Day 23 - Thursday Jan 19 Papeete, Tahiti

Papeete photos

position at 7:00 am: S17:32:11 latitude W149:34:13 longitude
(Papeete, Tahiti)
temperature: 83F and 82% humidity (feels like 110% humidity)
distance since FLL: 9068 miles

Up early again and Debbie tried to photograph the sunrise, but rut-roh, Tahiti was in the way. We are supposed to be docked there by 8am. We have about 2 1/2 hours, so the island must be bigger than we imagine or somehow we have approached in a way that we we were not expecting. Off to breakfast in LaVeranda as we were entering the harbor where the Tahatian Princess was already docked along with another small cruise ship, something like R/V Reville. There were NO CHOCOLATE CROISSANTS for the 3rd straight day. Debbie is still silent publicly about this but she is gearing herself up mentally to have words with someone! She had oatmeal with banana and a couple pieces of bacon. There were also NO strawberries!

We left the ship around 8:30am to explore downtown Papeete for an hour or so before picking up our rental car for our round island drive. (Still never heard an announcement about the ship being cleared or that you could begin leaving the ship.) Getting across the main street between the port and downtown is for the fearless. First, (and this is required) you must find a cross walk which are white lines printed across the very busy 6 lane street. Then you just step out into traffic and hope that the drivers stop. In almost all cases, they did. They then race off as soon as your foot lifts from the ground to clear enough of their lane for them to zip past behind you without actually touching you. Also, if you just stood at the sidewalk in front of the crosswalk and looked at the oncoming traffic, nothing happened. You had to actually lift a foot and place it into a lane of oncoming traffic to get the first car to stop and then keep racing across and hoping for the best.

Our first stop was an ATM machine to pick up some Polynesian Francs. Clay asked for 100000CFP which is something like a hundred dollars. He expected to get 5 bills like the 5 $20's he would have gotten in the US. But, no, he got a single bill. But it turned out OK as the prices are so high, that the 100000CFP note would hardly buy a t-shirt or 2. After the bank, we looked and eventually found the local market place, Municipale Marche. (We found very few street signs, so it takes a little hunting to find out where you are even with a couple of maps if you just wander around like we do.) The market was full of souvenirs, fruit, fish, meat, clothes, vanilla, etc. It was still decorated for Christmas, so it was quite colorful. We bought a couple of T-shirts at 19,500 CFPs. Not exactly cheap. And Clay lost a bandanna that Debbie treasured. Yes, it was only 9:00am, but it was still sweat-wiping time as the humidity was notable. Clay dropped the bandanna as he was walking around the market. We are sure it is now for sale in the market somewhere. Anyway, we stopped at a little store outside the market and asked if they had bandannas. Same word in French apparently, as Debbie just showed them her not-so-special bandanna and raised her eyebrows. The guy yelled out to his Papa in French "bandanna" and the old guy whipped out a pile from behind the counter. They did, so Clay got 2 new, stiff bandannas for 5000CFP. Now Clay has a special bandanna of his own. We next walked over to the Catholic church which as described as being a cool and quiet place to meditate. We wanted to plot our next walking direction strategy. We decided we had enough of downtown Papeete, so we started back towards the ship to pick up our stuff for our round island driving trip. Along the way, we walked through the Vaima Centre which was new set of upscale shops. But, it had little for us. The Pearl Museum there was locked up tight.

We made it back to the ship around 10am, and were out again on the way to the rental car place by 10:15 after picking up our day trip bag and dropping off the t-shirts. The 10-minute walk to the Europcar location turned into a 45-minute hike after Clay and Debbie could not agree on the proper direction to the car place. Anyway, right at 11am, we were at the location and picked up the car without a hitch. They had it pointed out of the parking lot in the direction we needed to go and off we went in a manual transmission, no air conditioning car. The road leading out of Papeete was a busy 4 lanes with multiple traffic circles. Clay thought that all 250,000 inhabitants of Tahiti were on that road in all kinds of transportation including foot, bike, moped, stroller, mini cars, little cars, big cars, trucks, and buses. It was busy and all we knew was we were supposed to stay on the same road through numerous traffic circles. It was maybe 30 minutes (seemed like 2 hours) before we were out of Papeete traffic and on a narrow, 2 lane road running along the coast and occasionally up some mountains. During this 30 minutes, we probably missed 4-5 stops on our island tour, but they were not marked and traffic made it impossible to do much other than avoid running into some other vehicle/person. It was at the One Tree Hill Lookout where we were able to recognize and do the first stop on our island map. (Debbie had to make Clay stop and turn around and go back. Margie, this one is for you. We had a good laugh and hope you will too. Clay said at least I am not Rick. I did stop! Remembering the time you and Rick drove to Niagra Falls for hours and then Rick refused to pull into a pay parking lot!) This stop was up on a mountainside and looked down on Papeete with Moorea looming in the background. Here we also saw the first of numerous roosters/chickens. It was also the place we realized we did not have a reverse gear that worked. (Likely, it worked but we did not know how.) After that, we were cautious about how we parked trying to avoid any location that would require a reverse gear. Debbie got her exercise for the day without any classes because when we could not find parking that would require reverse, Debbie insisted we stop anyway and then she had to get out and push. Because of the problem with a lack of signage or vandalized signage, we had to do a lot of 3-point turns too, very exciting.

Next we continued around the north coast of Tahiti. We saw rough water that gave rise to spectacular vistas of breaking waves. We stopped at Pt. Venus to see one of the black sand beaches of Tahiti as well as the 1867 lighthouse found there. Now this sounds so enticing and exotic, but black sand really just looks and acts like thick mud. We had on our suits and had beach towels etc. for our visit to this public beach, but... Also, the public toilets building was padlocked. So after the Pt. Venus beach, we returned to the island road, stopping at a Super Marche Venus Star where we purchased 1 ham and cheese sandwich and one tuna sandwich. The sandwiches were on long French loaves of bread and were huge. We also bought a coke and an Orangina to complete our $7 picnic lunch. Clay found poisson cru, the local delicacy there, but it only came as a really big prepackaged serving and he decided it was too much food. He will try again tonight at les roulettes. (Poisson cru is like ceviche for those who know it. It is raw tuna that is cooked in citric acid.) Since Debbie had a blister pop up in downtown Papeete, we also needed an adhesive heel pad for Debbie's right shoe. (The 5 she had packed, and we had seen in San Diego, could not be found in our room by us. We completely dismantled the cabin before heading out for Europcar!) We did not find any there but there was a green cross across the street, which meant a farmacie. She was looking for Dr. Scholl's. They cost about $4-6 at home. The pair she bought on Tahiti was a French brand we did not know and of silicon and cost $17USD! (We are pleased to report that they worked successfully to stop the blistering!) Then back on the island circuit. Debbie sensing that Clay's reluctance to stop anywhere for any period had less to do with the lack of reverse gear than the fact that he wanted to eat, she had him turn inland up into the Papenoo Valley along which runs the Papenoo River. The road was a winding little road that quickly turned into a dirt road. We did our first 3-point road turn there, the car stalled and a dump trunk just kept coming on to us as we cringed and he squeezed by with nary an inch to spare. Then he stopped about 25 feet down onto the dirt road and watched Debbie push the car back until we could go back down the paved part. He did not start driving again until we did. It was strange. (Another one for you, Margie. Debbie has been doing a lot of lower body toning classes and butt busters. She said it was like Giacomo in Sicily. The truck driver just wanted to admire and would have helped if she had really needed it!) We stopped by the river and had our picnic on its banks with views up into the green mountain side. It was a beautiful and shady spot with a nice breeze and just the sand of water rippling over stones on its way to the sea.

We then made our way back down to the island road for a stop at the Arahoho Blowholes. (Clay blew by again despite Debbie's instructions and protestations, thereby negating her food desire theory.) Debbie nearly came to tears as Clay said he would sit in the car by the side of the road and wait for her to go take a picture and come back. Debbie told him that we should just return the car then and forget about it if we couldn't actually use it to tour the island other than driving forward and never stopping until we returned it. Clay finally simmered down and agreed that it was foolish to bypass a free attraction with a level paved parking lot and free toilets. Arahoho Blowholes was our very favorite sight of the day! It was a miracle we did not get soaked as we drove past them to get to the parking lot, since they blew and splashed water onto the road from both the sea side and the mountain side!

Frommer's has an excellent, well documented and very detailed Circle Island Tour described in their guidebooks and we can highly recommend for self-touring. Be prepared though for the lack of local signage which Frommer's has tried to help with by describing landmarks, but they change as well.
Next, up was the Vaimahuta Falls at the Cascades de Faarumai. These falls were easily accessible and our 2nd favorite sight of the day. We needed still more insect repellent by this point. There are some relentless bugs here. We drove around about half of the island without another stop. It was very hilly and dramatic with hairpin turns all in view of the sea. At Taravao, we had to decide whether to try to do Tahiti Iti and Debbie said not. On we went along the south coast now which is all flat plains and bays with the mountains in the center and the otherside in the distance. Still beautiful and dramatic but in a completely different way.

We did not stop again until the Musee Gauguin. We drove by it 3 times before we finally found it! We just kept going back and forth until finally we saw a heavily vandalized sign with only the F word legible on it that marked the drive to the museum and botanical gardens. The museum and gardens were not well signed once we drove back off the main road either but we did finally get there. $6USD admission each so that Clay could buy an ice cold Coke Light! That was the highlight of the stop. We had read that people were disappointed here but we are real museum people and not so much natural beauty, sun and watersports people, so we thought we might not be disappointed. Anyway. Back to the main road and on towards Papeete on the south coast to visit the Arahurahu Marae. By this time, we should probably point out that we had been narrowly missing big busloads of people at each of our tourist stops, but here our luck ran out. We got a few minutes alone here between 2 busloads. We saw Lou & Tina and Donna & Alan in separate bus loads and none of them seemed thrilled! Tina pointed out that she was thrilled because their guide had told them it was their last stop and she could go back to the ship and take a shower in air conditioning. Ah, the joys of luxury cruising. We were still having fun. Clay had gotten over his reluctance to park the car and get out and we were having a great time now. The restored marae was not as interested as we had thought it would be and we like archaelogical sites!

We got to the Musee de Tahiti et ses isles at about 5pm, a half hour before it posted closing time at 5:30. We fought some heavy traffic to get there and Frommer's final directions for getting there was to follow the signs. This was before a 4-way stop at which the arrow at the end of the Musee sign had been broken off. No way to tell which way it had pointed according to Clay, so he went straight. Debbie argued along the way that if it had been straight ahead, there would have been no reason to put a sign up at the intersection. Good point. 3-point road turn, Debbie pushing. Back to the intersection, Debbie says turn left, the broken part of the sign was at the right end of it, so must have pointed right coming from the other way. Clay turns right just as Debbie points out that the little "servitude" signs (which we still do not understand) to the left say musee something. The "servitude" sign in the direction Clay turned says Noa-something. 3-point road turn, Debbie pushing, now the heavy traffic has filtered down to these little streets off the main road. We cause a 5-car, 2 bike, 1 stroller traffic jam. Back through the intersection in the only direction we have not been. Now there is a small crowd of natives gathered under the broken sign smiling, discussing and watching us. We arrive and the museum parking lot is unlocked but empty. The doors are open. Clay drives around to pick his spot. We get inside and the are locking the doors to the other side of the building already. Clay asks if we are too late and he escorts us back out the front door. Guess that means we are too late. We suspect that all the sign vandalism is by people working in these places so no one can find them and they can just siesta through their working day instead. It might be working. Other than when the busloads arrived we were all alone everywhere we went. Back to the 4-way and there are still some people under the sign who stare and laugh hard when we drive by for the final time on our way back to the traffic nightmare that leads back to Papeete. A little island humor. It turns out ok, because the paper money we would have spent on the museum admission is the exact the amount we have left and the exact cost to refill the gas tank. Good karma.

It is 5:30 by now and the car has to be back by 7pm but by the looks of traffic, they must have rolled up the sidewalks between here and Papeete and everyone is trying to get home. We finally follow signs to the port and by counting intersections and reading the map we find our way back to Europcar in one try. There is no street sign at the major intersection to tell you that you have reached Prince Hinoi.

Turn in the car with no worries. This morning we had asked the woman who handled the rental if she could reserve us a car in Moorea tomorrow. We had tried to do it online when we reserved this one but there was no choice of at the tender dock which we knew Europcar did. She told us it was all arranged, same kind of car and same rate. Just give our name to the person at the Europcar sign at the tender dock in Moorea. We walked back to the ship with a stop again at the ATM to get another 80CFP in hopes of smaller bills this time for the smaller islands coming up. This took less than 15 minutes and was uneventful, the town is shuttered up and little traffic.

We showered and changed for dinner. Compass Rose was relatively empty tonight, lots of folks must have gone out to eat. We did see people lined up to leave the ship went we came back on. We sat in a new area of Compass Ross tonight. We had another service slow down tonight but this time before we even got our appetizers. We waited 30 minutes for the first course to arrive. Clay drank 2 beers and 2 glasses of water and Debbie drank 2 glasses of water and her glass of Pouilly-Fuisse that she got when she balked at the Haywood Chardonnay that was being offered tonight. Clay ate 2 rolls and Debbie ate 3. Finally food trickles to the table. It takes 4 times as long for it to come as it does for us to eat it. We get numerous apologies from the waiter and head waiter about the delays. It is not clear what the problem is, there are plenty of waiters. We are anxious because we are going to a show tonight! The O Tahiti E group is coming on Voyager to perform in the Constellation Theater. We got there is plenty of time and got our choice of seats in the back so Clay could sleep (which he did). We did enjoy the native performers. They pulled people out of the audience to teach them the dance and one woman would up on stage for about 5 minutes with them alone. She did 3 songs and did a great job, she was a good sport. It was fun. Glad we went.

We returned to the room to drop Debbie's sweater before returning to shore. We had bed gifts!! Love bed gifts! This was the best yet. We each got a pair of compact binoculars. (Thoughthey are not as high magnification as the pair of Minolta we lost in shipping and these are no brand, so the optics are not as high quality either, but still...) They are very small and in a brown leather case with Seven Seas Voyager World Cruise 2006 embossed on the flap. We are happy to have them as we were not willing to try to replace our expensive compact pair of binoculars, which meant we were reduced to using a great big bulky pair. Checked out les roulettes with the binoculars from the balcony and then we were off. They had steaks, crepes, and poisson cru. But, Clay decided he was too full from dinner. Maybe tomorrow.

It was after midnight before we got to bed and we had both been up before 5am for the last 3 days. It was a long, fun day, but we dropped into bed exhausted.

Sorry for the delay in posting this. We have not had internet in port. We had no Blackberry signal anywhere on Tahiti.

Papeete photos