Huahine was our final stop. It is described as the garden of eden so imagine a green, lush, island. Lots of dense plants and beautiful blue waters. It is 2 islands combined by a sandbar. Locals claim that some of the mountains look like a reclining pregnant woman. We debated which set of hills/mountains they were talking about, though Jeff was confident he saw her. I could kind of see it, but not super clear either. This is a quiet, laid back island. But be forewarned on Wednesdays at least in October it rains right before noon. Or at least it did both weeks on us. We were still on our excursion the first week and in the tender waiting to go back to the ship the second week.
Can you see her behind me? Head on the right, belly on the left.
Our first week had an excursion called "Sacred sites and Legendary Places". It was fantastic. Our main guide is an expat who has lived here since he finished his PhD in Polynesian Studies at the University of Hawaii. He had first visited the islands as a teenager. He is the professor who can lecture for hours on a topic without notes because he obviously loves the topic. He doesn't drone on. He is the professor whose class you always looked forward to attending. The write up said our guide would share his passion for the island with you - he did. We went to archeological sites some up on a hill and one on the water. He described the groups who had used each site.
Our guide with his captivated tour group
The large stones were an elevated platform
Note the stone walls on either side
Stone platform
We visited a museum where we got to see old tools and to experience a building made from local palm leaves and other plants.
We also visited another vanilla plantation. This one was interesting in that all of the plants were in a kind of green house. They too sold vanilla products and this time we walked away with a small bottle of coconut vanilla rum. We opened it the other day - had forgotten how sweet it is. Will need to mix it with something!
From there we saw 500 year old fish traps. Yep you read that right 500 years old. Actually, they have been there that long, but I think there had been some rebuilding along the way. It is interesting the traps are made of piled rocks in the shape of big "V"s so as the water/tide comes in, some fish get caught as it goes back out some more fish get caught. Very ingenious.
Our last stop was to see the village Faie where we saw their blue eyed eels. Like a good tour guide he brought along a can of fish so that they swarmed the area and we could see them well. I think a couple were easily over 2 feet long.
As he talked about the history he also taught us about modern day French Polynesia. We learned things about current life here - most people live in multi-generational families and the land is often owned by families - you and your brothers and sisters have to agree to sell some or all of the land. Years ago the land on the islands were split up in wedges so from a mountain top going down to the water was your family's piece of land. Kids are able to receive a certain level of education on the island, but then have to go to a larger island to get to the end of our high school education. To go higher may mean going to Tahiti and ultimately to France for a university level education. Many young people are not up to the culture shock of going to France so many of the professional level jobs are still held by non-native Frenchmen. The French government heavily subsidizes the islands, so people have a decent level of living, but it is a challenge to develop new industries.
Our second week we chose an E-bike tour of the smaller of the 2 islands. It was Jeff, me, Linda from our cruise and Anne our tour guide. Anne was originally from France. Neither Jeff nor I had used an E-Bike before and weren't sure what to expect. Happy to say it was a good experience. You pedaled like normal but going up a hill you can either work hard all on your own or turn on the bike and get whatever level of assistance you need. While we rode around on the road circling the island, there were a couple of small hills so the assistance was appreciated a couple of times. Oh - traffic. Yes we biked on the main roads. No I was not worried about traffic. There were only a couple of times when there were vehicles going in both directions and vehicles in general were somewhat sparse. We stopped at viewpoints to see the beautiful ocean and to see things like a sign congratulating a village for winning a beautification project and just the views from up a hill. We also stopped at a small resort (LaHana) where in theory we could get in the water. None of us did; rather we sat in the shade and enjoyed a local beer. I think Jeff's favorite part of the ride was the small, very sweet bananas our guide had for us. He still talks about them.
Another of many Archeological sites
The e-bike power assist was helpful reaching the top of this hill.
This is the sign for the beautification award
Nothing like a cold Beer in paradise
One note, while it rained on us at noon both weeks it did not rain all afternoon. Both weeks we enjoyed floating around the marina at the back of the boat in the afternoon for one last time before the cruise was over. Oh the second week we also had the treat of having yet another covid test so we could fly back to the USA.
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