Day 4 - Saturday, Oct. 19 - Hiva Oa

Our destination:  across the bay

Rainfall in the night.  Breakfast with Catherine and Philippe, who are leaving today for other islands and snorkeling.  Me?  A quiet morning before an afternoon trip to ceremonial ruins.

       The maid comes to do the room just as I head for the pool (whose water is much cooler than the ocean).  As I swim, the little girl from yesterday’s excursion comes up, still wearing the bone turtle necklace she bought on the island.  They’re inseparable, those two, even when swimming.  She’s also leaving today, with her brother, parents and grandparents.  Either a new batch will arrive or I’ll have the whole hotel almost to myself (which I doubt).

Upeke

       It rains off and on - to varying degrees - throughout the morning, the whole valley shrouded in clouds, winds rising and falling.  The maid gone, my new friends off to the airport, my magazine read, I sit on the porch overhanging the valley and watch line after line of white wave-crest run inexorably to the beach below.  Marquesans live at a slower pace; things don’t seem “urgent” here.  There’s a different mind set, one not easily adopted by a city person, but I’m starting to get it.  Is this what seduced Brel, compared to his bourgeois childhood in a wealthy work-ethic Belgian family, and after all those years throwing up in theater wings waiting to go on?  This timelessness?  He’d started out sailing around the world, but dropped anchor here and stayed.  He didn’t know he had cancer when he set sail.  That was still to come.  Near the end of his life, he flew back to France to cut one last record... and returned to be buried here.  On it, these lyrics:  “Faut-il que je vous dise / gémir n’est pas de mise / aux Marquises.”  (Let me tell you, / people just get on with life / in the Marquesas.)

After a light lunch, an excursion to Taa’Oa Valley.  We take two cars:  Hei with a new group of eight who just arrived and me alone with Alain.  It’s not far, just across the bay, but I’ve been warned to take mosquito spray, and I’m soooo glad I did!  It’s totally necessary in this almost-jungle high up at the end of the road.  There are visible clouds of mosquitos.

       The ceremonial site of Upeke up the valley from the  ocean was built around 1200 A.D. based on what has been found so far.  But there may be more buried below that, just as there is in Mexico’s Mayan ruins.  Evidently archaeologists haven’t had their way with it yet.  It reminds me in a way of Teotihuacan:  a rectangular open area with the ruins of small buildings on either side and at the ends.  Everything is built out of black basalt, except for one wall of reddish stone, the same rock as the hats of the tikis on Rapa Nui.  Yet another similarity between the two islands.
       There were sacrifices here, performed on rectangular platforms, and mostly of enemies.  First the poor victim was kept in a rectangular space in the end platform made of huge basalt rocks; it was a mere hole where he could only lie flat.  The roof opening was then closed with another stone.  The prisoner remained buried alive until the sacrifice, where he was killed either slowly by strangulation or mercifully by a rock blow to the head.  Victims were never women or children, neither of which weren’t even allowed on-site.

       These ruins also include round basalt pits, used to store food.  That came in handy in times of drought, which occurred regularly.

       The king lived uphill, above all this, close to the tiki, a short, squarish carved stone.  It looks like a face but is so worn it’s hard to tell.  Farther uphill, there’s only the land of my guide Alain, a wood-carver who has planted all kinds of exotic trees on his property:  sandalwood, rosewood... 

     On the way back downhill, Hei stops at the first platform to demonstrate one of the sports of the Marquesas:  lifting a round 150-kg stone.  Amazingly, he lifts it up with great effort, then hefts it onto his shoulder before dropping it with a thud that resonates through the earth.  Kind of like the Highland games, or more appropriately the contests on Easter Island that Hugo told us about when I was there.  After all, his people - the people of Rapa Nui - came from Polynesia.  And before that all Polynesians are thought to have come from... Taiwan!

       Along the road, Hei stops to pick some grapefruits off a tree and we head for the coast.  He prepares them for the others - new arrivals - while I walk the sands, making sure to avoid the stinging jellyfish which Alain has pointed out, and stare out at the huge combers crashing to shore.

       Back at the Lodge, at the pool for a quick swim, I meet Johann, a new arrival.  Then it’s dinner and bed.  Tomorrow is a big all-day trip!

Day 3 - Friday, Oct. 18 - Tahuata Island

I was warned that everything in Las Marquesas is different from Tahiti.  Already, on landing, we were told to set our watches back... half (!) an hour.  And the winds here are mostly from the north.  The terrain is all ups and downs worthy of the dahu, a mythical French goat-like animal with two short right legs and two long left ones (or vice-versa), so it can graze on hillsides.  So yes, it’s different here.
       Judging by the crowing at dawn - and even during the night (chicken dreams?) - there are a plethora of roosters on this island of Hiva Oa.
       Breakfast in the main building by the pool is a huge buffet.  I try the local fruits - mango and papaya - with some squeeze-it-yourself local grapefruit you drop into a very noisy but effective juicer.  My new friends Catherine and Philippe join me halfway through.  We’re almost finished when the skies open up and a torrent of rain falls, watering the lush vegetation... and perhaps washing out some of the steep terrain.  We wonder if our boat trip to Tahuata Island will be cancelled.  Or maybe there’ll be a rainbow, which local legend says is the route the gods used to descend to Earth.

       Our guide Henri (really Heimana, or Hei for short) drives us down to the tiny port of Atuona, where Brel arrived.  His boat is still here but being refitted.  We board our tunafishing-cum-tourism boat and head out past Mt. Feani, still with its head in the clouds, past Anakee Island (meaning natural monument) and into the open sea for a 50-minute ride to Tahuata Island, the smallest of the inhabited Marquesas (the name means sunrise).  There’s quite a swell but I still have the sea legs I acquired as a child on my dad’s sailboat, so I’m fine.

       We land first at the town of Vaitahu, where Hei walks us all around town.  There are 56 children in the school, which does pre-kindergarten and primary classes, with two years grouped together.  After that the students go to Hiva Oa for junior high and then on to Tahiti for high school, which doesn’t please the islanders much.  Papeete is a big evil city for a teenager alone.  The island parents want their own high school in the Marquesas... and that appears to be happening.
       The church, made of local stone, is open to the elements with a protective overhanging roof that soars like a bird’s wing.  It has only one stained glass window but it’s huge.  The door is sandalwood and completely sculpted.

       Hei walks us through the entire town, all one street of it.  In the shade pigs are tied up to a tree, its roots emerging from the soil and almost forming a pen.  (On the way back, the little girl in our group scratches the pink pig’s belly, as if it were a dog; the other pig is sleeping.)  We visit two artisanal “shops” where you can pick from among wooden statues and knickknacks or jewelry carved mostly from bone, or even some musical instruments, one of which is the Polynesian version of an Alpenhorn.

       Back to the boat, past a dugout canoe one of Hei's relatives has painted with local motifs in vivid colors.  En route to another beach farther north, Hei plays a ukulele and sings traditional songs.  The boar tusks of his necklace and the Maori-like grunts add to the show.
       We either swim or paddle from the boat to the beach at Koku’u.  Nothing to do here but enjoy the ocean - in it or from the beach - while Hei and his team barbecue lunch:  chicken, fish, pasta (brought from home) and breadfruit harvested off the tree back in Vaitahu.  It takes little time and is all delicious, cooked over an open fire.  (Happy to report there were no nonos - which I think are sand fleas.)

     After eating, a bit more of a swim while the crew cleans up and Hei and his cousin go diving for octopus amid the rocks off-shore.  Then a mad dash home; only 40 minutes but it gets pretty violent at times with a big swell.  Just off Hiva Oa we get a dolphin escort racing our boat to the harbor.
       In spite of the sunscreen and the seeking out of shade, I’ve “taken on colors” the hotel manager tells me.  But only one color really:  red.  (And I’ll keep the tan marks until Christmas!)  While we had sun on Tahuata, back here it has rained off and on all day.
       Just time for a shower to wash off the saltwater - and wash my clothes - and it’s time for dinner with Catherine and Philippe.  Then downhill to Bungalow 2... and bed.

Day 2 - Thursday, Oct. 17 - Tahiti to Hiva Oa

Leaving Papeete

 Some TV, some reading, some fitful sleep... the street is totally still at 1 a.m.  Not a single car.  But by 4, traffic is starting back up.  Sunrise at 5-something.  Heiwara at the door at 6:15 to get back his key.
       But at 6:30, no friendly cab lady from yesterday.  Nor at 6:45.  And I don’t have a name or phone number for her!  At 7, after two calls by Heiwara to two different cabbies, the third call is the charm.  It gets me to Faa’a Airport in ten minutes (Faa’a means “valley”.)  Time to check in, hand over my “carry-on” (it’s a small plane), get something to eat and board.
       The plane has a name - Te Anuanua - which means “rainbow”.  It’s a two-prop ATR 2-600 with an all-Tahitian crew, except perhaps for Capt. Yann Taladen who just may be Breton from the sound of his name.  We’re off under blue skies and over blue sea, the mountains of Tahiti fading in the distance.
       (A word about prices in Tahiti.  Local food at the market was very reasonable.  Other things are more expensive because of freight charges (and maybe customs duties), a lot like what I’ve heard about prices in Hawaii.  Tips are included in meals.  But there are taxes:  VAT of 5% and a service charge of 5%.  I don’t know if the latter goes to the staff, the city or the island.  At the airport café, you pay for plastic cutlery - a tenth of the price of a quiche and almost 40% as much as the orange juice!)

The flight from Tahiti to Hiva Oa takes 3+ hours, mostly over ocean.  Once there’s a necklace of islets stretching off from Aratua but that’s all the land I see.  The Marquesas Islands group is one of the most remote in the world, lying just south of the Equator, about 852 miles (1,370 km) northeast of Tahiti and about 3,000 miles (4,800 km) off the west coast of Mexico, the nearest continental land mass.
       I ask the steward a few questions about Tahiti vs Las Marquesas.  He tells me they’re very different in culture and landscape (Marquesas far more mountainous and wild) and that people settled the Marquesas before Tahiti.  Just before landing I strike up a conversation with the Parisian couple in front of me and we find we were also on the same flight from L.A. and we’re staying in the same hotel.  Small world.
       We are greeted at the airport by the hotel’s owner, Jean-Jacques, who welcomes us with leis of tiaré flowers, something missing from my arrival in Tahiti.

Atuona Bay

After a short pause and a salad lunch at the hilltop hotel, we’re off with Moeava to tour the metropolis of Atuona, population 1,200.  Me being me, I ask if there were more or fewer people here in Gauguin’s time (around 1900).  More he tells me but he doesn’t know how many.  I’m amazed to find the population of the island was 150,000 when Cook discovered it in 1774 compared to 2,200 today.  A decrease due to disease and migration mainly.

Gauguin's tomb

Brel's tomb

       First stop:  the cemetery.  Belgian singer Jacques Brel lies right at the entrance, with lots of inscribed stones left on his grave.  I add a pebble I picked up from the walk up the hill and add a tiaré blossom fallen from a tree nearby.  Brel is still much admired here, because he gave back much to the island that adopted him.  Above him on the hill is Gauguin, whom I’d always been told was an egotist, taking rather than giving.  But it appears he may have had a good side here in his final days.  I’ll try to find out more.
       Then a short drive around town.  The Parisian couple and I are dropped off at the Paul Gauguin Cultural Center, a small art museum full of copies of works from all Gauguin’s periods.  It’s a clone of works now in private collections and museums in Germany, France (mostly the Orsay) and many different American cities, the Americans having adopted Impressionism even before the French did.
       Behind the Cultural Center is a full-sized replica of Gauguin’s house, which he called The House of Pleasure.  It’s interesting to see how natives built to stay cool.  A kitchen area on the ground floor is open to the outdoors but located protectively under the stilts of the upstairs, which has a big room for living (and painting?) and a tiny room with a single bed.  There’s also a well in the yard which has since run dry.  A simple home for an extraordinary talent.

       Past the house is a hangar called the Jacques Brel Center.  I have trouble finding the way in because the “door” has shut and it all looks like wall.  A young Marquesan passing by has pity on me (“Are you looking for the entrance?”) and points.  Inside are the two old 35-mm projectors Brel used to show films to this movie-deprived outpost, projecting them onto a sheet, with most of the town sitting on the town square.  Suspended over everything flies Brel’s two-engine Beechcraft named Jojo after his good friend and manager.  Because of Brel’s love of St. Exupéry, the author/pilot who wrote “Le Petit Prince”, he learned to fly once he’d given up entertainment.  He’d fly back and forth to Tahiti, carrying medicine, food and supplies for the island.  He even flew in a dentist at regular intervals to fix the children’s teeth, having suffered that pain and ignominy in his own childhood.
       After all this, I rejoin the two others and our ride comes, making a detour to find me a small Marquesan flag for my “prayer flag line” (one flag for each country visited).  The intention of prayer flags is to hang them in hopes that “all beings everywhere will benefit and find happiness”.  That’s an idea that I like.  Happiness.  Living together in peace, something that traveling instills in you.
       Back at the hilltop hotel, I order a mojito and take it to my room.  Night falls gradually, clouds moving lower on Mt. Feani (alt. 1125 m or 3690 ft) across the valley.  All I can see by 6 p.m. are points of light in the valley, and just barely a dark line against the sky for the horizon.  Hopefully lots of constellations tonight.
       Soon dinner, a shower and bed.

Atuona by night

Day One - Wednesday, Oct. 16 - Tahiti

After an eight-hour flight over nothing but ocean, the sun comes up slowly on Tahiti.  Our final approach is over the ferry terminal and a backdrop of craggy hills.
       An Air France ground employee sees me slowly descend the stairs with my two bags and comes up to help.  Her warm smile is my first greeting to French Polynesia.  The airport looks a lot like the one in Easter Island, both very Polynesian.
     Just inside stand two massive natives, one with a ukelele, the other with a guitar, playing what sounds to me like “native” songs while a sarong-clad woman dances hula-esquely.  There’s such a back-up at customs that the trio must have run through their entire repertoire in the almost-hour it takes to process a Boeing-ful of arrivals, most of whom are Americans, so extra paperwork.
       By the time my passport gets stamped, I’m among the last of the passengers.  And that turns out to be a good thing.  Because the taxi driver I get is a peach.  I share the cab - me riding shotgun - with two other Yanks in the rear seat, them headed for the ferry to Moorea, a nearby island... which is where the cabdriver lives with the last of her 14 children.  The route to the ferry goes right past my hotel - which turns out to be an AirB&B instead.  After sharing the cost, the cabbie hands me off to Heiwara, the apartment owner.  The taxi driver promises to pick me up tomorrow morning for the ride back to the airport (and on to Hiva Oa).  She’s absolutely charming, a warm welcome.

       Heiwara takes me up to my studio apartment, home for not even 24 hours.  It’s simple but clean; unfortunately it’s on the main drag along the bay, which makes for a lovely view but a fairly high decibel noise level.  It does have A/C though so I’ll be able to sleep with the door-window closed.  And maybe, because Papeete gets up early, the city will go to sleep early.  No, there are many young people here... That’s not going to happen.

Papeete Market

       Heiwara escorts me to the ATM - so he can be paid in local money - and points me in the direction of the market.  It’s past the McDonald’s and past the Cathedral, which I stop in to see (the Cathedral, not the McDo’s).  Very simple, but with stained glass windows in which the saints are clearly Tahitian, as is the Madonna & Child just inside the door, carved in reddish polished exotic (native) wood.  About a dozen of the faithful are in the pews.  It’s a quiet change from the bustle of the street outside.
     The market is vast, covering most of one city block.  High ceilings with something upstairs, but not stalls.  At least not today.  For sale are fruit and veg that I recognize mostly from the French West Indies - including the sweet small bananas the Martiniquais call ti nains  (small midgets) and which are called rima rima here.  That means “hand”, which is what a bunch of them looks like:  the fingers of a hand.  There’s also lots of vanilla from Hiva Oa (my next stop) just waiting for a baker’s touch, and a fishmonger - only one today (Wed).  And several snack counters.  Plus jewelry and handicrafts.  But so many types of monoi that, not knowing which one my daughter-in-law wants, I pass.
       A walk back along the busy harbor street, then a nap.
       Awake at lunchtime, there’s no room at the inn, aka the restaurant just downstairs.  But the owner calls a similar restaurant and reserves me a table.  He’s from Brittany and worked ten years in Dublin but says he was “climatically challenged” so now he’s here.

O à la Bouche

       Back down the street I walk, past the Cathedral, past McDonald’s and into a small side street, to L’O à la Bouche - a play on words for “mouth-watering” (O replacing “eau”, or water).  The O is etched in all the frosted windows, the two on the street and those to the kitchen.  I have a lovely mahi-mahi and scallops in coconut milk and Tahitian vanilla, plus a glass of sauvignon blanc and a bottle of water:  O de Tahiti.
       Afterwards back to home base for another nap (jet lag).
       Right around the corner is the Pearl Museum.  It’s free and Tahiti has a long pearl history, so why not?  It’s really a ploy to sell you pearls, but there’s a part that tells the technical side of pearls and another one that tells their historical side.  There I learn that Columbus amassed a fortune in Caribbean pearls, but they were all confiscated by the King of Spain upon his return and Columbus was thrown in prison.  Poor Christopher.  First that and now he’s losing Columbus Day to the natives.  He should have stayed in Italy!
       It’s so hot and humid when I come out - the hottest time of the day - that I decide to rest until it’s cooler before walking through the park across from home base.
       Three hours later, I wake to find the sun has already set.

The view