We are here in Tahiti for a day and a half. We arrived at
noon on Saturday. The name of the town is Papeete. Tahiti is the largest island
of French Polynesia and is the capital. Tahiti has the most extensive and
complex off-roading/ 4x4 road system in the Polynesian Islands. There are also
a lot of hiking and walking trails. Again, this is an expensive island. There
is only one road and it circles the island.
On Saturday we just went ashore for a short while to see Marche’
Municipale, a market that is right downtown. It was open only till 1 PM on
Saturday and only till 8 AM Sunday and we wanted to make sure we saw it.
Papeete is a very typical city in Polynesia. You do not feel like you are on a
tropical island with the old buildings and traffic.
It is very rainy here. They had a tropical storm that went
south and then turned around and came back on them. So it rained some on
Saturday and a lot on Sunday. On Sunday we got a taxi to take us around the
island with 6 other people from the ship. We left at 8:45AM and got back about
2:30. We were able to see a beautiful island. We saw the Venus light house, where
they were having a surfing competition. This was a black sand beach and you
could see everything that was washed up from the big waves from the storm. We
visited a great blow hole, which Steve just has movies of. There were many
waterfalls coming down from the hills. We visited a fern grotto called Grotte
de Maraa, where Captain Cook used to send his men for water. We also visited a
sacred burying ground, Arahurah, where they buried the dead under the lava stone.
The black stones are all slanted up so they can see God. Lastly we visited what
they call a white sand beach. We stopped for lunch at Restaurant and Bar, du
Musee’ Gaugun. The actual museum is closed for renovations and has been for two
years. This is a French speaking island.
I am sorry but for some reason the pictures do not load in
order, so I know it is hard to follow with them.
Incredible!
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