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Published: January 28th 2013
I was only looking on Ebay for a pair of Jeans...which is how I ended up spending three weeks in the south pacific.
Cold wintery Perth, sitting there looking at the fast decomposing carcass of a relationship wandering how to get out of here and how to find my groove again I was hunting around on Ebay and decided to check for cheap flights...I was dying inside, felt suffocated and knew one thing, i had to get out of here and out of this relationship. It had run its course. While browsing jetstar and air asia cheapo flights i stumbled upon a holiday accomodation package someone had won but couldnt take with two nights accomodation in Tahiti and 5 nights in Moorea...I bid on it. Two days later I had secured it for $670. All i had to do now was find a cheap airfair to tahiti, which is like saying all i need to do now is build the Deathstar and ask Darth to stop this silly business with Yoda and Luke thats gone on far too long.
There is no such thing as a cheap flight to Tahiti. I tried every way possible but found
it couldnt be done for under $2.5K unless i wanted to spend about 4 days transitting through airports and waiting 10 hours at LAX or Brisbane. Not doing that, so an Air New Zealand full fair to Tahiti via Auckland at a civilized hour was booked. And thats when the start of my magnum adventure began.
The planning stages were horrible. A relationship breakup expediated by his mother dying a horrible death and a return to the bottle doesnt make for excitement in planning a trip. As I was trying to deal with him I was trying to get my head around the fact that I was going, no matter what, and not only was I going to the islands on the accomodation voucher I had bought, I was going to make this trip special. A reward to myself. It wasnt going to be just Tahiti and Moorea, if I was going that far I would fulfil one of the items on my bucketlist, to dive Tipuata pass, the most insane drift dive I had seen on a Cousteau documentary. My holy grail. Id first heard of Tipuata when i was in PNG and vowed one day, I would
get there.
If i was going to Tahiti and Moorea, and I had to go to Rangiroa in the Tuomoto Archipeligo to dive Tipuata, I may as well go to Bora Bora, because well..its Bora Bora. And I would do the whole overwater bungalow 5 star thing because we only get one life, and I intend to live mine, not someone elses version of how a life should be lived. I deserved this. So, to hell with the cost, I took myself on what would probably be sold in a glossy brochure as the trip of a lifetime. I havent finished my lifetime yet but this was one amazing trip. Ten days before flying out I came down with a horrible case of Pleurisy, which the hospital ER misdiagnosed as everything from a heart attack to a pulmonary embolism, which meant i would not be diving for a long long time. It seemed like I would never get this trip to come together properly....but i did!
First stop Tahiti. I had only 2 nights in Tahiti and had wanted to head out of the Society Islands as quickly as possible as I had heard you could pretty much
''do'' Tahiti in a day, and my time was precious as I had to get to Rangiroa and Fakarava..more about Fakarava later.
My flight from NZ had gotten in around lunchtime the day before in a torrential downpour. I had arrived in Papeete before I even left Perth on sunday after having a quick glimpse of monday in Auckland I was back to sunday when my plane touched down. I checked into the Manava Suites and was upgraded to a suite with a kitchen right on the edge of Tahitis biggest infinity pool. After checkin I took a dip and swam towards the edge of the infinity pool and suddenly found myself flipping over a small smooth wall into the sea of the moon. It was around then I realised I was not in the pool at all but the kayak practice area provided for tourists before they actually get into the sea of the moon. Oops. Oh well it was raining so hard no one saw. I sheepishly retired to my room setting my alarm to not miss my circle island tour the next morning and slept through the night, or was it day? in a wonderfully comfortable
Tiki
Particularly well endowed fellowbed.
As I had such a short time I did what I would normally call the unthinkeable..i booked an organised day tour around the island. I tossed up the idea of hiring a car but research warned about Papeete traffic so I thought, what the hell, this tour seems to cover what looks interesting. A half day tour for $55 ended up in a little win for me as I was the only person who had booked the half day circle island tour and the other couple were on a full day tour. Their tour had included a lunch at the Paul Gaugin museum, and museums are one thing I tend not to do but Rocky the tourguide said he would take me somewhere else if I didnt mind a longer day. Fine by me Rocky. Rocky was a lovely guy born on Bora Bora, very knowledgeable and friendly. The other couple on the tour were lovely slightly older folk from Melbourne so their Aussie accents felt nice to hear amongst all the french. The first stop on the tour was the local Marae, only a few minutes drive from the hotel. Tahiti has one main road
circling the island, making the main attractions ''doable'' in a day. The Marae was lovely and Rocky warned me not to Pee on any of the stones....Do I look like the sort of person who wanders around peeing on important cultural artefacts? Maybe it was his polynesian sense of humor pay back for my continued habit of jumping in the drivers seat of the van every time he stopped. Well, they will insist on putting the steering wheel on the wrong side!. The marae was interesting and well sign posted and we were left to wander at our own pace. I couldnt believe how lush and green Tahiti was compared to my flat, brown, burning land. Next stop, the grottos. As someone with a bit of an interest in earth sciences, these grottos formed by ancient lava tubes seemed interesting. The grottos at Marae Paea were a botanists dream and unbelievably beautiful. Rocky had told us that Polynesia had been settled by asians, arriving 2000 years ago with seeds of plants and dogs. The foliage around the grottos reminded me in places of Sumatra and Sulawesi with lots of gingers and ixorias and some absolutely amazing local ferns. I thought
of Cockle when i spotted the unfurled frond of the Mules Foot Fern, as thick as my wrist and as long as my calf. One huge fern and the grottos themselves? only the pictures can begin to do them justice.
I started feeling a little hungry while snapping pics and noticed a duck taking his lunch in the lotus and lilly pond so joined him and wandered back to Rockys van munching on lotus seeds..which caused him to freak out at the ''pure australian'' lady who ate out of their lovely jardin and would die of poisoning within minutes in his mini van. He ignored my protests that I had eaten them in Cambodia and Thailand and kept stressing how long it would take us to get to a hospital when he spotted the caretaker who assured him they were edible. I had dipped a toe in the waters at the grottos and found the water to be ice cold. Paul Gaugin the syphillitic deviate who took up with a 13 year old muse here used to come and bathe here hoping it would stop his crotch from rotting. It didnt. I felt enough time had passed and the
water would be clean but opted to fill my water bottle from the waterfall instead.
As the other couple had booked lunch and a tour at the Gaugin museum I took the opportunity to ask Rocky how he felt about the French. Shy and diplomatic at first, when I told him about our shared shame of using local people as guinea pig witnesses of atomic detonations he revealed his real interest in the culture of the Australian Aboriginal and said the Polynesians thought of them as cousins who had not yet come to visit. He held a deep resentment at the French Detonations but shrugged his shoulders and said the Polynesians needed the French economy still and that the economic situation in Europe was deeply worrying for Polynesians, evident by the closure of so many hotels.
I couldve talked to Rocky all day but we had to continue on and Rocky took us to his favourite spot, a look out where the trees were draped with mosses and lichens fed by the insanely fresh air from where you could see both Tahiti Iti and Tahiti Nui. I could see the famous Chopes, one of the billabong pro series
big waves but as the wind blew from the north Chopes was not ''pumping'' all the surf was on the other side of the island.
After the lookout we went to the triple falls, a beautiful spot where you will encounter some locals and unless the cruise ships are in, few other people. The falls are beautiful and lush, hidden away just a few metres easy walk from the main road that rings Tahiti. Signs prohibited swimming as a tourist had been hit by a falling rock once, and i had to laugh at the large rock slowly rolling along as the river shifted the stones under it covered in moss and ferns. Indeed, the rolling stone had gathered moss.
A thousand photos later it was onto the blowholes..i LOVED them! Lava tubes from Tahitis violent birth sucked water in from the ocean and shot it out in wooshing plumes on the side of the road, which was now closed as it was beyond repair. Driving along with a sudden gush of sometimes extremely powerful water screaming out of a cliff face..and i do mean face, have a close look at the pictures, tends to result in a
lot of crashes.
As the road had been deemed unsafe the French had built a nice tunnel through the mountains, right ontop of an important ancient road. Rocky shrugged his shoulders and said..but we got a lovely hospital all polynesia is proud of with the best of everything. The polynesian way..Aeto PeaPea..no worries.
Our final stop was Pt Venus where Captain Cook had tried to plot the tradjectory of Venus. Apparently this took him several years and he still got it wrong. I did it with skywalk app on my Ipad in 2 minutes much to Rockys amusement.
The skies opened up into a torrential downpour as our tour ended. I really enjoyed the tour and would love to do the 4WD tour with Rocky if i get the chance. A very happy Pure Australian retired to her luxurious suite and slept after a meal of lobster as I had a flight to Bora Bora booked at 7am. I had made it, my south pacific adventure had begun.
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Susurros somnolientos
J. Lalo Cura
Inspirational blog!
"And I would do the whole overwater bungalow 5 star thing because we only get one life, and I intend to live mine, not someone elses version of how a life should be lived." Fuck yeah! Good to hear you got your priorities right after that emotional rollercoaster back home. It's refreshing to read honest blogs written by people who know what they want. Good on ya, mate! :) Cheers, Jens