Papeete, Tahiti 3-12-09

Papeete, pronounced (pa-pay-eeh-teh), is the capital of French Polynesia. Whe you sai into the bay, the exact same bay that Captian Bligh and Captain Cook before him did, there were no beautiful native girls paddling out to greet us in their hand hewn canoes! This has become quite a sizable city. We had a friend, Daphne, who is on with her husband David, that was injured on Easter Island. She has a crack in the ankle and some pretty bad wounds on her leg that are open. She had to be flown from Easter Island to Papeete for care. We went to see her in the hospital. You can see a photo of the kids outside the hospital and a few inside the "open air" type hospital. Daphne had a really nice room and was being well cared for. We got to visit a few minutes and had to leave when the doctors came in to see her. They all speak French, so we did the best we could! We hope Daphne will have a speedy recovery and rejoin us in New Zealand!!
We hired a taxi. Our driver was Diana. Her English was pretty good and we could communicate pretty well. We wanted an unconventional tour. We wanted to go watch surfers, eat at a "local joint", see the Bounty memorial stone, the waterfall and the blowhole! We managed in 3 and a half hours to do all this and make a stop by the hospital. After the tour, she dropped us in town at the market! The market has everything from candles to swordfish! PEARLS...which were real and which were fake?? Nicky still does not like the fish markets. He ran through like a bullet. We found masks, lovely ones. For anyone who knows Nicky well, you know he collects lapel pins of all the countries we visit. We looked high and low. He found one. Whe he found out it cost $10.00 he was unwilling to buy it! We left Tahiti without the pin!!! He may regret it one day, but he may have a friend that visits here that might find one in his price range and he will reimburse you! He wanted a $3.00 pin, maybe up to $5.00. He thought that was plenty! He seems to be very frugile with his bingo winnings!!
The flower market. If you are planning a wedding, the prices on these flowers would make you cry. A LARGE arrangement with all the most exotic flwers imagineable, brilliant colors...$18.00!!! We enjoyed our day, found a few treasures, no pin!