Bora Bora

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Having had an expensive trip yesterday we decided to have a quiet beach day today. Matt is gutted that it’s too hot to climb the mountain here but after melting on an hour walking to the shops and back at 9am it made me realise there was no way I want to try walking far in this heat, let alone up a mountain!

We popped into the shop hoping they’d have baguettes or croissants but they didn’t. I’m not sure if we were just too late at 9am (as they get delivered at 6.30am) or whether they don’t get any on Sundays. So we went back for cornflakes instead.

I spent the rest of the morning pondering which spa to go to for a massage tomorrow. I know that spas aren’t usually something in a backpackers itinerary, but my all time favourite spa treatment is a Tahitian body wrap and massage. As soon as I knew we were coming to Tahiti I told Matt that no matter what the cost, I would have a proper Tahitian massage with monoi and frangipani oil.

After reading a few leaflets, and comparing prices, we decided to take the advice of the lady who runs our accommodation and opted for the Intercontintal Spa across the water on a motu. It’s not cheap but you have to splash out every once in a while. Matt will be coming with me because as well as my traditional monoi massage we’ve also booked a day pass for each of us so that we can use their steam rooms, showers, saunas, jets, etc I’m really excited but I know that Matt will probably hate it as he isn’t very good at sitting quiet and relaxing - it stresses him out.

Once I’d booked the spa we headed to the public beach around the corner and lay in the shade. I jumped into the lagoon and spent some time just floating around and swimming, enjoying the view. After an hour or so we went to the beach snack bar for lunch and sat on a bench looking out across the lagoon to eat. There were four kite surfers zigzagging backwards and forwards to keep our attention.

It’s funny how much you watch tv or listen to the radio back home yet here you spend most of your time looking out to the ocean instead and it‘s just as (if not more) absorbing. I’m not missing the tv at all, and all I’m missing about the internet is emailing everyone. This forced detachment is driving Matt mad and he hates it. I can see he would love to spend £10 per hour to use one of the Novotel computers but he can’t quite bring himself to spend that much money to do it.

It will be interesting to see how he feels when we’re staying at Eden Beach later this week as then we’re on a motu that is about 7km long. There are two other resorts on it at one end (we’re in the middle section) but I think they’re both a bit of a trek away so I imagine we’ll be spending our days around the resort and probably won’t see anyone apart from the other guests, let alone hear any news from the outside world. I can't wait!

That night a big swell was forcast and the sky went dark. We went to bed hoping that tomorrow we'd be ok on the boat trip over to the spa.

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