Yep, we spent New Years Eve at the Seatac Airport before our redeye flight to French Polynesia. After little sleep we arrived in the town of Papeete on the island of Tahiti. Most people don’t stay too long on this island before heading off to the more scenic islands like Bora Bora or Mo’orea. But, there are a couple of days worth of attractions to see on this island, so we decided to book 4 nights at an Airbnb in Papeete. We didn’t realize how much of the town was going to be shutdown for the extended New Years weekend. The town market was closed as well as most of the shops and restaurants. I am happy that this country takes their time off seriously but it was a bit tough to get to know this island with so many people taking a New Years break.
When I think of “Tahiti” it seems like one of those magical places that I can never expect to visit. It is a very beautiful place, but it was interesting seeing it is just a regular island. It can feel like Hawaii but the culture is also blended with their French colonization. It has problems with drugs, homelessness and isn’t always pretty in the towns. We expected this after visiting other places like Aruba and Curacao which also have beautiful beaches, but they don’t look perfect everywhere. We also seek out a cultural aspect that makes a place special. We found that in a Open Mic night at a restaurant on our 2nd night. We sat down just as the 3 guys started to play us some local music. People kept showing up with guitars, ukuleles, and other stringed instruments. We listened to them jam with only Tahitian music for over 2 hours. The audience was filled with locals and they seemed to know all the songs and didn’t hesitate to make many of them into full sing-a-longs. It is amazing to me that so much good music is coming from a country of just 300,000 people. Besides that open mic, we heard Tahitian music everywhere… on the beach, taxis, and other restaurants. It is always bothersome for me to only here American music in places in Europe, Asia, and even Mexico. I love that Tahitians love their OWN music so much. I am now making some Spotify Tahitian playlists for my favorite songs. Here it is.
With the city looking deserted, we rented a car and explored this beautiful island. The Hertz rental car was $40 per day plus .50 per mile. Not cheap, but the island wasn’t that big, so we didn’t really break the bank on mileage charges. We were able to visit a Tahiti history museum, some stone ruins, waterfalls, and some caves with some cenote like pools in them.
Tahiti does have some beautiful beaches that we were also eager to check out. We visited the black sand beaches by the historic lighthouse at Pointe Venus. We also spent some time snorkeling on 2 different days on Plage Vaiava. That beach had white sands and a lot of fish among some pretty good coral formations. We are heading to the island of Mo’orea next week which is supposed to be even more beautiful beaches but we were with happy with our swimming on Tahiti. Nothing spectacular but it was still a good time after our 2 weeks in the cold rain of Seattle over Christmas.
We stayed in town at an older apartment building that had a pool on the roof. I’m not sure I would recommend the Airbnb, but it was a reasonable price for Tahiti and had some fantastic views from the roof. It was fun to be able to see the clouds continually travel over the islands volcanoes and guess if they would come give us a 10 minute shower. They did several times during our few days on the island but the 85 degree rain does not compare to our recent 40 degree Seattle rain. We could also see our next destination of Mo’orea during our entire visit. We will take a car/passenger ferry to cross the 16 miles to another island filled with even more spectacular volcanic mountains. We will have 8 days there to do some more snorkeling and Tahitian island exploring and listen to more Tahitian music.
