Our second island stop in French Polynesia was Raiatea. It’s lush, green, clean and beautiful. It doesn’t have Tahiti’s sandy beaches, but it also doesn’t have a lot of Tahiti’s problems. It’s not overdeveloped; traffic is not an issue; the houses are tidy and well cared for; there’s very little graffiti; and far fewer stray dogs. And if you really do want those sandy beaches you can just hire a boat to take you across the lagoon to one of the many little islands called motus.
We didn’t do that but we did hook up with another couple from the ship to hire a taxi to take us around the island. The driver spoke only a little English but enough for all of us to communicate what we wanted and understand what we were seeing. His wife and 2-year old daughter came along and rode quietly in the back. Apart from enjoying the general scenery as we drove around the island we stopped at a botanical garden, where even the dead leaves looked exotic, and a marae, or sacred site, where stone platforms and other structures were laid out for the performance of various rituals including sacrifices of vegetables, animals and tourists.
Our taxi companions Jim and Lisa were from Minnesota and therefore inevitably very nice. Her Midwest accent was so strong I could have sworn I was listening to a radio skit from Prairie Home Companion. She persuaded the taxi driver to stop somewhere she could buy some black pearls, a natural commodity for which these islands are famous, and she scored a good deal. We joined Jim and Lisa for lunch back on the ship before stepping back out in the heat and humidity to walk around town a bit. Eventually unable to stand our own B.O., we returned to the ship for a very necessary shower, followed by a beautiful sail out of the harbor near sunset before resuming the normally scheduled rounds of gluttony onboard.
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Botanical Garden_
Dead leaf as sculpture
The marae (sacred site)
View of nearby islands as we sail away from Raiatea.