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