French Polynesia

Not having a clue if the tour we had booked was going to turn up, and if so at what time, we got up at 6:45am and by 7:15am we were packed, our luggage dumped in the storage facility in the accommodation, and we waited for the tour to turn up.

And waited

And waited

And waited

By 8:45am, we had pretty much given up hope of anyone coming to pick us up. In a last desperate attempt to find out, we managed to find the telephone number for the company and I headed off to the reception area to find a phone.

The woman behind the counter didn’t speak English, but I understood enough French to know she was telling me there was a payphone around the corner and I would need to buy a phonecard for the equivalent of 5 Euros. Now, strangely enough, I didn’t particularly want to spend 5 Euros on a phone call so, playing the dumb foreigner routine to the best of my abilities (not hard to do!), I pretended not to understand a word she was saying! And (begrudgingly) she just dialled the number herself on the reception phone, thrusting it in my direction! So, 5 Euros saved there! And even better, the company confirmed we were on the tour and it would be arriving in 5 minutes! So thankfully we didn’t have to stay in hell for another second!

Our minibus arrived and we were off to explore the island. Our first stop was at a large resort hotel to pick up other passengers. However, as they were not there when we arrived, the woman driving and doing the tour, Angele, told us we could have ten minutes exploring the resort whilst she located them.

Straight away we began to realise what a different experience we would have had if staying in a resort like this. Although the price of a room here was five times the price we had paid last night, it was worth the extra. The swimming pool area in particular was pure luxurious, with an endless pool running into the sea and backdropped by another island in French Polynesia, Moorea.

Eventually, Angele had rounded up the missing passengers so we were off! The route we followed was clockwise around the island, starting at the main/ only town in Tahiti, Papeete. And the tour guide/ driver Angele was mad. Claiming an ancestral heritage that included, Scottish, Italian, German, English and Tahitian Royalty, she was extremely entertaining. She constantly referred to everyone as now being part of the AngelFruitSaladHeinz57MeltingPot Family. So you can see it wasn’t a dry and boring commentary! She told us that in Tahitian every vowel in a word was pronounced, (making our current position of Punaauia which is pronounced Pu-na-a-oo-ee-a sound more like an episode of Countdown than a place!). And in a stroke, with her cheery manner she’d made us forget about the negative experience of our accommodation and start to enjoy ourselves.

And our first true impression of Tahiti, discounting the negative feelings we had yesterday, was that it was a very picturesque island, with mountains in the centre dominating the views and lush tropical hills running down to the South Pacific Ocean.

Its natural beauty was confirmed at our first stop of the day, at a lookout point around 20 minutes round the coast from Papeete.

Again, we could see the fringe coral reef around the island, which increasingly seems to be a feature of the tropical islands we have seen.

In a pattern that was to be repeated several times in the day, we got back onto the minibus, only for it to drive for five minutes before we had to get off again! This next stop was at a small beach and lighthouse, where Captain Cook had stood at one point in time and which was also associated with Captain Bligh of “Mutiny on the Bounty” infamy. The place was called Pointe Venus, and the lighthouse itself had been built by the writer of “Treasure Island”, Robert Louis Stephenson’s father in 1867. Although quite a simple structure, it’s location among the tropical palm trees lent it a certain splendour.

We walked past the lighthouse, past some boats towards a bridge by the sea

and then got to sit on a black volcanic beach with spectacular views of the mountains.

As is always the case though on these sorts of trips, we didn’t have chance to relax before we were heading off to our next destination.

This was a blowhole, about another twenty minutes down the road. We’ve seen several blowholes on this trip so far, and this was like all the others; a bit of a disappointment. In the case of this one, the tide was very low and so the nearest we got to blowhole action was watching the waves smack against the rocks below. Across a busy, dangerous road, on a tight corner, there was a jet of air being shot up from the blowhole through a lava tube, but we would have been dicing with death to even get near it. Still, the bay in which the blowhole is situated is pretty nice.

And so onto our next stop which was only a further two minutes drive away. This was at Les Trois Cascades, which was a series of three waterfalls. We were warned that they are more spectacular in the wet season, and we only had chance to visit the nearest one to the car park, but it was definitely worth a visit.

With the walls, down which the waterfall ran, being so high you had to crane your neck to see the top, the water rushed down the rocks to a small pool below.

It wasn’t the biggest, strongest or most spectacular waterfall we’ve seen on the trip, but again its setting added to its appeal. The five minute walk to reach it from the car park was also very scenic, with a rock path meandering over bridges and through tropic bush and forest.

From Le Trois Cascades, we had the longest period of driving in the whole day. Our destination was the Paul Gauguin Restaurant for lunch, which was on the other side of the island (if you imagine Tahiti as a clock face, then Le Trois Cascades were at 1 o’clock and the restaurant was at five o’clock). It took around 40 minutes to do the trip, passing the small peninsula of Tahiti (Tahiti Iti) en route as well as lots and lots of tropical style scenery.

And so to Paul Gauguin Restaurant.

By the time we reached it we were starving. In the twenty six hours prior to arriving there, we had only eaten half a bag of crisps each! Our stomachs were making more noise than a jumbo jet, and we would have eaten anything and paid anything to do so. Which was fortunate, as the meal we ended up having at the restaurant was the most expensive meal we have had on the entire trip. It exceeded our daily budget in one massive stroke, as well as a significant proportion of another day’s! Its not that the restaurant was particularly expensive by Tahiti standards, just that Tahiti in general is a very expensive island. But, when you get chance to eat at a restaurant and the view from your table is the sun drenched sea of the South Pacific, the money ceases to be an issue.

And when the meals are so nice, and the portions are so massive that you can’t even complete three quarters of it without being sick, then at least you know you got value for money!

Bursting at the seams, and unable to walk more than two steps at a time through distended stomachs, we got back onto the bus to visit the Paul Gauguin Museum (surprisingly enough just around the corner from the Paul Gauguin Restaurant).

Paul Gauguin (for those who don’t know) was a nineteenth century French artist who spent a lot of time in Tahiti painting pictures of the natives. Although he’s not particularly an artist we’re into, we have nonetheless seen a few of his paintings in the Musee D’Orsay in Paris and the Chicago Art Institute, so it was something we weren’t going to pass up doing.

One thing we weren’t going to do happily though was pay full price to get in! So, trusty YHA cards at the ready, we posed as students and got in for half price again! I wonder how long it will actually be before someone asks us why we’re still students in our late thirties!!

Although there were no original paintings in the Museum, it was still interesting to walk around and read about the stories behind some of the paintings.

The setting once again (I can see a theme here!) also added to the charm, being in the middle of the botanical gardens and right next to the sea.

Back on the bus, the next stop was Les Jardins D’Eau De Vaipahi. This was a public garden in Tahiti that had been recently developed and contained a waterfall

and several lily ponds.

It was here that we noticed a pattern had developed. When the minibus had stopped at all the previous destinations, we always seemed to be the first ones off the bus, and seemed to dictate the path that the other tourists were following. And when we’d had enough of a particular area and had headed back towards the bus (it was quite relaxed in that for most places we visited today, Angele gave us however long we needed to see things), everyone else had followed us back.

So we decided to have a bit of fun. Having finished our photo taking at the waterfall, we headed off towards a boardwalk. The usual way to this was to walk around another path, but we took a shortcut which meant crossing a lawn and then a small stream using stepping stones. And sure enough, when the other tourists had their complement of waterfall pictures, what did they do? Crossed the lawn and then a small stream using stepping stones! Laughing to ourselves and singing “Follow the leader! Follow the leader”, we led our little flock of sheep back to the bus!

The bus headed towards the final stop on the tour, the Grotte De Maraa, passing good views of the hills on the way.

And, although the Grotte De Maraa was okay, it was probably slightly anti-climatic to a great trip but nevermind.

And so the trip was over. But not entirely for us. We’d asked Angele in the restaurant earlier if she could give us a lift to the airport, which she’d agreed to for a lot less than the accommodation airport transfer. So, with the other tourists in the bus still, she pulled up at our place whilst we got our luggage back, and then she continued to drop the other guests off.

As our flight wasn’t until past midnight tonight, she offered to drop us in the main town, Papeete, for an hour as she had ferry passengers to pick up at 5:15pm. So leaving our bags in the bus, we got off at the market and had a quick look around.

Pretty much everything was shutting for the day, but we had chance to wander down a couple of streets,

sit on some random stairs

and then take in the views from the harbour while we waited for the bus to pick us up.

And then, after dropping some passengers off at a couple of other plush resorts, she dropped us at the airport at 6pm. Not before observing a Tahiti custom of presenting us with a necklace garland each made entirely of small sea shells.

And so we had six and a half hours at the airport to kill! And to make matters worse, pretty much everything in the place was shut!

The check in desks were shut.

McDonalds was shut.

Even the only shop selling liquids and food shut.

And there were hundreds of people milling around (there was a major flight to Paris via LA going an hour before ours) and very little seats! So, being lucky, we managed to secure a couple, guarding them like Rottweilers until the check in desk opened.

So, an hour passed to 7pm.

Another hour passed to 8pm.

Although it felt like two hours, another hour passed to 9pm.

At 9:30pm, the Paris/LA flight started to check in. Very very slowly. But it gave us something to watch.

The clock reached 10pm. We were still sat with all our luggage and the check in desks were firmly shuttered.

And then, finally, the gates opened at 10:35pm and we were at last parted from our heavy packs!

We’d been up since 6:45am, done a full days activities, had waited for hours in an airport, and were completely exhausted! We even had the indignity of one of the airport lights laughing at us!

But we got through to the departure lounge, got onto our plane, and then at 12:40 am in the morning, finally left Tahiti to fly to Easter Island.

It had been the most remarkable turnaround in feelings for us today. We woke up completely hating Tahiti, and yet half an hour into our trip we were loving it. All it took was to see good sights and to be treated properly by our tour guide/ driver Angele and it totally turned the whole experience through 360 degrees. It’s not the sort of place to go to on a budget; to do it justice you really have to stay in one of the expensive resort hotels and visit some of the other islands during your stay. But for a “taster” and stopover destination on the way to Easter Island, it finally ticked all the right boxes for us.

And our new surnames are now AngelFruitSaladHeinz57MeltingPot. Just got to get that new signature practised………….

Today we were leaving the Cook Islands to take the next step in our South Pacific Island hopping; Tahiti in French Polynesia. However, first we had to get to the airport.

We’d booked our transfer to the airport for 9:40am. However, on the Cook Islands, there appears to be two distinct types of time running side by side. There’s the time that your watch says and then there’s Island Time; a concept that things will happen when they happen and not when a clock say (think of the old Malibu adverts and you’ll understand what I mean).

So it was no real surprise to anyone that our transfer van turned up casually at 10am. It didn’t matter that he was late though; he was chilled, we were chilled, and it happened when it happened!

On arriving at the airport, we got a sight which summed up how relaxing and “world apart” the Cook Islands had been to us. Most airports have gun toting security forces patrolling the airport concourse. Not in Rarotonga though. Here they had a security cockerel!!

We were nervous at first; after all we had eaten many of his relatives on our travels. But, in typical Cook Islands fashion, he was chilled, and didn’t peck our heads with loads of questions!

The plane to Tahiti was a first on this trip; a propeller driven plane rather than a jet plane.

It had been the very last flight we had booked before leaving home, and was the lynchpin to us getting home; there is only one flight per week between the Cook Islands and Tahiti, and we needed to get to Tahiti today in order for us to get our connecting flights onwards to South America and ultimately home. So we were quite relieved to finally see it in the flesh.

Two and a quarter hours of propeller driven flight later, we arrived in Tahiti. And strangely enough, although being stuck in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, it is politically a French Territory which indirectly makes it part of Europe. So we didn’t need visas, or to fill out lengthy landing forms to enter the country; we just walked through passport control exactly like in Europe with no fuss or even a passport stamp to say we’d been there. All the signs were not only in French, but were the same typeface and colour as the same signs in France. The only thing that indicated we weren’t in Europe was the intense heat and humidity in the air! It hit us a second after leaving the plane, and we were drenched with sweat a millisecond later.

It was from this point onwards that our day started to go bad. Firstly, we didn’t have any Pacific Francs on us; the two attempts we had made to get these before landing had failed, but we had been assured there were facilities at the airport. So, we tried our credit cards in the ATM. And they were rejected. So we looked for a Bureau De Change. And they were closed! Both of them! At a so-called international airport! So, in desperation, we had to use an automatic currency exchange and feed some of our US$ into it to get converted. And we got completely and utterly fleeced with the exchange rate, getting two thirds of the true value of our money back.

So, money resolved, albeit wholly unsatisfactorily, we looked for a taxi. We followed the signs, and they ended without a cab in sight. So we walked back to look for an information booth. And no-one was in it. So for the next ten minutes we looked around to no avail, until eventually we saw a cab driving past. Flagging it down, they told us we had to go to the taxi queue. And so we found it; obviously hidden and in completely the opposite direction to where the signs had indicated.

Thirdly, we didn’t have a good experience when arriving at our accommodation for the night. Now, I’ll put it on record that I have nothing against the French. Over the years, we have met lots of nice French people, and have been to France on holiday on innumerous occasions. Now, obviously, every country has people who come across as being arrogant or just downright obtrusive, but we seemed to have experienced this in France more than anywhere else. And as luck would have it, the owner of our accommodation was one such person.

Perhaps the best way of describing it is that most places we have stayed at have made us feel welcome, and have gone out of their way to help us without complaint (even if what we have asked has been hard for them). Whereas here, we got the distinct impression that we were here on his charity, and that we should be grateful for him allowing us in the accommodation. It’s a complete 360 degree flip from what an accommodation/ customer relationship should be, totally like an attitude you’d expect from a 1950’s bed and breakfast holiday in the UK, and the sort of thing we detest utterly. Perhaps summed up by his response to storing our luggage tomorrow (already established by email before we booked) that he would want us to pick our luggage up and be off the premises by 6pm at the latest!

The room was like a sauna, the ineffectual ceiling fan obviously more use as a child’s mobile, had no drinkable water supply (meaning having to pay the owner for highly inflated bottled water before we dropped of heat exhaustion), and had the most unique security system on earth. Having warned us not to leave our windows and doors open at night, as people have entered rooms whilst guests have slept, he showed us the amazing anti-theft device for the main patio doors; a stick! And not just any old stick; it was a stick that didn’t even fully close the door! It left a gap big enough for an elephant to get through! Now call me old fashioned, but maybe a lock on the door may have been a more effective deterrent!!

Fourthly, there was nowhere (apart from taking a £20 taxi ride) where we could get food to eat. Only a Mobil garage around the corner. Which had practically nothing in it. So our meal tonight consisted of half a bottle of water and half a bag of crisps each!

Fifthly, we went to have a look of the beach, and had to pass several extremely shady looking characters en route. There was an undeniable air of menace on our walk there, and felt like we had “mug us” tattooed across our foreheads! Not pleasant at all!

Sixthly, the Wifi at the accommodation was broken. Which meant we had no way of knowing if the Tahiti tour we had booked for tomorrow was going to pick us up and if so, at what time.

And seventhly (is that even a word!) and finally, we got completely and utterly eaten alive by mosquitoes. There is hardly a patch on my legs that isn’t an ugly looking blister or red blood mark.

We’ve had one or two tough times on this trip, but as we went to sleep we had started to develop an almost pathological hatred towards Tahiti. If we could have got on a flight home there and then we would have done it without a seconds thought. And if the tour doesn’t pick us up tomorrow, we are going to have to occupy ourselves around our accommodation; and how we feel at the moment we’d rather stick pins into our eyes.