Exploring Tahiti

June 28, 2014  exploring tahiti,

We take one day out of our project schedule to drive out of town and explore the more rural part of Tahiti.  As usual, there is one main road that skirts the coast.  Once to of town, it becomes 2 lanes.  Luckily there is not much traffic although we of get stuck behind the occasional slow truck. or tractor  They always turn off after a few miles.  Again I am reminded of Ireland.  Everything is so green and moist, although this is much warmer.  The French/european influence is evident in the use of roundabouts.  They work much better than 4 way stops or traffic lights to sort out traffic and keep it flowing.  The US would do well to have more roundabouts.

Our first stop is a small museum where we are treated to a wonderful overview of the history of these islands.  An excellent display shows how the islands are formed, from active volcano thrusting up from the sea floor to decaying atolls.  French Polynesia covers an area the size of the entire US.  Surprisingly, the museum does not exhibit the usual anger toward the western explorers and missionaries for bringing disease and destroying the native culture.  Out front is an enormous anchor from the Bounty.  It was retrieved from the bay by David Lean when he was here remaking Mutiny on the Bounty, restored and given to the museum.

Shortly after leaving the museum we come to what is obviously a festival of some sort.  Of course we must stop to investigate.  It is part of the Hieva, the orange caring contest.  Oranges are grown way up the valley, packed into net bags and hung on the end of long poles.  Runners bring then down to the coast by carrying the poles across their shoulders.  The contest is to see who arrives first with the most weight.  There are tables set around a large lawn, each apparently hosted by a team.  Large, muscular men in colorful sarongs man the tables, pose for pictures and offer bags of oranges for $5 each.  Wow, those are expensive oranges.  There are only about a dozen to a bag.  We assume that it is a fundraiser for the teams, except that later I discover oranges in the stores sell for $5/kilo. 

Back on the road, we drive past towering cliffs on one side and the still waters of the lagoon on the other.  There are small skiffs or outriggers tied up all along the shore.  In the distance, waves break against the reef.  There are a few marinas along the way with a handful of sailboats.  Eventually we come to the end of the island and a surfing beach.  This is Teahupoo, a famed surfing beach.  Kids are playing in the water, families picnicking under the trees but the surfing waves are way on the reef.  This is not at all what I am used to for surfing.. There should be long swells rising to great heights and breaking against a sandy shore not these short steep waves that crash against a coral reef.  If you wipe out here you are really going to get scraped up.  But the book says that Tahiti invented surfing.

Having come to the end of the road, it is time to head back.  We pass the road to the waterfalls botanic gardens, water gardens, grottos with no time to stop.  Maybe another day.