Nuku Hiva

Our final stop in French Polynesia was at Nuku Hiva, an island in the Marquesas group. I hadn’t come up with a plan for this stop, so we hurriedly looked for a tour guide or some form of transport to get us around. We lucked out here: I found a listing on Tripadvisor that just had an email address and sent off a query. Got a response back that the guide was open and could give us a tour around the island for seven people. Great!

We were on the first tender to the dock. Upon arrival we looked around but did not see our guide…hmm. I didn’t have a phone number, so just replied to the email I had. But a few minutes later a modified pickup truck with benches and a canopy in the back pulled up. This was Debora, our guide. She apologized for being late and we piled in for our tour. Debora has lived her whole life on Nuka Hiva, is married to the former mayor of Taioha'e, the regional capital, and worked with the UN when they were establishing a UNESCO heritage site on the island. She really knew her stuff.

We rode up and over the central mountain peaks, going through a pretty good tropical downpour on the way. The canopy held up though, and the four of us in back – myself, Tom, Thomas, and DJ – enjoyed the experience greatly. Our first stop was in the Taipivai valley, where Herman Melville lived for several weeks after deserting the ship he was on. This experience became the background for his book Typee. We learned a bit about Melville and also got a few banana hand pies that were delicious.

The remaining tour consisted of stops at scenic viewpoints and a brief history of the local population. Like so many of the stories of indigenous populations coming into contact with Europeans, it was a sad story. Before the Europeans arrived, there were an estimated 200,000 people living on Nuku Hiva and the surrounding islands. By the early 20th century that number had dropped to 2,000, mainly due to introduced diseases. Much of the local culture, which was passed down verbally, was lost. Some was recorded, ironically by Europeans, and there are efforts underway to preserve that culture as much as possible.

Leaving Nuku Hiva means an end to the South Pacific portion of our journey and an end to any new stops for us. The reality that the trip is coming to an end is setting in. On the bright side, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji, Samoa, and French Polynesia were all wonderful – strikingly beautiful and welcoming. We’d come back in a heartbeat to any of them, but I think Vanuatu and Fiji wound up tops in our hearts.Weiterlesen