We had our breakfast early today and I walked down to Notre Dame Cathedral for the last time to watch Father Jesus say Sunday Mass. I love Papeete on Sunday and holiday mornings...there's no traffic, less noise and it's generally much more relaxed. I walked right down the Rue du 22 Septembre on my way back to the hotel, and I have been wanting to talk about that here so now is a good time to do that.
On September 22, 1914, two German warships bombed Papeete in an attempt to get the island's coal reserves. A French gunboat and freighter were sunk and Papeete suffered significant damage, consequently disrupting the French Polynesian economy. This is the only action in French Polynesia in WW I. In WW II, the islands never saw combat but, as I've said before, the US had a military presence in Bora Bora just a month after the bombing of a Pearl Harbor and SeaBees constructed that island's airstrip and perimeter road.
Here is a Wikipedia link to more information on the bombing of Papeete: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardment_of_Papeete
I walked back to the Hotel Tiare Tahiti just in time to join G on our large balcony as a parade of American pick up trucks and sports cars and Harleys, some bearing flags, cruised down Boulevard de Pomare right along the waterfront. We found out later that a local club holds these parades twice a year or so, and we had a front row seat.
After I changed clothes, we walked over to the cruise ship pier. We've seen the Oceania Marina before, in St. Lucia two winters ago, but it's always fun to see a familiar ship in another part of the world. This ship was just built in 2010, and is just slightly larger than the HAL Statendam, so it's the largest ship we've seen since we've been down here. It just crossed the South Pacific Ocean from Valparaiso, Chile and is doing a few 10-night runs around French Polynesia starting with the cruise leaving today. We ended up having a nice conversation with a local Tahitian black pearl salesman who was on the ship for the past few days and was taking the ferry back to Moorea today.
It was warm early today, and so we returned to the Hotel Tiare Tahiti for our afternoon rest. I read and G surfed the Internet and it was quite restful, which, you may recall, were two of our goals for these ten days (sleep and catch up with Internet stuff). We know that, en route from French Polynesia to Hawaii and perhaps from Hawaii back to California, we will be without Internet on the ship for days at a time while the ship loses satellite contact. Sedate me!
By 4:15pm we left our hotel room to walk along the waterfront park. The day started to lose its heat by then and the evening was perfectly pleasant. We backtracked to Les Roulottes for our dinner; I had Chinese and G had BBQ, and, tonight we ate dinner right there at the tables, enjoying the view of the Oceania Marina and the sunset over Moorea.
The Chinese ship is still docked at the second cruise ship berth, and les roulottes were flooded with young, mostly male people from that ship. Les roulottes owners, especially those who made Chinese food, were cleaning up tonight.
The local families were also out en force, with kids riding scooters and bikes and trikes and skateboards and even two kids on something we'd never seen before, like a unicycle without a seat, that seemed to be powered like a Segway. It's exciting to see something like that for the first time, and they were getting a lot of attention from the passengers from the Oceania Marina who were out for a stroll.
Evenings on the waterfront...my very favorite part of staying in downtown Papeete!
Things I learned today:
Le Retro is the only cafe reliably open for business on Sundays and holidays.
We fixed up a cheat for the electricity in our room. A simple key card in the slot didn't work, but some card stock from a brochure folded several times and jammed in the slot did. It was just too disheartening to return from the heat outside to a hotel room in the mid-80s.
The French Polynesian people are among the friendliest we've ever encountered. Every one of them has been friendly and welcoming, and we are very comfortable staying here. Likewise, we've never felt one bit unsafe, even walking back to our hotel after dark. It's been a very easy place to spend 10 days.
WDG Internet is crap. Only use ManaSpot...it's much, much better. We buy 10 hours worth at a time for about US $3 and hour.