French Polynesia day 5

            Black pearls, you may know, are never really black, although the nearly priceless ones approach that description.  But they are significantly different from the more widely available white pearls; these jewels come in an array of dark iridescent hues:  blues, greens, reds, purples, and grays.  Some even seem to have multiple casts of colors, although they all appear nearly black at first glance.  They are cultured in this part of the world in black-lipped oysters, which are far removed in shape and size from the oysters we know and love back home.  These oysters have a form something like scallops, only much larger and smoother; the shells were used by the original Polynesians to make fish hooks and jewelry, and later for buttons highly prized in Europe.

            The culturing process takes at least four years, and is often unsuccessful.  Oyster farms are found in several island groups here, primarily in the Tuamotus.  One oyster can be used two or three times for this meticulous process, after which the quality of the pearls diminishes and thereafter, one would assume, the meat of the oyster appears on the dining table of the oyster farmers.

            On Moorea there are dozens and dozens of shops conveniently making available these beautiful pearls to the traveling public.  The shops range from simple roadside stands to plush, air conditioned buildings with immaculately dressed, multilingual clerks ready to help make dreams come true.  Not to appear sexist, but these dreams seem to occur mostly among the females of the species, and based on some of the prices we were quoted, the other sex might experience these nocturnal visions as nightmares.  In any event, after determining that low overhead generally meant lower prices and better value, my fellow traveler struck up a friendship over a couple of days with the proprietor of one of the roadside stands.  This native Polynesian has represented three black pearl farms in the Tuamotus going back nearly 30 years, and she has an extensive stock of pearls, necklaces, pendants, and earrings, all in a wide range of quality and size.

            We had checked out of our B&B early to take one last look at the black pearls, and Tricia found a strand with just the right size, just the right variety of hues, just the right look around her beautiful neck, and just the right to send me to the nearest ATM to see how much was left in our bank account back home.  Fortunately, all the ATM’s here limit the amount one can withdraw in one 24-hour period.  Unfortunately, Tricia had obtained a second ATM card with a different account number, so I was able to withdraw the maximum amount twice; adding this to all the cash we had brought to pay our way in Maupiti later in the trip, enabled us to make Tricia proud.  Enough said.

Tourist proudly displaying her new black pearl necklace

 Tourist parting with cash for new black pearl necklace

            To give credit where it is due, the lady with the new necklace took me over to the local ice cream shop and treated me to a cone of any flavor of my choosing.  I took a chance on the orange and chocolate.  Now, would it ever occur to you to try to sell orange and chocolate ice cream?  Or would it ever occur to you to buy orange and chocolate ice cream?  Well, with all due modesty, I must say that I have had the good fortune to sample more than two dozen different flavors of ice cream, and this was the first experience with this particular flavor.  Ok, maybe more than two dozen.  Maybe more than a hundred.  But who’s counting?  Anyway, it was a fantastic blend, with the deep orange color complementing the little flecks of chocolate scattered throughout the miraculously creamy ice cream.  It must have contained at least 22% butterfat to have such a deep, meaningful flavor.  You should have been there to have a taste.  I completely forgot the earlier unpleasant event as we drove to the airport to take the flight to Bora Bora.

 Approaching Bora Bora from the air

            Taking photos from a passenger plane is an exercise in futility, but we couldn’t resist as we approached one of the best known and beautiful places on the planet.  This was to be the site of our only planned splurge of the trip:  three nights in an overwater bungalow at the Intercontinental Bora Bora le Moana Resort.

 First view of Bora Bora from the ground at the airport

            We will share more photos with you tomorrow.  Now it’s time to go exploring after checking in to our room at the edge of the lagoon, complete with glass opening in the floor and what appears to be a local pet spotted eagle ray swimming around under the walkway.  Tricia has just stated her sincere belief that this is what heaven will be like.  If she is correct, I am ready to go.

Charlie and Tricia

©2012

French Polynesia day 4

                We finally recovered from jet lag and the trip from home, so it was time to get physical.  After a big fruity breakfast we drove up to a mountainside site called Belvedere, where our photos of the two big bays of Moorea and the huge mountain in between them will have to take second place to the actual view.  This island may be the most beautiful we have ever encountered, and it seems the trip is just beginning.

View from Belvedere

            The hiking trail to the right took us to another magnificent viewpoint, but it seemed logical to try for an even loftier perch.  So after the first 20-minute hike of the day, back at Belvedere we spotted this sign pointing to the left:

Hiking trail sign at Belvedere

            My French was rusty, so I could not translate to name the three objects that would appear at the end of this particular trail, but Tricia observed that whatever they were, they must be magnificent or the sign wouldn’t be pointing to them.  Not wishing to thwart my companion’s desires, I made the first serious tactical error of the trip, agreeing to follow the trail with her.  At first the rocky trail led us downward for twenty minutes or so; then we ascended another 20 minutes, stopping along the way to observe the many strange plants and trees in this beautiful rain forest.

Giant rain forest tree surrounding Tricia

Giant strangler fig engulfing tourist

            After another few hours (or what seemed what like hours) we finally reached the summit to find a wonderful view amidst three puny pines.  After soaking in the view and watching a couple of disgusting young men running up the mountainside and past us and down another path,  it was time to begin the journey to the starting point.  Dear reader, after many years of careful observation and voluminous note-taking, it has come to my attention that if you reach the destination of a long, winding, rocky mountainous trail and feel totally exhausted before attempting the return trip, you ain’t felt nothin’ yet.  You may want to make a note of this in the journal you use for future trip planning.

Exhausted tourist trying to appear cool at Trois Pinus

Back at the bottom of the mountain and after stops at a few dozen black pearl shops, your writer was greatly relieved that the person who did all the looking did no buying.  But since this part of the adventure was somewhat stressful, we took the afternoon whale watching tour.  You may be aware that humpback whales use some of these islands as breeding and birthing grounds, and this is the time of year when they visit Moorea.  For a small consideration—think of purchasing a small auto—you can board an open boat with ten or so other hardy souls, and head out with masks snorkels, and fins, ready to be in the water with these mammoth creatures.

En route to whale watching

            The view along the ride cannot be adequately expressed.  Diamond-clear blue water which seemed only 2 feet deep, with coral heads scattered about like handfuls of rocks flung out at random.  Beach after beautiful beach, bordered by 50-foot coconut palms.  Mountains reaching for the sky, sometimes protruding into the clouds.  The surf crashing on the protective reef which surrounds the entire island.  The views alone were worth the investment.  But once we headed outside the reef to look for whales (no one had mentioned venturing outside in the 6-foot seas), the real adventure was on.  Thank God we had found seasick medicine and taken it before the trip, and praise Allah for the fact that it worked.  We spotted a few baby whales poking their heads out of the water to observe the outside world, and dolphins appeared here and there amidst the whale spouts.  But we were never able to come close enough to swim with the whales, their sense of curiosity parked on this day.  I was able to swim and observe a small group of dolphins from about 20 feet, and we did thoroughly enjoy the adventure.  But swimming with whales remains one aqueous adventure we have yet to experience.

 

Moorea from the whale watching tour

            We turned in early to be prepared to pack up and head for Bora Bora after lunch.  But one of us wants to have enough time to make a final pass at the black pearl shops.  Pray for the writer.

Charlie and Tricia

©2012

French Polynesia day 3

AAAARRGGH!

 Intruder out front

            This morning we awoke to the sight feared by land-bound tourists everywhere:  a cruise ship in our back yard!  As you can see, as we walked from our bungalow to the picnic table where we are served breakfast each morning, we were shocked to discover a 2400-person cruise ship parked just three hundred yards in front of our favorite snorkeling spot.  Fortunately, the passengers were being ferried to a spot two miles away, where we anticipated every dive shop, black pearl salesman, and tour guide were eagerly waiting to part the lucky travelers and their cash.  Just as fortunately, we did not have to face hordes of tourists overrunning our island, and we proceeded to have a normal day in paradise.  Wonder if this is where our friends Tony and Linda Ferren came during their recent cruise here.

 Our little bungalow

            Our B&B is near the northeast end of Oponohu Bay, where the great explorer James Cook anchored during his visit to these islands. The Polynesian scenes in the 1984 movie Bounty were filmed here, and it is far less developed than Cook’s Bay just to the east of us.  You might be asking yourself why our bay is not named Cook’s Bay, since there is no evidence that Captain Cook spent any time in that other bay.  The best explanation we have heard so far is not a good one, but it goes like this:  a sloppy cartographer mislabeled the two bays on one of the first maps of Moorea, and no one ever thought it worthwhile to change the names back.  Other possible explanations are (a) the original inhabitants didn’t think much of Cook or the Europeans who took over the islands, and therefore didn’t want to glorify him by naming anything in his honor, and (b) the French had no use for anything British, and saw it as an insult to name the wrong bay for Cook.  You choose.  Anyway, today was for touring the island.

 Palm tree and sailboat on Moorea

            There are other little oddities we noticed after renting a car today.  The mile markers are actually kilometer markers, and are all made in the shape of the island.  They are all on the mountainous side of the road, and they do not face traffic, so they are almost unnoticeable.  We figure some less-than-successful French engineer was sent here from home to work the roads and decided to have a bit of fun.   The km markers start from the airport and go clockwise around the island, beginning with the 1 km marker.  The km markers also go counterclockwise around the island, beginning with the 1 km marker.  So if you are told a particular sight is located at the 12km marker, you have to determine which km marker to look for.  We noticed that some of the km markers are missing—or perhaps were never placed.  We also noticed that kilometers are measured differently from time to time; for example, the 8km marker might be 1.3 km away from the 7 km marker.

            We finally gave up trying to make sense of the km markers, drove around the island taking in the sights, and spent the afternoon shopping for black pearls, a specialty produced here as nowhere else.  It was very educational, as well as entertaining—at least the first 5 or 10 minutes.  One of us was particularly interested in every black pearl store and roadside stand.  So interested, in fact, that it can be reported that no pearl on the entire island went unturned.  It can also thankfully be reported that no one in our group left any cash with the black pearl salesmen.  On this issue, as far as the future is concerned, one of our members is facing it with some degree of pessimism.

            Tomorrow we’ve scheduled a whale watching tour and some mountain climbing.  Stay with us.

Big longnose butterflyfish

Charlie and Tricia

©2012

French Polynesia day 2

      Welcome committee at Papeete Airport

      As we approached the Tahiti airport in the dark this morning, it was immediately apparent that this is no sparsely populated island.  Thousands of lights seemed greeted us from the ground, much as they would have done from any small U.S. city.  After passing through customs and catching a cab to the ferry dock around 6 a.m., this impression was confirmed as we rode a modern highway past a very long commercial district, at last arriving at a huge port, complete with giant cruise ship and hundreds of cargo containers awaiting loading on other vessels.

While we waited for the 7:35 ferry  to Moorea, it seemed a good time to brush up on the local language—or languages.  Tahitian and French are the official languages (actually the French insist their language is it), and I thought it would be cool to impress the locals with a few words of Tahitian.  Pulling out the trusty Lonely Planet guide book, where twenty or so Polynesian words are listed in the language section, you find the Tahitian terms for such things as bra, dentist, goat, and submarine.  You also notice the words for accelerator, ambulance, dentist, hospital, and horse.  What you do not notice is any word that you might conceivably use in a first conversation with a foreign stranger.  It would have been nice to know how to say “hello” or “my name is Charlie”.  Or perhaps, “how much?”  “Where is the restroom?”  “Please give me some money.”  Anything but “goat, horse, ambulance, or submarine to dentist?”

            So before 8 in the morning you have visited two French Polynesian islands without knowing a single usable word in the local language, much less why the language is called Tahitian instead of Polynesian.  But we will learn as we go along.  Perhaps we will learn why there is a need for Tahitian words for submarine, or accelerator.  First, we must board the ferry.

Ferry for Moorea at 6 in the morning

            The first nervousness of the trip came when we realized the seasick medicine had been left behind.  As we left the harbor and the misty view of an island out of a King Kong movie loomed in the distance, the memory of my extreme propensity to seasickness turned into a bit of fear.  We knew the trip would take only 30 minutes or so, but as the waves grew and the ship pitched and rolled, the old nauseous feeling began to swell up.  As Moorea drew closer, one of us became closer and closer to running to the rail and feeding the fish below with their only warm meal of the day.  Just as the urge approached the overwhelming level, we crossed a break in the reef and were suddenly in perfectly calm water.   It was a close call.

 Approaching Moorea

            We had arranged to be met at the dock by a car and driver, who dutifully appeared with the name Smith on a little sign.  He also had other names on the sign, and we were soon loaded into a 9-seater van with approximately 75 German tourists and their luggage.  Our driver was a happy local fellow who waved at every passing vehicle and every person on the side of the road with the one arm he was able to move freely outside the vehicle.  He even showed us how to make the sign for “I love you”, which we then noticed he was giving all his friends along the way—you use two fingers and a thumb with this particular greeting.

            As we drove along the beautiful coastline, admiring the hundred shades of blue on our left and 10 million coconut trees on our right, the driver pointed out  a whale swimming on the surface only a hundred yards offshore; he tells us we can take a whale watching tour while we are here.  Gotta put seasick medicine at the top of the to do list.

            We were greeted at our B&B, Fare Vaihere, by Philipe and Corrinne, with a hibiscus-garlanded ice cold coconut full of fresh coconut water (they don’t call it milk here).  The water was sweet and delicious, and we promptly crashed on a couple of chaise longues at the waterfront to recuperate from the 27-hour trek from St. Marys.

Polynesian beauty with coconut water at Fare Vaihere

            By noon we had recuperated sufficiently to journey out for lunch, and were directed to Chez Fifi, a roadside eatery 50 meters or so from our little bungalow.  There we began our planned restraint on food consumption with chicken and shrimp salads with one liter of water.  Unfortunately the first real crisis of the trip occurred at this point, as one of us noticed the long list of homemade ice cream posted on the wall.  There was pistachio, coconut, honey of Tahiti—even Skippy peanut butter flavor.  After much agonizing, Tricia agreed she would help if I would place an order for the Chocolate Grand Marnier.  They were out of the quart-sized bowls at the moment, so we enjoyed a small serving, unfortunately without much help from Tricia.  You can only imagine how delicious the homemade Chocolate Grand Marnier ice cream can be at Chez Fifi—who would have ever imagined, or even hoped for:  ice cream in paradise!

 First beach view on Moorea

            Newly energized, we biked along the nice island road, stopping often and admiring the sea and the mountainous terrain, our photographer busy memorializing the trip.  Later in the afternoon we donned fins, masks and snorkels, trying out the little underwater camera on the many-colored tropical fish, most of whom had no interest in posing or even coming close to the lens.  But we did get in some practice and hope to improve.  The coral was mostly dead but the fish are beautiful and the water clear with 50 feet or so of visibility just offshore.

 Lemonpeel angelfish on the reef out front

            After a fine dinner of tuna and all the accompanying vegetables, and after much conversation with the guests from Australia and San Francisco, sleep came quickly.  But we can hardly wait to begin the next day.

Charlie and Tricia

© 2012