Part 43 - Tahiti

The eight hour journey to Tahiti went well. I spent a good four hours of it trying (and eventually succeeding) in being crowned as United Airlines All Time Best Quiz Champion. I say "crowned", nobody actually emerged with a magnum of champagne and a garland of flowers, but I'm sure there were hushed admiring glances from the airline staff as I disembarked. 

This is definitely going on my CV

These cheerful chaps were waiting to welcome us as we landed. Shame the picture is terrible.

I arranged for my landlady to pick me up at the airport, but it emerged that she only spoke French (and Tahitian which consists of mainly vowels). So despite having done French all through school, having spent the last four months in Latin America, the only foreign language my brain could cope with was Spanish. It soon became apparent that I'd inadvertently invented my own language I'll call Spanglais. Here's a simple three-step guide to speaking Spanglish .

1. Say your chosen word/phrase in broken Spanish
2. Apologise in English
3. Try and say the word in rusty high school French. If not known, say it in English with a French accent.

Thankfully, the ride home was very short (in fact, the guest house was at the end of the bloody runway. 1,500 Francs well spent), so my landlady wasn't confused / lightly terrified for long. My room/garage was windowless and stiflingly hot, but overall the house and hosts were both very pleasant. 

The view from one of the bedrooms (not mine).

Two things you need to know about in Tahiti. It's very hot and very French. The temperature never seems to dip below 30C, and everyone seems to carry a baguette around with them. This isn't just some lazy stereotype, it's illegal to profiteer off essential items such as bread and petrol, which is why baguettes are favoured by people on the, er, bread line. It's also why none of the petrol stations bother to display their prices because they all charge the same. 

Oh, and lassies wearing the white flower over the ear is very much a thing here. I learned that over the left ear means you're spoken for, and over the right ear you're available. I saw quite a few flowers getting hastily moved during my time there. 

On the first day, I rented a bike from my host and cycled to the nearest beach. It really isn't exaggerating to say that the island is very picturesque indeed, and everyone is pretty chilled out.

The view from the hill I cycled pushed the bike up

The next day, I rented a bike again and took it on the catamaran ferry over to the nearest island, Moorea. From there, I cycled 5km and headed inland to find the 'Āfareaitu waterfall. Despite the weather being dry and sunny on the coast, the second you head inland, it started pishing it down. 

Rain clouds aplenty

At one point, some guy emerged from his house demanding 100 Francs to visit the waterfall. I had no idea if he was "at it" or not, and sadly he didn't appear to understand Spanglais - but given 100 Francs is less than a quid, I handed it over and set off. I had to cross several swollen rivers, and given that the rain was biblical at this point, pictures were hard to take and I was soaked to the skin. This video doesn't really do it justice - but all the water that isn't part of the waterfall is rain.

I'd forgotten to bring a towel but given I was already soaked to the skin, I went for a swim, hiking boots and all. I then yomped the 30 minutes back to Monsieur 100 Francs, gave him a quick "Adios, sorry, au revoir", and headed back to the road where the rain disappeared as if by magic. I'd have liked to explore the rest of the island, but given my soaking and filthy nature, headed back to Tahiti to dry out and wash.

Sunday was my last day on the island, and I'd booked a tour of the island in a minibus. As all the other visitors were American and the tour guide Fabrice spoke perfect English, I could dispense with the Spanglais. Tahiti consists of a larger and a smaller island, and our tour circumnavigated the imaginatively named Big Island.  

The peninsula linking Big Island to ... you guessed it ... Little Island

During the tour, we stopped at several lovely waterfalls ...

The reason for the silly pose is I'm getting eaten alive by mosquitos

... some caves ...

... the Botanical gardens, where the Paul Gauguin museum used to be located before it shut down... 

(and where this crazy looking duck lived)

... a blowhole which I failed to get on camera. However, the waves which fed it were very impressive ...

... and finally the same bloody beach I slogged it to on the first day, which boasted this lighthouse designed by Robert Louis Stevenson's dad Thomas. 

And a very nice lighthouse it is too. Despite it being built inland. 

Tahiti really is a beautiful island, and I'm sure the many other islands in French Polynesia are even more so. However, given the main activities here are sunbathing, scuba diving, surfing, and speaking French, there wasn't much else for me. I'm glad that I got the opportunity to come here (and it was actually cheaper to stop here than to fly over it), but I was equally glad to travel on to my next destination.

I usually update this blog at the airport and I arrived in plenty of time to do so. That plan was scuppered when New Zealand immigration decided to phone me for a "chat" less than two hours before we were due to leave. It started off easy enough, "where else had I been?", "did I have a return ticket?", "have I spent more than 12 months in prison over the last 10 years?". Things took an unfriendly turn when he reminded that I was not allowed to lie, and things went further south when I was asked to produce five years of bank statements with less than an hour before take-off. We sorted it out just in time for me to board the plane, but I genuinely believed I was going to be barred from entry and deported back to the UK. 

Of course, this would be the perfect opportunity to get stuck into the New Zealand Immigration Service - especially since they had granted my electronic visa weeks ago and had plenty of time to phone me up. However, given it's not too late for them to kick me out, I'll just say they're a great bunch of lads, and leave it at that. Anyway, next up, New Zealand!