How to get lost in one easy lesson
18 July 2011 | Avea Bay, Huahine Island, French Polynesia
Sunny, warm and blowing with occasional rain
How to get lost in one easy lesson. It's easy. Just don't know where you are going.
We took off on a hike yesterday morning down to the South point of the island to see the Marae Anini, one of the local holy sights of the island dating back to before the French showed up in the 1700. It's made up of lots of coral slabs that have been hauled off the shoreline and stood up on end. I can't imagine how much work it took to get all those slabs in place. We were greeted by a local guide that had a group of four with him.
After exploring the beach there, we took off for a hike up one of the local mountains, or at least what they refer to as mountains. We heard and read about a path that takes you up the hill for views of Avea Bay as well as the village of Parea on the eastern side of the island. Supposedly, the path wound around and would take you down to the village at the end of the hike. From what we had read, no one has found the rest of the path that takes you to the village but we were game for a try. Up we went along the well traveled path higher and higher reaching several "summits" of different hills as we went. While the views were great, just about every one was blocked by the growth of Australian Pine Trees. Tall spindly trees with long thin needles that hang down from the branches. Lovely really.
Up and up we went till we finally got to the summit. Once past the summit, we traveled a much less warn path. It eventually petered out to just a small path that was barely there. We had a choice to make--continue on and try and find a decent path to the town or turn back. We pressed on!!! Through fern covered areas as well as long vine covered areas that grabbed at your feet and shoes. Oh, by the way, I was wearing a set of Crocs(not designed for hiking) while Tracy had on a pair of shoes with just about no tread left on them. We really were not set up for hiking in the hills. Down we went with no real path or trail to follow. We tried to head down toward the village as we were lead to believe we should find a path but what ever we followed just took us to the edge of a rock cliff. Sorry, wrong way!! So we headed farther north and slowly made our way along the top of the ridge veering toward the west away from the village but back toward where we had started at Avea Bay. The woods got denser with far more decayed trees and vines. On we pressed watching our steps. I'd picked up a "walking stick" that someone had left along the earlier pathways to help me out feeling through the deep carpet of ferns, vines and grasses. Tracy took a wrong step and took a quick landing on her fanny. We slowly made our way down the side of the hill coming out north of where we had started at Avea Bay several hours before. As we looked back up the "mountain", walking along the crest line had helped us get past the steep cliffs that also made up the west sides of the "mountain". We'd come out on the one place where you could come down. OK, we got lucky but we also got down hardly the worse for wear other than shins that had been whipped by the ferns and vines-- oh, and my feet were really dirty.
We retraced our steps down the road we had taken earlier toward one of the "Snacks"(small restaurant) for a well deserved lunch. As we approached, the place was empty. Not a car nor a person. I wandered in(no doors on these places) and finally found a group in the back room. One of the women came forward to take our order. I had chicken and fries($1,000 francs $12.50US) while Tracy had chicken with roquefort cheese and fries($1,300 francs $16.25US). Two bottles of Coke at 225 francs-$2.81 each. Add on two ice cream cones--the first we have found for I don't know how long at 150 francs ($1.87 each) and with another bottle of coke to go, we ended up at over $44.00 for lunch. As we had lunch, a pair of locals came in for a french bread sandwich to go. That's how the locals normally eat. We didn't see any mention of sandwiches on their menu. The food was great and the portions were huge--two breasts on each plate with more fries than either of us could eat along with slices of french bread to have with the meal. We felt we got a great meal for a "reasonable" price. If you eat at a "restaurant", you can expect to pay at least double what we did as they cater more to the tourists than the "snacks" do. When we eat at one, we are normally the only non locals at the tables.
We headed back to Puff for the trip back to Zephyr. We'd tied here up--actually locked her up to a dock at one of the small hotels along the beach. Actually the only hotel along the beach. I checked the prices of a room(little grass shacks along the beach) on the internet and they run over $400US a night--meals not included. YEOW!!!!!! Of course you do get free satellite TV in your room!!
Once back at Zephyr, I started up the generator to recharge the batteries and turned on the water heater so we could have a "hot" shower--a real treat. Since we had eaten such a huge meal at lunch, dinner was just snack food. Neither of us was that hungry.
Last night, the winds continued to howl through the bay hitting close to 50 knots in one burst. Rains fell off and on just to make it interesting. We had pulled Puff(our dingy) onto the deck for storage rather than dangling her from a hoist along Zephyrs starboard side. With the winds we had already experienced during our stay here, we felt it smarter to have her strapped down on deck that flying along side. Our decision proved correct. Puff was safe and secure this morning. We've seen some people leave their dingies in the water over night and find them upside down or missing the next day, neither of which do we want to experience.
Today, we hope to dingy around the south end of the island and do some snorkeling on the coral reefs that are there. Right now, it's blowing and raining so we will wait for a while and see what comes later this morning.
Stay tuned. More to come.