Raiatea - Day 2
We took a private 4x4 tour this morning despite the uncooperative weather.
We booked the tour with Lysis at Hinerani tours again. Because we had booked 2 tours with them we got a discount of 1000 CFP per person, so this tour only cost 2500 each instead of 3500 each. The ship passengers who are paying for everything in dollars are losing 20% of their money on everything they buy, as the vendors take dollars at 100 to 1 ratio, while the actual exchange rate is more like 120-125 to 1.
The sky was overcast and the water wasn't showing much of its characteristic bright blue since there was no sunlight to brighten things up.
It was drizzling rain as we headed out on the tour, but we just took it in stride. We started going around the perimeter of the island, and then Teva, our guide, drove us up a dirt road to a beautiful high overview - ship's tours can't go here because this is private land that our tour guide has access to.
We stopped at the botanical gardens and saw a huge variety of beautiful plants and flowers. I took quite a few pictures that all came out very nice. The gardens were so lush and dense you could hardly see where the walking trail went next. It rained on us for a few minutes, and then we made our way back up to the 4x4 to continue on.
We drove all around the island, including going up a very muddy dirt road to their local Belvedere Point (every island has a Belvedere Point, guess it means beautiful view in French) where we got some great pictures of the island panorama. On the way back down Teva warned us it would be like "Magic Mountain" ride at Disneyland. Was it ever!! We were bouncing and rolling and slipping all over the muddy road - what a ride!
We stopped next at the most famous maraes (stone platform religious ceremonial sites) in the islands - Taputapuatea. One of the large round stones there which was about 5 or 6 feet high, was where human sacrifices were carried out. They would club the victim from behind on the back of the head to knock them unconscious, and then take the victim and pull their body back and forth across this volcanic rock, essentially grating their body to death - a very gory way to die.
We continued on, circling the island, which is only 17 -1/2 miles long to go all the way around the island. We stopped at another scenic viewpoint, and the guide saw some "touch-me-not" fern plants. These plants will instantly close up all their leaves if you touch them. I took pictures close-up of the leaves just before and after touching them.
On the final segment of the trip around the island we cut through a back road and came across the most beautiful multiple waterfalls cascading down the mountainside. They were flowing fairly light due to the winter season Tahiti is now in, but they were beautiful none-the-less.
We got back to the dock about 12:30 or so, and then went to lunch on the ship. We had a week's worth of laundry to do, so I went up to the 7th deck laundry room and did a wash load and then dried it. That took almost 2 hours as there is always a waiting line for the dryers. Sandy went to the pool to sunbathe for a while.
At 4:30pm the ship weighed anchor and left the main docks at Raiatea. We were up on the sun deck, deck 10, as the ship used side thrusters to push away from the dock. The ship's horn was sounded 3 times as it moved off. The horn was right above us - it just about knocks you off your feet when it is used it is so loud. The ship headed out to sea and over towards Bora Bora for tomorrow's docking inside the reef. Mike and Dom came to our cabin to share some wine and cheese and watch the sunset from our balcony, but the strong rolling and pitching of the boat that night was too much to handle, so Sandy gave them some Dramamine. That did the trick as we all got ready for the pinnacle of our trip - Bora Bora!
We saw the only pretty sunset tonight of the whole trip so far. Every other night it has been much too cloudy to see anything.