ which would have captured the true setting!!)

The Pinnacle The Ponds We also found ourselves going to the Maui Aquarium. It was a place that Nikolai loved. He loved it so much we bought a week pass for ourselves. OK, I won't lie we loved it too! The Aquarium had a sea turtle lagoon, hammer-head shark exhibit, and a HUGE 54-foot-long clear acrylic tunnel that transports you through this underwater realm, giving a 240-degree view of nearly 2,000 fishes. All while stingrays, eagle rays, puffers are swimming over your head and you can look sharks right in the eyes as they swim over and around you. It is a 750,000-gallon salt-water aquarium. Aww...We loved it!

In this video clip it shows how excited Nikolai was when he was in the tunnel with all the fish swimming all around him. But if you notice Andrey has him pinned between his arms so I could get a clip. Other wise, he was running up and down the tunnel pointing, jumping, running, to see everything it was hularious. One day we spend an hour just in there.