A Quick Tahiti Stopover

Dear Family and Friends,

Chuck and I left Las Vegas on Saturday before Super Bowl Sunday.  We flew to L.A. where we spent the night and boarded a flight to New Zealand on Sunday.

The plane was only half full....could it be from Super Bowl Sunday???

Here we are moments after take off from LAX.

We had a long eight plus hour flight.

Luckily there is only a two hour time difference between L.A. and Tahiti.  We were flying mostly south.  This helped us not to have jet lag.

We spent Monday exploring Papeete, the capitol of French Polynesia of which Tahiti is one of the main islands.

The churches were small and reminded me a lot of what you might see on some of the Caribbean islands.

Here is a Protestant church with gingerbread detailing.

This is Notre Dame cathedral.

Here is some of the colorful money.  It is a lot bigger than our U.S. dollar.

Chuck is reading a monument that celebrates the end of nuclear testing. 

We walked the waterfront on a nice walking path.  There was also a wide bicycle path.

 It is the beginning of the rainy season and the weather was hot and muggy.  We had a few heavy down pours. 

On Tuesday we rented a car and drove around the island.

We visited a beach that has black sand.  Not my favorite as I compare all beaches with the white sandy beaches of the Florida panhandle, where I vacationed often as a child.  The photo is not helped by the fact that it was very overcast.

We discovered a light house that was built in around 1870.

 

 

We stopped at and checked out the colorful artisan market.

We saw a beautiful bamboo forest and several waterfalls.

We found a look out point that provided a nice view of the island.  If it were not so humid I am sure the view would have been more spectacular.

 And finally we went to the site of ancient ceremonial grounds.  The statues are from before colonialism.

 

This morning we said goodbye to Tahiti for awhile.  We will return in March.

 

Five hours later we said hello to New Zealand.

We will spend a day or two here in Auckland before beginning our exploration of this beautiful country.

More pictures as we go along.

Love,

Nancy