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