Papeete 1
Trip Start
Sep 03, 2007
1
87
219
Trip End
Jun 17, 2009
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Papeete,
French Polynesia
Sunday, March 9, 2008
A comfortable modern hotel, not far from the airport and we crashed out.
Monday 10th
The hotel was on the edge of a bay, north of the city and we breakfasted in an open sided, palm covered dining area looking over the sea, where small waves were breaking on the outer reef.
We taxied into town to arrange our next move. The weather was very hot and sunny and I noticed the taxi's digital temperature gauge reading at 37 deg C. The rough conversion is to double the deg C temp and add 30 to bring it to deg F. I'll let you do this one - yes, I was surprised as well! We planned to try to go out to one of the 'Windward Islands' whilst we were here and a possibility was to extend our stay by rescheduling our round the world flight ticket. No luck. All flights were fully booked up and whilst we had the option of going on a waiting list, there was no indication of how long it might be before seats would be available. Being stranded in Polynesia was not a preference, as we were discovering from the high costs here.
All the shops closed at midday for three hours and our investigations meant we had run out of morning time. A quick drink at a café (a pint of beer was 6.50 British pounds) and we returned to the hotel, driven by a chatty 76 years old grannie, who put her foot down in the outside lane all the way! We shuffled all our luggage, to minimize the baggage we could take on the light aircraft out to the Islands and generally prepared for tomorrow.
Back into town after 3pm (the taxi fares were costing 12 British pounds each way!) and all was ready for us. Fly out to Bora Bora tomorrow morning and stay at a (basic) hotel for four nights.
We wanted to look round the small shopping area in Papeete but we had only looked round a few of the clothes and jewellery shops which, apart from a few pharmacies and tourist shops, was all that there was, when at around 4.30 the shops started to close. Our intention was to stay in town for a meal but as it all closed down we returned to the hotel and had cocktails at the beachside bar before an evening meal and an early night.
