This was our first day in French Polynesia, docking on the
main island of Tahiti, at the city Papeete.
(I think that is pronounced Pa-pay’ tay or Pa’ pee ay’ tay. But it is NOT Pa peet!!) I remember as a child this soft drink called
“Tahitian Treat”. I suspect it was just
carbonated fruit punch, but as a child I liked it, and I kind of wondered about
Tahiti, the place from which it was named.
Today I finally got to see it!
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| French Polynesian Francs (compared to USD) |
First, note that the country is French Polynesia. And the beautiful white sandy beaches that
many people imagine when they think of this place are really some of the other
islands, not Tahiti. Nothing against
Tahiti, but it has OK beaches, OK vistas, and OK scenery. (Theresa suggests it is more than “OK”.) But it is the place anyone flies into to get
to the other islands like, well, Moorea or Bora Bora for those amazing beaches.
The island is two round sections joined by an isthmus (much
like Maui, if you are familiar with that island). The bigger side is Tahiti Nui (or “big”
Tahiti) (also the name of the airline), and is where more of the population
lives. The smaller circle is Tahiti Iti
(“little” Tahiti). I think they said
180K people live on Tahiti.
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| Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia |
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| Not my proudest ride! |
After breakfast, we disembarked and headed through town to
the car rental place. It was about 5 blocks
or so, but on poorly signed streets.
This was NOT a well set up office.
We drew a number, 64, and they were on 59. But, it took about 20-25 minutes before it
was our turn. About twice as many people
came in after us as before, and they were getting surly as we left. Our car was…different. First, it was a Peugeot 105, which, if you
are not familiar with French cars, take note of that fact. Second, big things do not typically start
with a 1. But, to be fair, once inside
it actually had enough room for the two of us, and the back seat was MORE than
enough for our back pack and beach bag. It
also had air conditioning, which was appreciated. It had two wipers, but one was in the
back. But the most exciting thing was…the
metallic purple. Yes, I piloted a petite,
purple, plum-shaped Peugeot around Papeete in Polynesia; pretty proud! Theresa insisted on taking a picture, so
there goes a man-card!
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| Venus Point Beach |
Our first stop was at Venus Point, the Northernmost tip of
Tahiti Nui, where Capt. James Cook observed the planet Venus in 1769. They erected a giant tower there about 200
years later (and 150 years ago). It was
sort of a park and lots of people were out in the water swimming, fishing,
kayaking, surfing, and just sitting, in no particular fashion.
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| Unique tree with branches that delve into the ground. |
We continued around the island to the Arahoho
Blowholes. The island is basically all
volcanic rock, and in this area, the sea has worn large recesses in the
surface, and there are holes all the way to the surface. So, as the waves pound the rocky shore, it
drives air through these pores making a loud noise like someone blowing into a
pipe. It also makes some nice white
spray. On the rocks, we noticed
something moving around. It was really
hard to get a picture because the rocks were black, and so was whatever was
crawling on them. But, I did get one of
the larger ones…a crab!
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| Cute little guy on the rocks! (NOT!) |
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| Arahoho Blow Hole |
Just a little bit up the road, there was a turn off for the
Cascades de Tefaarumai (waterfalls).
There were three falls, one about 5 minute walk from the parking lot and
the other two about 45 minutes. The path
was chained and locked, so we chose not to do the walk. But, got a nice picture of the waterfall
anyways. Along the road to that point we
passed some homes, purportedly “typical” of the island. They were simple and small, and it seemed
like they didn’t spend much time in them, as everyone seemed to be walking
around the street, playing on it, etc.
But, it was also Saturday, so maybe that’s what they do. But there were LOTS of dogs and a few
chickens and roosters milling about as well.
The story of the waterfalls is that a royal family’s
daughter, Fauai, the most beautiful girl in the whole valley (of course) who
was off limits, (she was “tapu” which means “taboo”) was mad at her father and
ran away into the woods, found some magical guy, Ivi, (the “Genie of the
Valley), and asked him to take her away.
So, he took her to a place and caused the water to fall over them so
they could live forever behind the water and not be found. So, my question is…if we know that’s what
happened, why didn’t the father just look there?
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| This guy has rocks coming from both sides!! |
We continued along, and got to the isthmus between Nui and
Iti. There was a little road that headed
up Tahiti Iti, which was supposed to provide a great lookout of the
isthmus. Well, the road started out
widely paved. Then it became
narrower. And narrower. And arguably not so paved. There were potholes and chunks of asphalt
missing so large that we were scrapping the bottom of the car (although our
ground clearance was probably only 4 inches, so…). When another car came head on, one of us had
to depart the road. As my wheels dropped
off the edge, I heard an unhappy scraping sound, as it was farther down than
the wheel could go. But we made it. The view was … kind of neat. But there was nowhere to pull over, so we
didn’t get to stop and enjoy or take many pix.
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| LUNCH! |
Back down the mountain and then onto Nui, we were getting
hungry and decided to look for a place to eat.
No sooner than we agreed to find something, guess what came into
view!! It was horrendously expensive,
but everything seemed to be, and it was the first meal we had paid for in 5 or
6 days. Before we left, we made a pit
stop. Not a classy place here. You could, from JUST the right angle IN the
dining room, see the men’s urinals.
There was no door to the men’s room.
We had made a stop earlier at another site and found a similar
thing. In fact, picking up the car,
their restrooms were in a building outside, and as you walked in, it was the
first thing you saw.
Our next stop was Maraa Grotto, a cave that is eroded from
the ground water. There are actually
three of them, and the largest is actually about 30 feet high, 100 feet deep,
and 250 feet wide. A bus arrived just as
we got to the big one, and we found a couple was wading in, and being rather
close. Awkward…
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| Ignore the two people behind the rock! |
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| Temple (reconstructed) |
The artist Paul Gauguin retired here, and there was a museum
for him. We were running short on time,
and skipped that. We went on to a reconstructed
“temple” for the ancient Tahitians. It
was constructed of mostly round lava rocks, and was completely off limits to
women. So, I went “in”. Actually, it was completely open to the
outside, but in the “real” version, it would have had thick trees planted so
that from the outside it would have been hard to see the inside.
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| Bananas anyone? |
After returning the car, and going back to drop stuff in the
room, I headed back out and found a local beer to try. That pretty much wrapped up the day. Tomorrow is Easter and Moorea Island!
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| Notre Dame Cathedral (not the original!) |
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