7th December 2007 - Nuka Hiva, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia
Arrived at the Marqueses islands after 2 days at sea; the last destination of Gauguin and Brell and perfectly understandably - although the girls are a bit big!
Were disappointed on arrival to sea another cruise liner, the Paul Gauguin (appropriately enough) had arrived before us as we knew there would be limited taxi/car/boat hire possibilities and no tours on offer and this proved to be the case. On disembarking by tender we arrived to discover no transport available of any sort; at least in the morning. So we immediately reserved a vehicle for pm, but being a captive audience had to take a driver, but she turned out trumps - the daughter of the owner.
So, we spent the morning reviewing Taohae, the 'capital' if that's not putting it too strongly. There was a craft centre, grazing horses - plenty of these on the island - and a couple of churches. More interestingly, and in the tradition of Easter island, the earlier Polynesian civilisation had produced a raft of stone carved men. Fortunately for us, these statues - which had gone to rack and ruin - had been collected into one place near the Catholic 'cathedral' and were all on display. Called tiki and between a metre and two metres high, these were really quite marvellous. We wandered around for the morning before picking up our 'tour guide'.
We had a comfortable 4WD as the island had limited paved roads. The terrain was wild with Taohae being located in an extinct volcanic crater within a second volcanic crater. No atolls here. To get to Taipivai, the next village, we had to drive out of the crater to the ridge and motor over the other side. This provided most impressive views of both the capital on our departure and Taipivai and its bay on out approach. Even in the Pacific, this small settlement of mainly coconut farmers had its own football pitch. We dropped down into Taipivai and called in at the church and saw a number of tethered horses in the valley bottom. It was then over to the hamlet of Houmi which was at the head of a side bay in this deeply indented coastline. We took a swim in the sea from the sandy beach and, a few local women apart who were supporting a local crafts stall, we had the place to ourselves.
Our chauffeuse then drove us back towards Taohae and took a small detour on the route to Terre Deserte where the airport is located to show us a belvedere with even more spectacular views of the capital from the rim of the inner volcan. We were able to look back across the plateau to see the rim of the mighty outer volcano before returning to the boat jetty. From there we took the tender back to the boat. A pleasant, if expensive, day; 3 hours in the car cost the four of us £80, but tht's French Polynesia for you. Absolutely beautiful, but full metropolitan France prices.
