Sleeping and Hiking

After 26 hours of driving, flying, and general travel nonsense, we made it to Tahiti. Quite a long journey, but even I managed to sleep a little bit at LAX and on the flight across the ocean. It was a somewhat stressful 20m drive to the Hotel near Māhina, and after check-in we crashed pretty hard. We had a few blissful hours of sleep, before... Roosters? Many, many roosters -- all very excited to announce that the sun was rising (though they got a little ahead of themselves).

We had an omelette, some pastries, and coffee to shake off the sleep and began to plan the day. Since the morning looked clear of rain, we planned a hike to stretch the legs after being confined with minimal leg room for a significant part of the prior day. We got the necessary permit from a local government office and drove out to Fautaua Valley to begin the trek. After 2 easy miles, we reached the fork and had to choose the challenging, or very challenging trail. Up for the challenge, we elected for the latter.

The hike was challenging, but not dangerous. We didn't trust the estimated times (we were moving much faster), and we made good progress switch backing up the hill. The view waterfall popped out unexpectedly, and evoked matching "wow"s from us. We continued on to reach the end of the trail, and then started the descent. As we did, the skies opened up, and after a few minutes we ceased all attempts to keep any parts dry and accepted that we were soaked. Still, it was a warm walk through the lush tropic landscape, and just meant we needed to be a little more sure of our steps as we navigated the rocky/root-y trail. It was just over 3 hours of hiking, and our glutes/knees were ready to be done.

Once we made it back to the car, we drove back into town to secure some lunch at the market. Simple sandwiches, a smoothie (Laura), and a beer (moi). We were ready for a nap.

Nap time commenced, and we spent the rest of the afternoon swimming in the ocean and lounging on the black sand beach.

A quick drink at the hotel restaurant (they were having an electronic rave, a little dissonance there given the venue), and off to dinner at a little place called 'Kozy'.

My navigation skills fell short as we missed our exit and had to backtrack. While searching for parking, we ended up on a particularly strange road where Laura was convinced that we were on the wrong side, and initiated a correction to vault over the median (nevermind the oncoming truck in the lane that she merged us over into). I did my best to be a calm, if terrified, passenger. Eventually we managed to park, and went into the super cute restaurant. Laura had the fish, I had the boeuf.Read more