Day 6 - Monday, Oct. 21 - Hiva Oa

The view from the top

 An early activity today:  horseback riding in the tropical forest.

Rancho Paco

       Paco picks me up at 8:15 and drives us back to his home up on the plateau, most of which belongs to his family.  (The third tribe?)  Brel bought land up here but didn’t live long enough to build his home.

That little line?  That's the path!

       A native Marquesan, Paco spent most of his life in France - a paratrooper.  Now he’s retired and has brought his French Basque wife back here where he earns a living from “hunting, fishing and horses”.
       Today I have him all to myself.  He saddles the horses - his a sprightly gelding, mine a calm mare.  Thank God!  Because I haven’t gone riding since I was a teenager... and when I see where we go...!  For three hours we ride through thick tropical forest along a “trail” not always very obvious to the eye .  (“The horse knows the way”, Paco reassures me.  Well, reassuring isn’t much Paco’s thing; remember, he was a paratrooper, so you just get on with it.)  After the forest, fields of ferns, and along precipices where the drop is vertiginous (only one horse-step away) and up and down slopes far too steep for me to savor.  Quite a few white knuckle moments along the way.  But once up there, to the very heights of the plateau, with nothing higher except the sky, the view out over everything stretches all the way to the Pacific in the distance.

The "trail"

       We make a big triangle and go past two sites I recognize.  First we skirt the end of the airport’s landing strip and I pray the daily flight won’t arrive because I could never handle a panicked horse.  But I’m sure Paco took the flight time into consideration, right?  We also reach that roundabout... and see no cars.   Paco, like Moeava yesterday, laughs at the cost incurred for all the signage put up... except for direction names.  (Of course they all know where they’re going and even I do now.)
       With only one stop during the three hours to give the horses - and my knees! - a break, we arrive back at his house/ranch.  He helps me down because my knees have sort of seized up.  They get motion back over a cold lemon drink Paco serves up.  Achy knees, yes, but I didn’t fall.  I didn’t knock my head on any of the trees half-fallen over the “trail”.  “I’ve seen worse”, Paco says when I ask if I didn’t make a fool of myself.  I guess that’s a compliment coming from a paratrooper.

He gets me back to the hotel in time for a swim as knee hydrotherapy, then a shower with clothes on (to wash the horse smell away) and then with clothes off (to wash me from horse and chlorine), followed by a light lunch.
       The afternoon goes by slowly, in true Marquesan style.  A discussion with Jean-Jacques, the hotel owner/manager.  A chat with Moeava, who’s there building something cabinet-like (remember, he’s a carpenter).  But he takes time to phone someone who knew Brel, asking him to come tell me about him.  But that man is working on his own house which is attacked by termites, so no Brel stories for me.
       I watch the sun set a fifth and last time over the cordillera across the valley.  Soon all will be pitch black, the head of Mt. Feani still in the clouds.
       Just before dinner, I turn on a light and a tiny lizard scurries up the wall.  He’s so tiny he could have slipped under the door, but he eats mosquitos, so he’s welcome here.  I call him Junior Gecko.
       From the terrace, I see the lights of Atuona.  Only darkness west of that.  And just two or three dots of light from Taa’Oa across the bay.  Past that, only night.

The plateau