12.11.2021 - 20.11.2021: Oceania: Tahiti (3)

Calendar:

02.11.2021 - 20.11.2021
Villa Te Miti, Puna'auia, Îles du Vent, Tahiti, dolce far niente

12.11.2021
Island tour of Tahiti with scooters: Pointe Venus; Arahoho: Trou du souffleur; Vaihi, the waterfalls, Faaone; afternoon: Taharuu Beach

14.11.2021
Excavation site Marae Arahurahu, west coast of Tahiti

16.11.2021
"Vernissage" of local artists in Papara; afternoon: Taharuu Beach

Noteworthy:

On the island tour (around 120 km in total), we explored the east coast of Tahiti in advance with our scooters, making a first stop at Pointe Venus. A beautiful (although once again black) sandy beach, located at a very historic place: The navigator and cartographer James Cook observed the transit of Venus here on June 3, 1769. Earth, Venus and the sun are then exactly aligned. The data collected by Cook allowed science to subsequently calculate the exact distances of the planets in our solar system. For us, it would have definitely been more useful if Cook had mapped Tahiti a bit more accurately.
The transit of Venus is a quite rare phenomenon, the next passage will not occur until December 11, 2117.

At Point Venus, there is also another historical highlight: An originally Tahitian tree fruit (about the size of a pineapple) looks like this, perhaps you recognize it...:

It is the fruit of the breadfruit tree (in Tahitian: Uru). Lieutenant Bligh was commissioned by the British Admiralty in 1789 to transport cuttings of this tree to the West Indies (Antilles) in order to provide cheap food for the hardworking slaves there. The ship was called...

... the Bounty. As is well known, there was a mutiny after departure, the hired sailors missed the Tahitian women and were appalled that the water supplies were being wasted on raising the cuttings. Therefore, the mutineers simply threw the entire cargo overboard, which is somehow understandable. After all, Lieutenant Bligh and his followers were not killed, but were set adrift in a small boat, and they survived.

At Trou du Souffleur, the surf water whistles and sprays through a natural rock opening, and in the distance we also saw humpback whales here.

Back to Cook for a moment: Our next stop on our original journey before New Zealand and Australia would have been the Cook Islands. Unfortunately (!), the borders there are still closed due to the corona pandemic. Therefore, we have decided to explore the journey of the breadfruit tree in more detail and fly to the Caribbean at the end of November (again).

Melanie, the housekeeper, just came by to tidy up and do some laundry in the villa. She also harvested coconuts, passion fruits, and papayas in the villa's garden and prepared them for us, a heavenly fresh delight. Melanie also told us that here in Tahiti, coconuts are processed into bread, and she promised to bring us some next time she comes. Melanie also informed us that the admiral couple has the actual residence nearby, and the admiral only uses the villa (more and more frequently) as a refuge. So no wonder the oven doesn't work. The admiral certainly has better things to do than create crème brûlée or tarte tatin. Besides, he can eat for free anyway, since his brother-in-law runs the number one restaurant (Blue Banana) in the region just 150 meters from the villa. Did the brother-in-law, inspired by the noble blood of the admiral, choose the name of his restaurant? We will never know.

Thanks to the fast internet in the villa, we were also able to follow the decision game of the Swiss national team against Bulgaria live on SRF (VPN switcher and activated geoblocking worked perfectly). Congratulations to the national team! It's funny to hear Sascha Ruefer shouting in the South Seas. Due to the time difference, however, the game started here at 9:45 in the morning. We also regularly listen to the morning shows by Schelker and Moser (energy Bern) here. However, we always prepare our dinner for that...

In Villa te Miti, there are very beautiful locally made wooden sculptures. That would definitely be something for us at home, we thought and looked for the relevant workshops here in Tahiti. Finding them has unfortunately been a mission impossible so far. We have already asked about 20 people and received the most promising hint from a restaurant owner: He said that on November 16, 2021, there will be an exhibition opening of local artists in the Marie of Papara. Of course, we set off early to go there, but the exhibition opening turned out to be a village festival (unfortunately). No sculptures... only wooden bowls were offered there. We will continue our search!

On Tahiti, there are also 5-star high-end luxury hotels, although not as many. We visited one of these resorts. Here, everything is created for the lasting dream of artificial South Seas romance: Even white sand is brought in and piled up (which is otherwise not available on Tahiti) and decorative fish are released into the secluded sea pool to make the illusion perfect for the hotel guests: The traveler sees things that he encounters along the way, the tourist sees what he intended to see (Chesterton). Here, he even gets it served.

By the way, Booking.com hesitated to compensate for the inconvenience and especially for the annoyance caused by the cancellation of the originally booked accommodation. They insisted that we gather and document everything in detail, over and over again, that is. However, we are not collectors and do not want to become ones, otherwise there will be no room for anything new. Besides: How can stress be quantified when the definitive cancellation of the booking is reported on the day of arrival? Perhaps through blood pressure level? In addition, there were always new and anonymous contact persons (Mr. K, Mrs. Y, regularly sent from a 'noreply@booking.com' address) who repeated or contradicted each other in their emails (except for the collecting and documenting, which is probably the first and only commandment taught in the standard training for competent Booking.com travel consultants) and thus completely prevented a constructive dialogue. Therefore, we informed booking.com that we do not want any (!) further correspondence, and the dear ladies and gentlemen A (nonymous) can go to hell. As a last act, however, I submitted a well-formulated assessment of the accommodation to and through booking.com, here is the result:

Censorship! Even freedom of expression is trampled upon by booking.com. They can collect our criticism, if they want, maybe that will help with the documentation, have fun with it! In any case, booking.com was disregarded when booking our next stage...

I'm done.