Today was an early start with breakfast starting at 6 am. Then at 7 am we barged a very short way to Puamau on Hiva Oa. We trucked a few minutes up the hill to the site of the Marquesas tiki statues. My favorite was the princess who died in childbirth and so was depicted laying down. Apparently dying in childbirth brings bad luck to the whole village, which seems sort of harsh to me. Then back to the ship so we can move to the other side of the island. We saw a large chest freezer unloaded so I'm guessing someone will be very happy today. We're so spoiled with 2 day delivery from Amazon - here they probably wait 2 months for their stuff. We've seen a few babies in disposable diapers which must be quite expensive. We've also seen lots of cell phones everywhere and all the teens have Facebook accounts, we're told.
Once on the other side of the island at the port of Atuona we were able to walk off the ship and get on large open air "trucks" that had wooden benches along the sides and down the middle. A 3 km drive took us to another restaurant for lunch. It was pretty much the same menu except this time there were a couple of dishes that had a much more Chinese influence. Then a ride to the cemetery where Paul Gaugin and Jacques Brel are buried. There were beautiful views from there. We walked back down to town and found the cyber cafe, of course. WiFi was very slow and I was only able to publish yesterday's post and read email before the signal was gone. Sorry I didn't get a chance to respond Jan and Sue. Then we caught the truck back to the dock. A swim in the pool hit the spot and then we watched more cargo operations. This was the biggest one yet. It looked like organized chaos with loads of locals coming to pick up their stuff. Individuals and businesses all sorting and loading onto small pickups or even into cars. Meanwhile passengers are coming through, chickens and dogs are roaming around and families have set up chairs to wait for their stuff.
Today the President of Polynesia got on board with about 20 people to sail with us to a ceremony tomorrow where they will open a new hydroelectric plant. Can you imagine, we didn't see a single security person doing advance work!
We ate dinner (tuna tartare, duck, strawberry shortcake) with Jeannine (husband John wasn't feeling well), Sue and Earl, and Ann-Meredith and George. The staff knew it was my birthday (from my passport presumably since we didn't say anything) so they sang the Marquesas birthday song and one of the women did a lovely dance for me before they presented the table with a cake. It was very sweet; the gesture, AND the cake.
No comments:
Post a Comment