With Rarotonga in the Cook Islands under our belts, we decided to up the complexity level and add a foreign language into the mix with our next stop: Tahiti! French Polynesia, just a quick 2.5 hour plane ride away, boasts 121 islands spread over 1,200 miles of ocean, making it significantly larger than our last stop. Tahiti itself is 403 square miles (compared to Rarotonga’s 26 square miles), so it’s no wonder that Pape’ete, it’s capital, was a might larger than sleepy Avarua. Because we couldn’t check in online for our Air Tahiti flight and this generated minor concern for both the Booking.com agent I contacted and myself, I decided to heed the small writing and show up 2 hours before our flight, even though I knew the size of Rarotonga’s airport and how this was patently ridiculous. Evidence below shows that it, indeed, was ridiculous. We were the first people in the airport. Not even the first passengers…the first PEOPLE.
But someone did show up a few minutes past 5am and check us in, only to inform us that security was on their “tea break” and would not be open until 5:30/6am (the “break” part was confusing to me, as that implied they had been working beforehand?). Anyway, they rolled up around 6am and our flight loaded around 6:45 for a 7am departure. In true French fashion, we were offered red wine, white wine, and prosecco and when I was trying to nod off I heard the “pop” of a cork as my fellow passengers took advantage of the free booze. Once we landed, though, we were similarly serenaded by a ukelele (with dancers to boot!) and we stepped blinking into the tropical heat and began to slowly bleed money. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that a major vacation hotspot would be expensive, but, whoo (the taxi is $10 just to pick you up and they charge something like $6/bag…and THEN the meter starts going)!
I booked us a nice studio apartment outside the main downtown area, but because we couldn’t check in right away, we stored our luggage at the Bora Bora Lounge ($$) and then wandered down one of the main streets past myriad closed shops because, alas, it was Sunday. We ended up at the Easy Market grocery store and bought a baguette and apples and just sort of sat at a counter at the front and looked out the window. The much less glamorous side of travel, I know. We eventually got into our apartment, though, had a swim, and then a good night of sleep after some fast food from next door (CS ordered a hamburger with egg and cheese, which surprised me and then he ATE it (it even had onions!), which surprised me more). The next day we headed into the main downtown area near the Pape’ete Market and, of course, found our customary bubble tea. We sat and played cribbage on a bench and perused the market as well. It was considerably more busy and crowded than Avarua, and CS and I both flexed our French to order some pain au chocolat.
The next day took us to the Thrifty car rental location in town to get our car for the next week and I had to readjust to driving on the righthand side of the road again (I still keep turning on the windshield wipers after our stint in the Cook Islands). We had planned on heading to a nearby beach but ended up hanging in town only to find out later that the beach had been closed anyway due to tsunami warnings from the huge earthquake up in Kamchatka, Russia. Waves ended up being rather small in our part of French Polynesia. We then took the 45 minute Tauati Ferry to the island of Moorea and I was thankful for all our ferry practice in Norway, since things pretty much worked the same here with a car. CS passed on the Dramamine and we both kind of regretted that as the boat heaved its way across the channel to Moorea, but we both survived without tossing any cookies (a new phrase for CS). Moorea felt much calmer than Tahiti and extremely tropical, with giant verdant mountains and miles of palm trees. Our accommodation, an American school (Blue Bird Company…the same company that made CS’s bus from this school year) converted into a little apartment has been a highlight for both of us.
