Crazy Germans

4AM (!!!) in the morning, the alarm clock went off, and four grumpy and unkempt Germans got ready to make it up to the Haleakala Crater just in time to see the sun rise. It is a 90 min drive up a windy road in the dark, but it turned out that we were not the only crazy people with that idea. Tourists!

It was a bit nippy, so we had put on several layers that we would shed as soon as the sun rays heat up the red and black volcanic ash. While smart Andrea even brought gloves, the rest of us flatly refused to bring anything warmer than t-shirts, jeans and rain jacket to Maui. Hence, I must have looked quite funny wrapped up in my beach towel.

Watching the sun rise is always rewarding, and elevates the spirit. Although we were all craving for strong coffee going with the sandwiches we had packed, we took our time and explored the crater some more.

The air was quite thin, and we were a bit out of breath from running around (which we were of course not supposed to do in this elevation) but it was well worth the effort to be on top of the world, well make that on top of Maui instead.

Here I was still in some wrappers but already sans beach towel.

Finally back in the car we cranked up the heat, removed our layers and demanded our GPS to lead us to the nearest Starbucks, stat.