We still cannot believe that yesterday we were in San Francisco having a nice bacon burger at Luci’s diner and today we are in a wood bungalow facing the sea in Huahine in the French Polynesia. Before I must say that we do not have Internet access. I continue to take photos with the iphone and nuria with the n79. We also continue writing every day on what we do, but now offline in the VAIO. When we have access we will publish everything but for what I see, it is not going to be straight forward in this side of the world.
Anyway. Yesterday, well in fact I don’t even know if it was yesterday, but last thing we blogged was when being in San Francisco and then we were taking the BART train that stops at Powell and costs USD 5.35 to the airport. We arrived with plenty of time ahead. We had a coke in a nice bar inside the airport with the planes beside. Then we went to Los Angeles. Fortunately the bags were checked in until Papeete (Tahiti). The check-in in San Francisco with United Airlines was pretty straight forward. We had to do it in a desk with a machine and a phone… strange.
In LA we had to change terminals. We went to the one where Air Tahiti Nui operates, basically we were arriving at Terminal 3 and this one was on the left. 10 min. LA airport, at least the terminal were we were has nothing to be envied from a Malawian airport…. really pathetic. We waited until 23.50 (we were dead…) and we boarded the airbus that took us to Papeete. We sat and we got slept. We missed dinner.
One hour and a half before arriving to Papeete we woke up and they served breakfast. Cool. I had pudding. Now our time difference is of 10 hours.
Papeete airport is a small airport. The first thing we did after collecting our bags was to go to Air Tahiti and buy a "multipass" or "blue pass". It consists on a pass to fly to many islands for a fare that is (in our case) 50% of the regular fare. Yes we landed in Tahiti with no hotel booking. 😉
We bought the following combination: Tahiti-Huahine. This is where we are now. Then after 2 days here we have a Huahine-Bora Bora. In Bora bora we will stay 3 nights. Then Bora Bora-Moreea. In Moreea 2 nights. Then Moreea-Tahiti. One night in Tahiti and then to Auckland (New Zealand).
Well all this flight was 28.400 Francs per person. Reasonable.
After buying a second Tour du Monde within the French Polynesia we went to the storage room and we left the backpacks there. Our flight was departing at 14.20 and it was 8am when we bought this in the airport.
We crossed the main road in front of the airport, and took le "truck" , basically a lorry acting as a bus (not better than the ones in India or Guatemala) that took us for 130 francs to Papeete downtown. I have to say that Tahiti and in general the French Polynesia is pretty expensive. Everything is like in Europe.
Once in town (15 min) we went to the Information Office and asked to info about guesthouses for Huahine, Bora Bora and Moreea. They gave us a lot of info. I took photos of all the pages of the folder they had with guest houses. I can post them once we are back. We called several in Huahine. All fully booked, but one that I liked (that is actually on the other end of the island) was very expensive. 20.000 which is around 200 usd per night… for a guest house…. wow.
After much sweating inside the phone box, we finally found one that is called Fetia. 8000 francs per night for the bungalow.
We went to visit Papeete. The ladies in the information office gave us a map with some itineraries that we followed until around 12.30 when we stopped to have lunch by the coast. Tuna that was actually 80% raw, with curry and coconut sauce. Very good. Then, "truck" back to the airport and flight to meet our Fetia guest house.
A wonderful lady, the owner came with his son to pick us up at the airport. Mini airport as you could imagine. The traditional belt for the luggage, here it was two shelves where they put the bags, extremely fast.
The guest house is pretty close to the airport so we went with their pick up for a non paved trail until her place.
We are in a big bungalow. Very very nice, all in wood, with a kitchen, toilet, a mezzanine. All in bamboo and wood. 10 seconds from a beach for us. It faces the ocean not the lagoon, so it is wild. First thing we did was to go and have a bath. Then walk in the endless beach. Then come back, have a shower and now I am writing while guess…. a super tropical storm is trying to take our bungalow to the outer space.
Now I guess that once is stops raining a bit (it was sunny until now…) I guess that the lady (petty I did not retain her name) will come to call us for dinner. She asked if we like fish. Yummy! She also asked if we have coffee in the mornings and that she will help us to get a car tomorrow so we can go and visit the island, that is one of the most beautiful ones of the Society islands.
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