Circling Tahiti Nui

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Trip Start Nov 06, 2010 Previous
Entry Trip End Nov 17, 2010 Next
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  Tahiti, Society Islands, French Polynesia
Sunday, November 7, 2010

Our day started with a lovely, stomach-popping buffet breakfast. I love the cooked-to-order omelettes and the wonderful French pastries!  Reminding myself that I'll basically be living in a bikini for the next 13 days was a good way to stop myself from overeating.  Tahiti actually forms a figure 8 loop – Tahiti Nui ("big Tahiti") and Tahiti Iti (“little Tahiti).    We booked a   4 hour “half-circle” tour of Tahiti Nui, which basically means being on a bus and riding along the coast to see all the different little towns and sights.  Unfortunately, the tour company cheated us and put us on a full-circle tour (even though we only paid for a half-circle tour)… which meant an extra 2 hours on the bus.  After spending 8 hours on a plane the previous day, the last thing we wanted was being cooped up again for 2 hours.  We couldn’t do anything – once we were on the bus and found out what they’ve done we were stuck.  Luckily, Brian and I made the best of it and just enjoyed the exotic scenery and listening to our tour guide’s interesting stories of life on Tahiti.  We passed by Papeete, the main city in Tahiti.  According to our tourist, it's usually very crowded but since it was Sunday and everything was closed, there were a lot less people around.   We did see some very enterprising Tahitians selling their wares (clothes, fruits, etc.) in little stalls set up in front of closed storefronts or in the parking lot.

We stopped at various tourist spots including the Phare de Pointe Vénus (lighthouse of Point Venus), which was built by Thomas Stevenson (father of the author Robert Louis Stevenson); Arahoho Blowhole (where water rushes into a cavern and shoots out through the hole in the rocks, like a geyser); Faarumai Waterfalls, where you had to walk a short distance through a bamboo forest to get to the waterfalls; Musée de Gauguin (which only had reproductions since all of Paul Gaugin’s original paintings belonged to museums, universities or private collectors) and the restaurant du Musée Gauguin (which had a fish farm); and finally Vaipahi Gardens in Mataiea (which had beautiful lotus plants).

Once we got back to the hotel we decided to explore a little bit and take a stroll.  We passed by a roadside food stand and settle on trying some local cuisine.  We bought a “poisson pain” and “le poulet pain”, which were basically fried pieces of breaded fish or chicken stuffed into a baguette along with French fries.  Carb overload!  It was surprisingly good with a bit of spicy mustard.

After our little culinary adventure of Tahitian street food, we watched the sunset lying in the hammock by the hotel’s Lagoonarium.  Pool service was closed by 6pm but we decided to swim around the lagoon and we were the only ones there.

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Hotel/Resort entrance	waiting for our tour to start	our balcony	view of lagoon from our balcony
pool and Lagoonarium	of course there's a McDonalds	Papeete - downtown Tahiti	enterprising Polynesians
Phare de Pointe Venus	our guide talking about Point Venus	ship's bow	black sand beach
black sand beach	one of the many, many churches in Tahiti	roadside seller	Arahoho Blowhole
Tahitian graffiti	Tahitian handicrafts	basket woven using coconut fronds	cute kid & puppy
posing with puppy	roadside shack	coco glace	multi-tasking
stroll through the bamboo forest	bamboo forest	Faarumai Waterfalls	Faarumai Waterfalls
Faarumai Waterfalls	B sipping his coconut water	giant hibiscus	tropical flowers
cute kids	fish farm	Gauguin reproductions	Gauguin's tahitian period
Vaipahi Gardens	lotus flowers	our view at breakfast	french pastries for breakfast, yum!
Video: opening a fresh coconut

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