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Travelogue
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10/31/04
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here for links to other Travelogue pages
This continuing travelogue is
mainly for family & friends who want to find out where I am and
what I'm up to. Click to enlarge any of the thumbnail photos
in this journal for better viewing. All photos are my own unless otherwise
noted.
After visiting around New York, Connecticut
and Rhode Island during the first few weeks of October, I set out for New Zealand.
Because I was using accumulated flyer miles to pay for the plane ticket and had
enough, I treated myself to Business Class. This meant the difference
between surviving the ordeal of long flights crammed into a tight
coach seat, subsisting on packaged pretzels, or luxuriating in a wide
reclining chair with its own multi-channel movie screen while smiling
stewardesses brought delicious hot meals and free drinks,
not to mention entitling me to the exclusive airport lounges, which provide free food,
beverages, comfortable sofas and other amenities. First and Business Class
are styles
to which I would like to become accustomed when flying long distance.
It turns a grind into part of the holiday.
En route to New Zealand I spent
a week in Tahiti and Moorea, just because I could. It came about this way.
When I booked my flight they routed me through Papeéte International Airport in Tahiti. I was to land in the
evening and fly out again early the next morning to Auckland, with barely enough time to
get to a hotel for a half-night's sleep. Well, that seemed kind of dumb to
me considering I'd never been to Tahiti and wasn't in any particular rush.
So I persuaded the airlines to schedule a 6-day layover for me there.
Using the Internet
before I left New York, I found and pre-booked a pension (pronounced pen-see-own,
not pen-shun), budget accommodations for cost-conscious travelers like moi.
So, when I landed at Papeéte around 10
pm (on October 24th, my birthday!), after I forget how many hours and time
zones traveling from New York via LA, the pension owner was there to meet me and drive me
home. Frederick, a native of France, had been stationed in Tahiti when he
was in the army and had decided to stay. Now he has a pretty wife, a happy
child, the Pension Te Miti and a lifestyle he considers to be about as
good as it gets.
The Pension Te Miti is
tucked several hundred meters back from Tahiti's west coast road, in a
quiet residential community about 20
minutes drive from the airport and one minute from a palm-fringed beach. Catering mainly to French backpackers and
surfers, it's a ramshackle collection of low buildings partitioned into assorted
rooms and small dormitories. Each building has a communal kitchen and
guests share the bathrooms & showers.
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I had reserved a
"small private room," and it was just that and no more.
Still, it served the purpose, a place to sleep, and at
around $60 a night it was cheap for infamously expensive French Polynesia.
Anyway, there were pleasant and sociable common rooms and areas
for daytime lounging. For the next few days Pension Te Miti
was my home base
while I explored the island of Tahiti Nui. |
There was no way I was going to sleep late my first day in
Polynesia, jet lagged or not. I was up
at the crack, reorganizing my pack and quietly checking out my new digs - lush foliage around the yard, a few
pecking chickens, a
couple of friendly dogs. T-shirt, shorts & flip-flops were about
right for the climate and ambiance.
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Gradually my fellow travelers began to stir and
soon we were all saying bon jour at the communal breakfast. There were
a few tourists like
myself, a couple of
buff surfers and a young family. Everyone was cheerful and
friendly and tried out their limited English on me before turning
among themselves to chatter in French, which is as Greek to me. It
is one of my few regrets in life that I didn't study more foreign
languages than Spanish in
school. |
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One Frenchwoman there did speak fair English and, mon
dieu!, she
was alone. Well, one thing led to another and lovely Isabelle and I spent the day
sightseeing together, using the not-too-reliable island bus system to get
around.
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First I explored the main city, Papeéte,
which was quaint but crowded, noisy and polluted by heavy traffic
belching diesel exhaust fumes. Meanwhile Isabelle
went job hunting, it being her intention to live there. We rendezvoused
for
lunch, then caught a bus to a hiking trail well out of town on the
north shore. This we followed to a fine waterfall. |
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Just as we were heading back to the road, we met a local fellow on the
path who said there was a nicer fall
farther up another trail, and he volunteered to lead us there. Off we went through the Tahitian rain
forest, following this tattooed, machete-wielding native. The trail
ended at a tall, powerful cascade in a picture-postcard setting. Our guide
went off to chop bamboo or something and Isabelle and I stripped
and dove in for swim, giggling at our happy circumstances. Not a bad
beginning to my little Pacific adventure, hey?
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The last bus back to town never came. We had to
hitchhike in, catching a ride with a Tahitian fisherman who seemed to know
everyone on this side of the island. He kept waving and calling out to
people along the way. The rest of the time he and Isabelle chattered
merrily in French. I smiled and nodded whenever it seemed appropriate.
Back in Papeéte we just barely caught the
last bus home to Te Miti. It seems the whole island bus system quits
running for the day between 4 and 6 pm and doesn't resume again until the
next morning, which struck me as an odd, limiting schedule for such
a large, populated island.
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The solution to the awkward bus system was
simple. I rented a motor
scooter for the duration of my visit. The first thing I did was to
circumnavigate Tahiti, which took all of one day. There is only one coastal road around
the island and once I was clear of Papeéte's
urban sprawl the traffic thinned out and scenery improved. On one side dense,
tropical foliage climbed steeply to the mountainous interior. On
the other, the pure blue South
Pacific ocean
sparkled and occasional, palm-capped islets called motus beckoned
from just offshore. I stopped here and there, taking short hikes
to points of interest or just lazing for a while in some pretty
spot. The road passed through scattered villages where people seemed
inclined to smile and wave. Having just come from a month in
Manhattan, it was a near psychedelic experience. |
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The island of Moorea lies within sight of Tahiti and I
decided to visit it. I stashed most of my belongings at the pension and
with only a light pack drove my motorbike onto one of the ferries that ply
daily between Tahiti and its nearest
neighbor.
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I found Moorea to be much more laid back than Tahiti,
much quieter with a lot less traffic, and I determined to
spend a few days there. I found lodgings in a cozy pension on a white sand beach, near a small village that provided the
necessities - a grocery store, a couple of cafes, a restaurant, a pub, even a sporadic Internet connection
for hire in one of the shops. As I had done on Tahiti,
I drove all the way around Moorea, snapping pictures and
stretching my legs on short hikes along the way. Here are a few of the photos I
took:
 
After a few lazy days on
Moorea I reluctantly returned to Tahiti, but at least I got to spend the
last evening with
Isabelle
before boarding an early morning flight to Auckland, New Zealand.
Next Entry: New
Zealand
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