On the lighter side-Travel-Maui-Hawaii-6

Once we had the reservation in place, we had to go to sleep early since our bus was supposed to come around 2.30 am. We got up as we had paid more than 360 dollars to get the seats which included coffee and some snacks on the bus and on the way back a breakfast at a restaurant. Not bad for the trip, but not cheap either. Our bus came on time and we boarded it. We were extremely lucky which we found out later during our trip that the bus driver was a Native Hawaii and he was also a professor of history at the University of Hawaii and he was really passionately about the history of his homeland and also very funny (and informatively talkative which was good to kill the time on our way). He told that we had to go as early as possible since after around 400 people the National Park Service does not allow more people and they close their gates for the next day. Our bus started to travel to the top of the mountain in the darkness of light, as we saw some cars also moving ahead and behind us. We were told that since the Park Service wanted to keep the area as natural as possible, there were no barriers on the side of the road which seems unusually scary for me at least as I dared not look down from my bus as you can see lights in the far away down below. But in no time we reach the place where there was a parking spot for all the cars at 9,740 feet above sea level. We were told initially that at the level, we are breathing 25 percent less oxygen but I did not felt any lessening of oxygen. Maybe it was because it was too cold for me to worry about oxygen as we were forewarned to bring sweaters and any blankets to bundle ourselves at that height as the temperature may fall below freezing level.