French Polynesia: Day 1

 Day 1  Papeete, Tahiti

We arrived last night around 10 pm, Tahiti time (4 am EDT).  The flights were fine, with no hitches.  Our friends, Erik and Beth met us in LA and we flew together Tahiti.  Flight time from LAX to Paeete was only about 7 1/2 hours.  We tried a new technique to avoid jet lag, the modified Argonne National Laboratory diet.  Basically, we fasted  for 16 hours before breakfast time in Papeete, then had a large breakfast this morning at 8:30 am and spent the rest of the day enjoying the lagoon at the Intercontinental Hotel.  So far, it seems to have worked great.  We are both pretty wide awake and feeling no ill effects of the 14 hours of flying.

Our room looked out on the ocean with a view of the neighboring island of Moorea as the backdrop.  The weather this morning was stunning with bright blue skies and  temperatures in the 80's.

Jeri and I stayed at he Intercontinental 14 years ago when we came here to sail around the islands, and we remembered the restaurant and lagoon, but the rest was pretty fuzzy.  One thing we didn't remember was the cost of food here.  This morning, there was a Sunday breakfast buffet for a mere $74 per person!  We all decided that this was too rich for our blood, and elected to eat at their alternative ala carte breakfast restaurant that cost only $25 pp- a bargain.  The ambience was nice with our table  overlooking the ocean and lagoon.

After breakfast we took a walk into town to hit an ATM, then returned to the hotel to enjoy a relaxing day lolling in the water.  The lagoon was full of a variety of tropical fish, angelfish, butterfly fish, parrot fish, and a whole bunch I could not ID.

Jeri and Beth

Erik and Beth

Before dinner, we were treated to our first (hopefully of many) beautiful sunsets in Tahiti.

For dinner, we decided to partake in a Papeete tradition, the food trucks, or les Papeete Roulottes.  Every evening at 6pm, food trucks set up near the Moorea ferry dock.

They serve a variety of foods, Polynesian, Thai, Chinese, and French (most notably crepes).  The idea is to graze, getting food from several trucks and making an evening of it.  We went with Erik and Beth and ran into a few other people from the Santana trip there.  The food was delicious.  We had mani mahi grilled with a vanilla sauce (an island specialty), chicken satay, and curry noodles.  For dessert we had a classic lemon crepe, and Erik had coconut ice cream.  Can't ewait to start riding to get some weight off.  I think we are already behind the 8-ball.

When we got back to the hotel, we took a walk around the grounds.  It was quite magical at night.  The Southern Cross was easily identifiable in the sky, and Erik and I spent a while with Dr. Google to determine how to use the Southern Cross to identify due south.

Tomorrow we board the Windstar sailing ship and assemble our bikes (hopefully no major glitches).  Our first stop on Tuesday is Moorea.

I'm not sure if I will be able to get out any posts while on board the ship, but you might check back in 3 or 4 days.  If nor, I will continue to write, and post the whole trip at once when we return.