Feb 14 - Exploring Papeete

We took the 8:30 a.m. shuttle into Papeete, the capital of Tahiti, this morning. The distance of about 7 km was just a bit beyond our grasp, especially coupled with the very warm and humid conditions today.

We found a little café and had breakfast. Toast there was a 12" submarine sandwich roll, cut in half, put for about 3 seconds under a broiler to "toast" it, and served with unsalted butter. We explored the market with its fruits and vegetables and clothing stalls. Everywhere, there were people selling flowers - lots of red ones, because this is Valentines Day!

The architecture of Papeete is entirely forgettable, but its harbour makes up for that. There is some serious money around here because the marina is stuffed full of expensive boats. There is a thriving business here cleaning boats.

We stopped into the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. The cathedral is located at kilometric point 0. This is the point from where all road distances are calculated all around the island. Must be a French thing - there is a bronze plaque in the ground in front of Notre Dame Cathedral - all distances in Paris are marked from there.

One of the major activities in Papeete is selling jewelry, particularly jewelry made from black pearls. There are stores everywhere selling beautiful items from black pearls - I chose (in my mind) a lovely necklace that would only have cost $90,000 CAD.

We got smoothies for our early lunch - mine had fruit in it; Doug's was a chocolate explosion. We took the noon shuttle back to the resort. We read for a while and decided that it was time to go for a walk on the beach. Horrors - it started to rain really hard. We walked down to the restaurant and had ice cream bars for our afternoon snack and watched the rain.

We are back in Suite 1504 with paper books borrowed from the lobby library to keep us company. Downloading e-books is difficult with the sketchy internet here.

The sunset tonight was a washout - too much low-lying cloud. Glad I got the picture of last night's beauty.

Dinner is at 7:00 p.m. with a show scheduled for 8:00 p.m.Read more