Music

Last night from my hotel across the TaiOHae bay, I heard music and drums and wondered whether a cruise ship had arrived after dark and was being welcomed with a performance. I am a little sad that I never saw such a one, but as much as the Marquesans love dancing (apparently), these performances are a patchwork quilt of remembered dances linked with Hollywood patterns and with what locals think foreigners need to see. I wouldn’t want to be hanging around with the patronising smiles I have seen on other tourists. I would find that offensive. So music has been in short supply during the holiday, except for the thump of pop, reggae, rap and techno sounds imported from elsewhere – and so much of that in English. God bless America! But memories of the sensational uplifting singing during last Sunday’s Catholic church service will stay with me forever. Somewhere I did learn it was true what I thought had been the case – the service was in French and the songs/hymns sung in Marquesan.

Mixed reflections

Hoped to be sitting in a similar seat towards Tahiti as I travelled up to the Marquesas on so I would be able to see what I missed out on first up (no set seats just grab the one you want). Forgot planes take off differently according to the wind. So we took off and I had a view of the featureless sea. Then, I was delighted when the plane banked and flew over the island of Nuku Hiva, more or less finishing over TaiOHae and so I saw some of the valleys I had visited on Wednesday. It was a bitter sweet departure. I know I will never be back and so it is truly goodbye. But such a rich store of experiences will give me much pleasure for a long while. Sensational place but hard work coming from a winter climate. And hard work with too little conversational French. However I wouldn’t have done it any other way. A few nights ago I walked up to the plush resort hotel on the hill, sat sipping a (non-alcoholic) cocktail, chatting to a local, admiring the pretty boy bar girl and watching the guests. Strangely, I was given a bowl of green and black olives which did not blend with the fruit juice I was drinking. But that was enough for ‘dinner’. Anyway I looked at the guests and their well-fed tummies, and their expensive linens and sparkling diamanté sandals and knew they could never know the Marquesas’ like I have (even though I realised I had only scratched the surface and understood almost nothing) and I felt sorry that even though they all spoke French, their isolation in such tourist enclaves prevented them from really knowing how people lived, laughed, talked and felt. Nor could they know the values of the local people. And without it at least some of that, all they could be doing was ‘seeing the sights’.

Getting to Nuku Hiva airport

The drive to the Nuku Hiva airport would have to be exposing one of the top 10 natural wonders of the world. Amazing. The variety of terrains from mountains to deserts was awesome (the desert surrounding the airport consists of rolling hills with comparatively low vegetation but it does not meet my childlike definition of a desert which ought to be rolling hills of sand – yes I know we have stony and other styles of deserts on Oz and around the world, but no way did this meet my feeling of desert). At various times the sea could be seen, from our great heights, on all sides. The driver, driving at 20-40km per hour, negotiated continuously curving road, which had more switchbacks than curves (and for the first time in 2 weeks after endless tortuous roads with steep drop-offs and lots of landslide mud and rocks everywhere, I had a functioning seat belt – yes my Ozzie conditioning has been hard to break. Law here says only belts in the front seats need to be worn and only in the towns and villages; still often they didn’t work and were draped over to save the Gendarmes the work of pulling you over and having all that paperwork for your misdemeanour of not wearing a belt). Until we reached the northern ‘desert’, there was never more than a 200m straight section of road, and through the desert one of the few straights could be as long as 400m – and this was during an over a 1 ½ hr trip from the town of TaiOHae. Fanbloodytastic. Exhilarating. I will always remember the endless wild horses and their foals standing in the middle of the road or eating on the verges, and others with their winter coats scruffily moulting off. Massive beef cows in black and white and red and white meandering similarly. Amazing panoramas. Exposed valley based tree ferns thinner than ours, and with a bulbous growth at the top of the trunk before the fronds pushed out on some. Sky blue and some white clouds. Stunning at every turn. Feel that every ‘grotty yachtie’ (phrase from a German couple of sailors) should take the trip even though they must return to sail. The last drive really has been the final wonder in these fabulous islands. Great relaxant and stimulator simultaneously. And it will give me memories to last me the next 13 plus hours of flying (albeit with breaks at Tahiti, Auckland and Melbourne where I will have a chance to walk around a little). And now my plane has arrived at Nuku Hiva, so I will be boarding soon to start the next step of my journey.

Big beautiful day

The two Phils collected me and we started up the endless winding and zig zag roads that was typical all day wherever we went. Sometimes concrete slabs, sometimes bitumen tarmac, plus always the body and muscle stretching would be bone breaking rocky roads. But what vistas. Ooh la la. So much and I can no longer remember it all. When I get to a map, I will be able to fathom the detail of our route. Probably the most interesting and exciting location was the town/valley of Taipaivai. This was the valley which inspired Herman Melville's great novel, Typee. Climbing to the top of something like Moaeki was breathtaking. We could see two oceans on either side of the island. We could look down TaiOHae valley. We could look across towards Toovai and its acres of pine trees, and cows and landscape which reminded me of Cygnet. We could see mountain ridges in all directions,and much more.  I think I was in overload by then, and didn't take a photo, took so many today and hope they will prod my memory. Petroglyphs and extensive pre European settlements and I mean covering huge tracts of land.  Have to be seen to believed. Vegetation, albeit containing similar trees to previous islands, still seemed to be different and more exotic and richer and denser. Perhaps the extreme landscape structure was the cause for things to look so new. That is the simple story of 9hrs travel. Oh yes ... and the food at Yvonnes. Exceptional. We each had a heaped plate plus there was a centre plate to share. In the centre was poisson en cru (I will be preparing this fish dish come summer), plus more of some items on our own plates. On my plate I had some yummy deep fried breadfruit balls, some breadcrumbed dark fish, some grilled white flesh fish, some taro, and what Philip called lobster  - in my opinion was nothing like. It had a small prawn like tail sticking out from what was a good battered small crustation. Each battered piece was no more than the size of a piece of my thumb. There were other foods on the plate but I have forgotten. Young Phil photographed his plate and I should have been smarter. The place was airy and opposite the beach with the gentle waves edging in and out quietly. Other tourists arrived and I realise in 36hrs I wont be saying bonjour, bonsoir, bonnuit and merci, and much more etc again for a long time. Although I will seek out Penny Dyer when I get back to work. She recently spent a while in Paris brushing up on her french language skills and maybe she would like some conversation. This could well be my last chance to blog before I get home. Will be glad to download the photos and make some sort of sense of what I have been doing, and to wind this story up so I can move onto the next one. Think there will need to be a Polynesian party in the coming months in memory of these gardens of eden and the beautiful paradise which is the Marquesas.