We landed in Tahiti just as the sun was setting and made our way to our home for the night – so close to the airport that it was possible to push the cart with all our luggage along the streets of Fa’a, Papeete to the house. Welcomed by the host’s mother (and a few dogs), we dropped our things to find dinner at our first Roulotte nearby. Excellent steak frites awaited us and we slept nicely, to continue the feast with a nice breakfast bought at the supermarche nearby, including freshly baked crepes, baguette, and pain au chocolat. Some sashimi for Dylan was also included and we were ready to push our trolley back to the airport for the flight to Ahe in the Tuamoto Archipelago.

We were greeted first by Eric at the airport, taking us to the lodge by boat where we were again greeted not only by our hostess Raita, who happens to be a famous Polynesian singer and dancer (we would get her performance on our last night there as a farewell present) but also by a bunch of black tip reef sharks, many other beautifully coloured fish and two resident sting rays. Over the next days, we would swim with them, pet them, and watch them being fed with the guts of the fresh fish, which were prepared daily for us in different forms. We had it grilled on the beach during our fishing trip, as sashimi, prepared locally raw with coconut milk, fried – just delicious!

If you want to find a secluded, beautiful place to relax, snorkel, kayak, paddle on paddle boards, watch sharks during the day and more numerous at night, find octopus under the jetty, go fishing in the vast lagoon, and learn how the famous black Tahiti pearls are being produced, this is the place for you. We had a marvellous time – even though some of our freshly caught fish were eaten straight from the line again by hungry grey sharks, just biting the line apart, eating the fish, the bait, the hook, and even the coral sinker… at least Kenny was once able to proof his catch by pulling out a big fish head, the only thing left on the line.

Leaving this magnificent place, we headed to the Marquesas islands after another half day and night in Tahiti (no direct flights, unfortunately) where we managed to search for some pearls in the market and to visit the pearl museum; barely resisting to purchase the famous black pearl bikini and some other jewellery for the price of a small house.

Beautiful, remote, wild, dry and humid (depending on the respective side of the islands): Marquesas! It is somehow hard to grasp that only a small percentage of people will ever see this place, so, tacky as this sounds, I feel quite privileged to have visited the two biggest of the islands – Nuku Hiva and Hiva Oa. Each island name represents a part of a house – built by the gods, naturally.

Nuku Hiva’s northern side (where nothing much but the airport is located) is a desert, very arid and rough with a shaky landing on a short runway for the planes. The drive across the island leads through pines and it gets greener by the minute until the view opens up over the lovely bay of Taiohae. Not being able to get a car for the first day, we explored the village on our first day, even getting a chance to witness a local soccer tournament. The next day, luckily our hosts were able to get us a fantastic guide – Christian, who is the descendent of the last king in one way or the other and who drove us around the lovely island with many stories to share interesting information about life up there, including a visit to his aunt’s house, where she raises her goats and pigs for sale in the village, herding them there on horseback as often as required.

Hiva Oa is greener, the landing even more shaky and the bay of Atuona very lovely as well. Tourism seems so scarce that we had some trouble convincing the tourism office that organising a car and driver to take us around the island is a good idea (it seemed that they never had to deal with that question before)… but we managed to and we indeed had a great trip through marvellous landscape, finding the smiling Tiki after some searching for it in the jungle (our guide, a resident of the island for 7 years, had never before gone there herself), looking in awe at the huge Tikis on the northern side of the island, and searching for yet another Tiki at the spiritual site of Ta’aoa (our guide’s village).

And soon, our stay in this remote part of the world was over and we had to board the plane again for our flight back to Tahiti for another night’s stopover before hopping over to the neighbouring island of Moorea.

More on that soon!

ray petting session