Got My Base Tan In Tahiti, Now in NZ

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  Auckland, New Zealand
Monday, February 18, 2008

"Aw, hell, the Northeast?! It's times like this I curse the fact that we live in French Polynesia." - Peter Griffin (from the Family Guy)


I think Peter had it right when making this statement because nothing really happens in French Polynesia.  I flew into Pape'ete after a tailbone-numbing trip, which lasted 28 hours or so from the time I arrived at Philly International Airport to the time I walked off the plane in Tahiti.  As I suspected, all my concerns and worries pretty much dissolved at the moment I stepped onto the plane in LAX.  This is the first time I've been to a country where I don't know more than ten words of the official language - in this case French, but I was able to muster up some certain words and phrases from my memory.  A decent number of people there also know some decent English.  I felt like 95% of the tourists were French, and when I spoke to people the only words that came to mind sometimes were Spanish.  Oh well. 



I arrived at my hostel on the nearby island of Moorea called Moorea Camping and quickly befriended two other backpackers, both of whom had a lot of experience backpacking.  One of them didn't even have a home - he'd been traveling constantly for the last twelve years.  Pretty crazy.  The hostel was on a beach overlooking the Pacific, and it was a great first place to clear my mind and get rid of all the stressors of life at home.  The view of the ocean kept me there and kept me smiling for a long time.  My cousin had recently visited and I took him on a one-day tour of New York.  With each neighborhood and famous landmark, I'd look over and he'd be smiling just because he was seeing some great stuff.  I felt the same way, except I could just sit and stare at the same place the whole time and be smiling.  4:10pm - smiling, 4:14pm - smiling, 4:19pm - smiling, and so on.  I think part of it was the great view and part of it was knowing that outside the French Polynesian islands, I was literally in the center of the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of miles from the nearest country and thousands of miles from the nearest continents.  It felt good to be "off the map", I'm not sure why. 



So things went well the first day, just hanging out and talking.  I stayed in my tent for both nights, and I noticed that the bathhouses had no toilet paper.  Unfortunately, on the second morning I really had to go, and it was before the office opened up.  I had no TP, no one to ask for TP because it was early in the morning, and I had to go pretty badly.  So I went in the bathhouse, and yadda yadda yadda, I'll never look at my hands the same way again.  Ah, the frustrations of independent travel.  I now understand why people from Africa call TP "white gold."  Even with the various roadbumps, there's still nowhere else I'd rather be and nothing else I'd rather be doing.  My backpacker friends and I got roasted in the Tahitian noonday sun walking to a pineapple juice factory to take a tour, and when we got there they were no longer offering tours.  We did get some free alcoholic drinks, which made up for it.  We also hitched a ride back to the hostel with a guy who apparently has a house to rent out to travelers but only advertises by word-of-mouth to the hitchhikers he picks up on the road.  I think he needs a course in the principles of marketing.  After the third day, I had to spend last night at the Pape'ete airport taking short naps on a wooden bench in the open-air section until my 7:30am flight this morning and still, there's nothing else I'd rather be doing. 



I'm now in Auckland and after my five-hour flight from Tahiti, I had to set my watch forward 29 hours because I crossed the international dateline.  The hostel that I'm in is pretty incredible, by far the best I've ever been in and chock-full of other backpackers. This leg of my trip is the least-planned and I think it should be quite an adventure. If all goes well, I may have to scrap some of my plans in Australia and wing it there too.  Until my next post...

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