Just got back a couple days ago, but I already miss so much...
- bananas hanging from the staircase in the dorms
- fresh baguette delivery every morning
- fresh tropical fruits -- papaya, pineapple, Tahitian apples, avocado, kiwis, mango
- Irma's whistling and singing and waking every one up doing so
- Tahitian vanilla coffee
- waking up and seeing the beautiful blue waters of Cook's Bay
- swims to the green buoy and back, like lap swimming but with tropical fish everywhere
- getting stared down by damselfish and sometimes attacked
- being recognized by locals as "BERKELEY!"
- confusing locals by being from Gump and speaking French (both the pizza stand owner and aquarium owner all the way in Tahiti asked me about this when I called them on the phone)
- being tanned
- going to the beach or into town and running into people I know
- Tahitian dancing
- not wearing jeans or long sleeves...ever
- being able to walk around barefoot everywhere
- riding in the back of the trucks and waving to everyone as we drive by
- those random trips to Champion
- just hanging out and playing guitar in the common room
- delicious dinners
- Fare Pote'e dance parties
- hearing the reggified versions of our pop music on the radio
- hearing the geckos barking or whatever it's called
- even hearing those darn roosters crowing at all odd hours of day and night!
...and plenty more. Moorea 2009 was simply awesome.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
The end of an amazing experience.
CAUTION -- THIS IS A VERY LOOOOOOOOONG ENTRY
So here I am sitting at the Papeete airport, sweating like a pig and waiting for my flight. Honeymooners are still abounding, but this time they are either really tanned or really burned, and every single one of them is either wearing a shell or pearl necklace. I feel like I should put mine on soon too. I am really not ready this place…the last nine weeks have been absolutely amazing, and I know I will never experience anything like them again.
The last few weeks in Moorea went by extremely fast and were crammed with as much stuff as possible.
Sunday evening I worked on photographing the Tetiaroa insects for Biocode, which was really neat. You pin the bug into place and set focuses, and the high power microscope camera then takes dozens of pictures at many different focuses, compiles them, and spits out a beautifully detailed and clear image.
Vince Resh thought it’d be great for us to go out and see the forereef, which is the ocean facing part of the barrier reef, so Monday we set out in our little boats. The weather wasn’t too promising, but we decided to go anyway. We stopped in Opunohu Bay for a while looking for whales (but failing), although we did see an awesome huge cruise ship. We headed out to the reef, seeing some dolphins playing in our wake on the way. Meanwhile the weather had been worsening and the waves were humongous… one by one, everyone on the boat got sea sick. Frank and Al managed to jump onto a buoy to tie up their boat, and we jumped in the water. I was hoping being in the water would help with my queasiness, but it just made it worse. The forereef was amazing – deep, clear water allowed us to see the bottom about 20-30 feet down, covered in beautiful colorful coral heads and fish. It didn’t help to look underwater, as the fish themselves were being thrown back and forth by the waves. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to appreciate it fully due to how sick I was feeling, but it was still beautiful. Back at Gump and feeling better, I set out to Maharepa with Stosh and Chris to get class photos printed out for the dance teachers and buy frames at Champion. We picked up Pablo on the way to get some groceries, as he would be helping Monday cooking group make a Marquesian meal that night. The meal ended up being quite good: we had goat that Pablo’s dad had shipped over from the Marquesas, as well as bread fruit cooked in a fire and mashed into a thick paste, some fish, poisson cru, and salad. It was definitely nice of Pablo to show us this whole process and share his precious goat with us. After dinner, Ian and I went night snorkeling at the Public Beach, something that I had wanted to do since the beginning of our trip, but which I had never done for some reason. We were out there for about an hour. The coolest part was switching off the flash light and waving arms around to see bioluminescent plankton. We also saw lots of sea urchins, as they all come out at night to feed, as well as huge hermit crabs and lots of sleeping fish. I jumped into the water at Gump too, and saw some pretty crazy looking shrimp and a hermit crab with a sea anemone on its back. The only problem with night snorkeling is that you can only see what’s within the narrow beam of light, which makes it easy to lose track of stuff.
Tuesday, Trisha and I kayaked out to the barrier reef out by Gump to do the last of my field work. The corals were decently pretty, although on some parts of the reef, there was a decent proportion of dead corals. The kayak ride was beautiful, as it was an absolutely gorgeous day. We laid out on the dock for a bit, then did some work. Wednesday was also spent doing work, and in the evening we had the dance teachers over for dinner, an event I had planned a few days before as we all wanted to thank the teachers for their generous work. Danielle, Connor, Pablo, and I cooked a delicious meal of chicken (Pablo’s recipe), salad, grilled vegetables, and rice, and we all sat outside in the Fare Pote’e. (aside: During the cooking process, Ryan, who had been carving his paddle, managed to cut his finger and had to go to the hospital to get six stitches. He did all this dressed in his “man pareo,” also known as a skirt. Oh Ryan.). Sam had me come sit next to me and translate everything he said, thanking us for inviting them and for all our work in the community. He said a prayer thanking God for the food and for friends, and then said I couldn’t eat because he wanted to tell a legend and needed me to translate…thankfully he changed his mind. Even throughout the meal, the dance teachers would yell out “ALEX! How do you say blah in English?” It was kind of funny that I had officially turned into a human dictionary. After dinner, we had a bringue – a Polynesian jam session. Sam and his friends had brought instruments (guitar, drums, ukulele), and we sat around for hours, playing music, singing, and dancing (girls danced Atitia, and guys did the haka). It was such a great night and really was a culmination of our time in Moorea. I got up and presented the teachers with their framed photos, and they were all so delighted – Sam even cried. Apparently we just couldn’t even fathom what we done for them by learning their dance and performing. We were the first international group of students to come there and embrace their culture so deeply, and showing such enthusiasm in learning about it and sharing it with them. We had just shown the world that their culture is attainable by everyone, and that it is worthwhile to learn about. Sam is a judge at the Heiva Nui dance festival, at which all the major dance groups perform, and he said he still couldn’t believe how well we had been able to learn the dance, we who never had had any experience in Tahitian dancing at all. We had made them all so proud. Vince Resh could not stop thanking me for inviting him to our dinner, and throughout the following days made innumerable references to what a great class we were, and how no other class had ever gotten so involved in the community and in Polynesian life. The rest of the evening was fun, as we all signed Hiriatei and Prince’s frames and sat around chatting for a while. I discovered that one guy who had been playing guitar and singing beautifully all night was in fact just some random guy off the street, who had recognized Ian from the public beach and had decided to pop on over – this was completely harmless and rather funny, the perfect example of Tahitian culture: there’s a party? Let me go join in and play great music, even if I don’t know anyone! I talked to Sam’s son for a while, who told me all about how high school students who live in Moorea have to catch the ferry at 4 or 5 am to make it over to Tahitian high schools in time…and I thought 7 am class was bad.
Thursday and Friday were spent cleaning up the labs and packing stuff away…there were way more instruments in the lab than I had ever known were there. We got one more picture printed out for Irma, this time with Amanda photoshopped in as she hadn’t done the dance. In the evening on Friday, we went over to the Atitia Center, where a farewell potluck was being held in our name. Sam sat me down on his knee Santa style to thank me again for all we did as a class as well as individually (at least he realized my hard work in translating everything and getting every dance practice organized)…this is when we realized that Sam was really just a Polynesian Santa Claus. We also did karaoke with the Tahitians, which was so much fun. Some kids chose “Ces Soirees-La,” the French rap version of “Oh What a Night,” which had been popular back when I lived in Switzerland, and as they weren’t singing, I decided to take over and sing what I knew…people were a little surprised. It was also funny that half the songs on the game were old French songs that I knew. Hinano and Sam then gave a few speeches, AGAIN thanking us for all we contributed to the country, and we set out back to our own Fare Pote’e to have a little more private party. We celebrated Maya’s birthday with Special Dessert, which included chocolate covered strawberries and brownies, then Becky, Annie, and Christine presented the superlatives, which the whole class had voted on. I was voted Class Mom, although I’m not sure why – definitely never felt particularly motherly, but I guess I did do a lot around the house, so that might be why. We then had a little dance party in the Fare Pote’e and most people went to bed. I stayed up a bit longer and spent some time with Pablo, who was definitely one of the nicer and more interesting people I met in Moorea, always telling stories of legends and explaining cultural aspects to us. One thing I found particularly interesting was the fact that he doesn’t have tattoos – when he was a child, his grandmother told him that tattoos were only for royalty, and not for lowly peasants like himself, and to this day he has listened to her and refuses to get any, even though most other Polynesians have ignored this and have gotten tattooed.
Saturday I finished working on my rough Discussion, which was due that day, then went out to the Pearl Shop with Julie and Elliot. We spent about two and a half hours here, picking pearls and waiting for nice and extremely talkative woman to drill holes through them and set them for us. The pearls were gorgeous and came in all different price ranges depending on color, shape, and imperfections. It was a really nice experience, and the woman said that if we ever come back to Moorea, we should come stay with her!
Back at home, we made a giant dinner with all the leftover food we had, and invited the Biocode people and Pablo to come eat with us. After dinner Annie and I went night-snorkeling – we saw a sting ray and lots of bioluminescent plankton – and then showered. I then watched a movie with a few people, then we all ran around outside until 3 am, playing with Julie’s glowing balls and giant hula hoops, and watching the stars. It was a great last night in Moorea.
Sunday morning was spent furiously packing and getting everything together for our trip to Tahiti and then home. Christine and I decided to check one thing off our list and go topless swimming at the last minute, in the manner of the Polynesians, and then Pablo came by to say good-bye, which was a bit sad – who knows when we’ll see him again, since he is now moving back to the even more isolated Marquesas. Then David drive the Rover over and we just managed to squeeze every person and piece of luggage on: we had all the suitcases in the back, along with Ian, and Ryan, me, Elliot, Trisha, and two guitars in the back seat, and David, Danielle Pena, and Annie squished in front. The older rower was there and we all waved good-bye, and as we pulled away from our beloved Gump station, Elliot screamed out one more “GET SOME!” And then we were off to the ferry. The docks were bustling with people boarding and others saying good-bye, but we managed to climb onboard and get our luggage on. And that was the end of Moorea and the beginning of our Tahiti adventures.
Once in Papeete, where we ran into Al and Amanda headed back to Moorea after the rugby games in the city, as well as one of the young Tahitian girls who danced with us, we hopped into a cab, dropped Trisha off at the Hotel Tiare, and then went to the airport to put our luggage in storage. The woman was super nice and was all excited to hear we were from Gump, since she had recently seen something on TV about it. W
e then caught cabs back to Trisha’s and hit the town. Papeete was dead – it was Sunday and everything was closed, so it was more of a ghost town than anything described in the guide books. But we had a great time nonetheless: we headed over to the Trois Brasseurs, and all shared a few pitchers of beer and then got dinner, and just hung out for about three hours. At 8 pm, Ryan, Annie, Pena, Ian, and I went to the docks to get picked up by the French couchsurfers I had contacted earlier, with whom some of students had stayed before coming to Moorea. We sat with them at the Roulottes while they had dinner, and had a fun time talking to Fabien and Julien, as well as Vincent, a Swiss couchsurfer passing through from Fribourg who was familiar with the Paleo (what a small world). We then managed to cram 8 people into their little truck, and had a wild ride back to their house on the hill with a view of Moorea. Once arrived, we were offered drinks and had a nice time hanging out in the tiny pool. We went to bed early, sleeping on mattresses and couches, to prepare for the big day.
Next morning we awoke and had a breakfast of tortillas and peanut butter, which we had bought at Are’s with class funds before leaving. We had coffee and witnessed an intense argument between French collocataires, then Julien took us over to the base of Mt Aorai for our hike (Fabien had decided not to join us on our hike after all). We left at 7 am and walked along six or seven kilometers worth of road to finally arrive at the Belvedere Restaurant at an altitude of 600m, which is where normal people begin the hike. We finally began the actual trail at 10:30, after a snack of delicious apple sauce and GORP (Good Old Raisins and Peanuts). The first part of the hike was very nice, winding along a not-so-steep path contouring various little mountains, with views of Moorea and its barrier reef picture frame, as well as Papeete. After numerous breaks, we eventually reached the 1400 m hut and had a nice lunch (peanut butter and tortillas) and relaxed a bit. Ryan was quite excited about the outhouse, which faced a sea of fog, and we made sure to engrave Cal onto the wall along with everyone else’s engravings. At 3:00 we decided we should forego just dancing hakas and should try to make it to the top of Mt Aorai, since it was Tahiti’s third highest mountain and seemed like something we should do. We finally left the hut at 3:45 and began the difficult ascent to the top – we had to reach 1800 m before sundown. The part of the hike was a challenge: the path was very Rotui-esque, along a ridge line and extremely steep, requiring climbing on hands and knees and pulling of ropes and roots. The path was a bit wider than Rotui, but the cliffs on either side were sheer: any fall would result in serious injury or death (no exaggeration). Plus we were racing against the clock, which made this even more challenging. The lack of oxygen due to the altitude was felt by all of us, but we kept trudging on. The mountains were deep green and lush, with Ti plants and Miconia everywhere, reminding us of Trisha and Irene. The fog beneath us blocked the view, making it seem as though a fall would simply result with us landing on soft, spongy marshmallows. We periodically checked the GPS to make sure we would make it to the top before dark, and around 1600m, the clouds suddenly cleared and we found ourselves surrounded by amazing, huge green mountains on all sides. Their peaks emerged from clouds, and we could not even see the bottom – the view reminded me of Jurassic Park and we expected to see with dinosaurs or King Kong. We finally got to the top right at 5:45, just in time to put down our stuff in the cabin, change out of extremely sweaty clothes (I won the sweaty clothes award), and check out the sun set. The view from the top was amazing – we were witnessing the sunset from above the clouds, with lush green peaks poking out and views of Papeete shining through the clouds as darkness settled. Ian and Ryan made a fire, and we heated up our cans of ravioli, which were quickly devoured along with a bottle of wine. We watched the stars for a while, seeing numerous shooting stars and some satellites, and then decided to go to bed, as we were all exhausted. We wrapped ourselves in whatever we had, as the French people had warned us “qu’on allait se peler le cu” (have our asses peeled) due to the cold. I wore a shirt, a thermal, a sweatshirt, capris, a raincoat on my legs, and a towel as a blanket, while others did similarly. Ryan was the funniest: he wore his field pants and some shorts over these, followed by a t-shirt, his man pareo, Chris’ hamak, and three or four head wraps. We lay out on the floor, Ryan, me, Annie, Pena, and Ian, and shut off the lights at 8:45. It was absolutely freezing. We lay close to each other for warmth, but it did not help much. I was convinced that others were sleeping, but at 11:00 pm we all burst out giggling in despair over how cold it was. We tried to sleep again, sleeping even closer to each other, but to no avail: at 2:30 we all started laughing again and decided to have a snack. We sat in a circle, all wrapped in our ridiculous gear, and ate GORP and peanut butter. Ryan told us about his dream that a 40 year old woman was in the cabin with us, trying to sleep as well, which Pena understood as 4-year-old, which was quite creepy. When we noticed a pink child sleeping bag hanging in the corner, the creepiness was magnified (this had been there all along, but none of the others had noticed it). Ian took it down and cut it to make a mat for Ryan and me, and this, along with the heat from the food, allowed us all to sleep for about an hour. At 5:00 am we noticed the sun was rising, so we clambered out of our hut, all bleary eyed and exhausted. The sunrise was pretty – the sky was finally clear and we could see Moorea, Tetiaroa, Papeete, and all the surrounding mountains. We had some breakfast, packed our stuff, engraved BERKELEY 2009 and left by 7 am. By now clouds had already settled in. The descent to the 1400 m hut was done without too much trouble, considerably easier than had been the hike up. Just as we got to the hut, it began to rain – we had avoided the rain on the deadly part of the hike, which was extremely lucky. We left the second hut by 9:45, and it soon began to pour. It rained non-stop all the way down, with thunder and lightning nearby and huge, powerful drops falling from the sky. Little rivers and waterfalls formed within minutes, and we were all entirely soaked and muddy by the time we got to the Belvedere at 12:00, as we had all managed to slip in the mud multiple times on the way down. I called a cab from the restaurant, and as we sat around waiting for it, some nice Tahitian hikers offered us a ride down in the back of their truck. We rode for about 2 minutes, then the cab came and drove us to the Tahiti Airport Motel, where Annie’s mom was providing us with a room. We dumped all our stuff and took well deserved showers, managing to get mud everywhere despite our efforts.
While the three others napped, Annie and I headed into Papeete on the bus to check out the market. We arrived by 4 pm, and although it wasn’t supposed to shut down until 5 pm, a lot of the stalls were already closed. I bought some Monoi oil and a pareo, and Annie got herself a toere (the drum Sam had taught her how to play), as well as some other trinkets. We then hung out for an hour and a half at a table at the Vaimo Center, and then met up with the others at the Roulottes at 6:30 for dinner. The Roulottes are a bunch of carts that sell cheap but delicious food out by the docks in Papeete, frequented by locals and tourists alike looking for cheaper food for a change. They seem to specialize in French food and Chinese food, as well as grilled fish, hamburgers, and pizza. Ryan, Ian, and Pena all ordered steak frites, which they had had at Maria’s volleyball game and loved, while Annie and I got two different kind of “chao men.” The food was all delicious, but the portions were huge – thankfully they let us take the leftovers home (we even stole bread for breakfast).
After dinner we caught the bus back to the hotel and laid stuff out to dry. Our room was soooo smelly and muddy…poor cleaning staff. Nick then called, as he was at the airport coming back from Huahine to meet up with his parents, so he popped by for a bit. I went to bed while he was there and slept straight through the night.
Next morning we awoke and visited the luggage locker again to exchange some stuff, as well as bid Annie farewell. We then caught the bus to the city and had breakfast at the market. I had delicious coconut bread, which for some reason they had in a variety of shapes, while Ian and Pena decided to try the Chao Men baguette sandwiches, a perfect example of the fusion of cultures in Tahiti (there is a large Chinese population there, mostly running businesses).The Market was full of fresh fruit and vegetables, with more kinds of bananas than I’ve ever seen. They also sold a lot of tikis and pearl shell jewelry, and of course pareos. It was fun to walk around, but I quickly became disillusioned with all these souvenirs – after being in Moorea for nine weeks, I don’t feel like a tourist at all, and there’s no way that any of those little trinkets could even come close to conveying the experiences we had there.
We then set out to find Robert Rent-a-car, which was quite a walk out of central Papeete, made more difficult by the giant dry bag filled with food we were lugging around. We passed a burned jeep and I laughingly commented that was our car. We trudged on and eventually reached the end of the street, so I asked at a gas station where the place was. When they heard what we were looking for, they said that it had been burned down and was no longer in business. As I had talked to someone on the phone earlier, I knew it existed, so they pointed us in the right direction – about 10 min back the other way. The guys were tired, so Pena and I went back and found that the burned jeep I had commented on was actually the right place! How ironic. Of course it was closed for lunch by the time we got there, so we went back to fetch the guys, stopped at Champion to get some groceries, and eventually Robert came, and within minutes, we had our jeep! It was a small white jeep, pretty new-looking compared to the rest of the lot, and it even had air-conditioning! We called Trisha, who we were supposed to meet up with, and then went to pick her up at the airport. It was so great to have the freedom of a car! We started driving down the west coast, stopping at some caves, where Ian and Ryan almost got stuck in the mud while wading around. We also stopped at the Gauguin Museum, which had a lot of interesting information about the painter as he had spent a large part of his life in French Polynesia, as well as giant tikis and some of his paintings. We continued driving into Tahiti Iti, which was even more rural than Moorea and absolutely gorgeous, with towering, green, lush peaks very close to the coast. There was this great collapsing house, completely caved in with plants taking it over and even a cow skull with a plant growing out of it just sitting in the middle of the house. We found Trisha an awesome pension (Pension Orianda) run by an extremely friendly woman. We had the most eclectic dinner ever (sardines, corned beef, venison, and lamb, bread, canned ratatouille, cheese, crackers, carrots…very strange) and the woman even gave us dishes to use. We hung out for a bit and used Trisha’s shower, then decided to go find a place to sleep. We drove to the end of the road and decided to stay in the parking lot of the Plage Publique, parking underneath a tree to reduce rain. So here we were sleeping in a jeep about 10 feet from the waves breaking in Teehaupoo, one of the best surf spots in the world, where huge annual competitions are held – not a bad deal. Ian and Ryan got the front seats, and Pena, me, and the food bag squished into the back seats/trunk. Surprisingly enough, we managed to sleep a decent amount. At 6 am, we awoke to music and found that we were parked about 5 feet from the bus stop, at which a bunch of kids were standing, waiting to go to school and staring at us, in particular Ian and Ryan, who were both shirtless in the front seats. Soon enough a bus came and parked RIGHT next to us…apparently we had decided to park IN the bus stop. It was hilarious, and we just decided to close our eyes and pretend no one was there. We eventually moved the car a bit and slept some more, had some breakfast, then headed back to Trisha’s to say bye and then head up the east coast. Using our Lonely Planet guides, we thought it’d be nice to drive up to the belvedere to see the view. We followed a long winding road up the hill, driving through gorgeous farm land – this area was more rural than any other part. We kept turning and following little roads, getting followed by barking dogs and more confused by the minute (where was the belvedere?). We eventually got to this road that seemed like it was going down, so we decided to follow, laughing when it got narrower and narrower due to plant overgrowth. The road became quite steep and there was an amazing view of the ocean filling the whole plane of view…and suddenly the road was eaten up entirely by plants. So here we were in the middle of nowhere, on an extremely steep road with cliffs and emptiness down the side, in a little rental manual jeep. Pena thankfully managed to turn the car around, and drove it up a bit up the hill, then popped out to take some pictures. We then all took a deep breath, buckled up, and got ready to go. Pena tried starting the car about 4 times, but it wouldn’t work. The engine didn’t seem like it would make it. Great. We all got out, and Pena tried again, and was able to get the engine going. The rest of us jumped in, but the car kept rolling backwards whenever she took her foot off the break…a little terrifying, considering there really wasn’t much road left behind us. On the third try, she somehow managed to do it, and we were finally headed back up the hill to safety! On our way back to “civilization,” we drove by a family of wild pigs, piglets included, and also decided to name our car in appreciation for serving us so well as home and rescuer. We settled on “Fare here”—the home of love. Back in town, we stopped by the Hyper Champion to celebrate our survival, where we picked up some stuff to bring home: Tahitian wine, Hinano, coconut and vanilla tea, etc. We then continued along our drive to the Blowhole, where we had a nice lunch of more random foods and watched the powerful air stream spurt out. We watched the strange guppies writhing on the rock nearby, fighting to stay on the rock and flopping on their tails without any apparent reason, then watched some surfers and hung out on the black sand beach for a while. We then headed back to see some waterfalls, which were gorgeous despite the mosquito attack – I got six bites in about five minutes. On our way out of there, we noticed a rental car coming towards us and were commenting on it, when suddenly it turned around and began to follow us, with a crazy guy waving to us (Pena’s words). Turns out it was Nick and his parents! This goes to show how small these islands are – Nick was the only other person on Tahiti from our class (besides Trisha), and we had managed to run into him! We passed him our bug spray through the window, then continued on to Papeete, where we visited the Pearl Museum (pearl growing is apparently quite a scientific practice!). We visited the tattoo parlor where Trisha and Pena would be getting tattoos next morning, and then grabbed a drink at a café. We enjoyed some delicious pizza at the roulottes, saw Nick and his parents AGAIN, and then we were off to the airport! I bid my wonderful travel buddies farewell, rearranged all my luggage, and went to check in, which took forever.
And here I am now, waiting at the airport, and getting ready to board the plane to leave this paradise forever.
So here I am sitting at the Papeete airport, sweating like a pig and waiting for my flight. Honeymooners are still abounding, but this time they are either really tanned or really burned, and every single one of them is either wearing a shell or pearl necklace. I feel like I should put mine on soon too. I am really not ready this place…the last nine weeks have been absolutely amazing, and I know I will never experience anything like them again.
The last few weeks in Moorea went by extremely fast and were crammed with as much stuff as possible.
Sunday evening I worked on photographing the Tetiaroa insects for Biocode, which was really neat. You pin the bug into place and set focuses, and the high power microscope camera then takes dozens of pictures at many different focuses, compiles them, and spits out a beautifully detailed and clear image.
Vince Resh thought it’d be great for us to go out and see the forereef, which is the ocean facing part of the barrier reef, so Monday we set out in our little boats. The weather wasn’t too promising, but we decided to go anyway. We stopped in Opunohu Bay for a while looking for whales (but failing), although we did see an awesome huge cruise ship. We headed out to the reef, seeing some dolphins playing in our wake on the way. Meanwhile the weather had been worsening and the waves were humongous… one by one, everyone on the boat got sea sick. Frank and Al managed to jump onto a buoy to tie up their boat, and we jumped in the water. I was hoping being in the water would help with my queasiness, but it just made it worse. The forereef was amazing – deep, clear water allowed us to see the bottom about 20-30 feet down, covered in beautiful colorful coral heads and fish. It didn’t help to look underwater, as the fish themselves were being thrown back and forth by the waves. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to appreciate it fully due to how sick I was feeling, but it was still beautiful. Back at Gump and feeling better, I set out to Maharepa with Stosh and Chris to get class photos printed out for the dance teachers and buy frames at Champion. We picked up Pablo on the way to get some groceries, as he would be helping Monday cooking group make a Marquesian meal that night. The meal ended up being quite good: we had goat that Pablo’s dad had shipped over from the Marquesas, as well as bread fruit cooked in a fire and mashed into a thick paste, some fish, poisson cru, and salad. It was definitely nice of Pablo to show us this whole process and share his precious goat with us. After dinner, Ian and I went night snorkeling at the Public Beach, something that I had wanted to do since the beginning of our trip, but which I had never done for some reason. We were out there for about an hour. The coolest part was switching off the flash light and waving arms around to see bioluminescent plankton. We also saw lots of sea urchins, as they all come out at night to feed, as well as huge hermit crabs and lots of sleeping fish. I jumped into the water at Gump too, and saw some pretty crazy looking shrimp and a hermit crab with a sea anemone on its back. The only problem with night snorkeling is that you can only see what’s within the narrow beam of light, which makes it easy to lose track of stuff.
Tuesday, Trisha and I kayaked out to the barrier reef out by Gump to do the last of my field work. The corals were decently pretty, although on some parts of the reef, there was a decent proportion of dead corals. The kayak ride was beautiful, as it was an absolutely gorgeous day. We laid out on the dock for a bit, then did some work. Wednesday was also spent doing work, and in the evening we had the dance teachers over for dinner, an event I had planned a few days before as we all wanted to thank the teachers for their generous work. Danielle, Connor, Pablo, and I cooked a delicious meal of chicken (Pablo’s recipe), salad, grilled vegetables, and rice, and we all sat outside in the Fare Pote’e. (aside: During the cooking process, Ryan, who had been carving his paddle, managed to cut his finger and had to go to the hospital to get six stitches. He did all this dressed in his “man pareo,” also known as a skirt. Oh Ryan.). Sam had me come sit next to me and translate everything he said, thanking us for inviting them and for all our work in the community. He said a prayer thanking God for the food and for friends, and then said I couldn’t eat because he wanted to tell a legend and needed me to translate…thankfully he changed his mind. Even throughout the meal, the dance teachers would yell out “ALEX! How do you say blah in English?” It was kind of funny that I had officially turned into a human dictionary. After dinner, we had a bringue – a Polynesian jam session. Sam and his friends had brought instruments (guitar, drums, ukulele), and we sat around for hours, playing music, singing, and dancing (girls danced Atitia, and guys did the haka). It was such a great night and really was a culmination of our time in Moorea. I got up and presented the teachers with their framed photos, and they were all so delighted – Sam even cried. Apparently we just couldn’t even fathom what we done for them by learning their dance and performing. We were the first international group of students to come there and embrace their culture so deeply, and showing such enthusiasm in learning about it and sharing it with them. We had just shown the world that their culture is attainable by everyone, and that it is worthwhile to learn about. Sam is a judge at the Heiva Nui dance festival, at which all the major dance groups perform, and he said he still couldn’t believe how well we had been able to learn the dance, we who never had had any experience in Tahitian dancing at all. We had made them all so proud. Vince Resh could not stop thanking me for inviting him to our dinner, and throughout the following days made innumerable references to what a great class we were, and how no other class had ever gotten so involved in the community and in Polynesian life. The rest of the evening was fun, as we all signed Hiriatei and Prince’s frames and sat around chatting for a while. I discovered that one guy who had been playing guitar and singing beautifully all night was in fact just some random guy off the street, who had recognized Ian from the public beach and had decided to pop on over – this was completely harmless and rather funny, the perfect example of Tahitian culture: there’s a party? Let me go join in and play great music, even if I don’t know anyone! I talked to Sam’s son for a while, who told me all about how high school students who live in Moorea have to catch the ferry at 4 or 5 am to make it over to Tahitian high schools in time…and I thought 7 am class was bad.
Thursday and Friday were spent cleaning up the labs and packing stuff away…there were way more instruments in the lab than I had ever known were there. We got one more picture printed out for Irma, this time with Amanda photoshopped in as she hadn’t done the dance. In the evening on Friday, we went over to the Atitia Center, where a farewell potluck was being held in our name. Sam sat me down on his knee Santa style to thank me again for all we did as a class as well as individually (at least he realized my hard work in translating everything and getting every dance practice organized)…this is when we realized that Sam was really just a Polynesian Santa Claus. We also did karaoke with the Tahitians, which was so much fun. Some kids chose “Ces Soirees-La,” the French rap version of “Oh What a Night,” which had been popular back when I lived in Switzerland, and as they weren’t singing, I decided to take over and sing what I knew…people were a little surprised. It was also funny that half the songs on the game were old French songs that I knew. Hinano and Sam then gave a few speeches, AGAIN thanking us for all we contributed to the country, and we set out back to our own Fare Pote’e to have a little more private party. We celebrated Maya’s birthday with Special Dessert, which included chocolate covered strawberries and brownies, then Becky, Annie, and Christine presented the superlatives, which the whole class had voted on. I was voted Class Mom, although I’m not sure why – definitely never felt particularly motherly, but I guess I did do a lot around the house, so that might be why. We then had a little dance party in the Fare Pote’e and most people went to bed. I stayed up a bit longer and spent some time with Pablo, who was definitely one of the nicer and more interesting people I met in Moorea, always telling stories of legends and explaining cultural aspects to us. One thing I found particularly interesting was the fact that he doesn’t have tattoos – when he was a child, his grandmother told him that tattoos were only for royalty, and not for lowly peasants like himself, and to this day he has listened to her and refuses to get any, even though most other Polynesians have ignored this and have gotten tattooed.
Saturday I finished working on my rough Discussion, which was due that day, then went out to the Pearl Shop with Julie and Elliot. We spent about two and a half hours here, picking pearls and waiting for nice and extremely talkative woman to drill holes through them and set them for us. The pearls were gorgeous and came in all different price ranges depending on color, shape, and imperfections. It was a really nice experience, and the woman said that if we ever come back to Moorea, we should come stay with her!
Back at home, we made a giant dinner with all the leftover food we had, and invited the Biocode people and Pablo to come eat with us. After dinner Annie and I went night-snorkeling – we saw a sting ray and lots of bioluminescent plankton – and then showered. I then watched a movie with a few people, then we all ran around outside until 3 am, playing with Julie’s glowing balls and giant hula hoops, and watching the stars. It was a great last night in Moorea.
Sunday morning was spent furiously packing and getting everything together for our trip to Tahiti and then home. Christine and I decided to check one thing off our list and go topless swimming at the last minute, in the manner of the Polynesians, and then Pablo came by to say good-bye, which was a bit sad – who knows when we’ll see him again, since he is now moving back to the even more isolated Marquesas. Then David drive the Rover over and we just managed to squeeze every person and piece of luggage on: we had all the suitcases in the back, along with Ian, and Ryan, me, Elliot, Trisha, and two guitars in the back seat, and David, Danielle Pena, and Annie squished in front. The older rower was there and we all waved good-bye, and as we pulled away from our beloved Gump station, Elliot screamed out one more “GET SOME!” And then we were off to the ferry. The docks were bustling with people boarding and others saying good-bye, but we managed to climb onboard and get our luggage on. And that was the end of Moorea and the beginning of our Tahiti adventures.
Once in Papeete, where we ran into Al and Amanda headed back to Moorea after the rugby games in the city, as well as one of the young Tahitian girls who danced with us, we hopped into a cab, dropped Trisha off at the Hotel Tiare, and then went to the airport to put our luggage in storage. The woman was super nice and was all excited to hear we were from Gump, since she had recently seen something on TV about it. W
e then caught cabs back to Trisha’s and hit the town. Papeete was dead – it was Sunday and everything was closed, so it was more of a ghost town than anything described in the guide books. But we had a great time nonetheless: we headed over to the Trois Brasseurs, and all shared a few pitchers of beer and then got dinner, and just hung out for about three hours. At 8 pm, Ryan, Annie, Pena, Ian, and I went to the docks to get picked up by the French couchsurfers I had contacted earlier, with whom some of students had stayed before coming to Moorea. We sat with them at the Roulottes while they had dinner, and had a fun time talking to Fabien and Julien, as well as Vincent, a Swiss couchsurfer passing through from Fribourg who was familiar with the Paleo (what a small world). We then managed to cram 8 people into their little truck, and had a wild ride back to their house on the hill with a view of Moorea. Once arrived, we were offered drinks and had a nice time hanging out in the tiny pool. We went to bed early, sleeping on mattresses and couches, to prepare for the big day.
Next morning we awoke and had a breakfast of tortillas and peanut butter, which we had bought at Are’s with class funds before leaving. We had coffee and witnessed an intense argument between French collocataires, then Julien took us over to the base of Mt Aorai for our hike (Fabien had decided not to join us on our hike after all). We left at 7 am and walked along six or seven kilometers worth of road to finally arrive at the Belvedere Restaurant at an altitude of 600m, which is where normal people begin the hike. We finally began the actual trail at 10:30, after a snack of delicious apple sauce and GORP (Good Old Raisins and Peanuts). The first part of the hike was very nice, winding along a not-so-steep path contouring various little mountains, with views of Moorea and its barrier reef picture frame, as well as Papeete. After numerous breaks, we eventually reached the 1400 m hut and had a nice lunch (peanut butter and tortillas) and relaxed a bit. Ryan was quite excited about the outhouse, which faced a sea of fog, and we made sure to engrave Cal onto the wall along with everyone else’s engravings. At 3:00 we decided we should forego just dancing hakas and should try to make it to the top of Mt Aorai, since it was Tahiti’s third highest mountain and seemed like something we should do. We finally left the hut at 3:45 and began the difficult ascent to the top – we had to reach 1800 m before sundown. The part of the hike was a challenge: the path was very Rotui-esque, along a ridge line and extremely steep, requiring climbing on hands and knees and pulling of ropes and roots. The path was a bit wider than Rotui, but the cliffs on either side were sheer: any fall would result in serious injury or death (no exaggeration). Plus we were racing against the clock, which made this even more challenging. The lack of oxygen due to the altitude was felt by all of us, but we kept trudging on. The mountains were deep green and lush, with Ti plants and Miconia everywhere, reminding us of Trisha and Irene. The fog beneath us blocked the view, making it seem as though a fall would simply result with us landing on soft, spongy marshmallows. We periodically checked the GPS to make sure we would make it to the top before dark, and around 1600m, the clouds suddenly cleared and we found ourselves surrounded by amazing, huge green mountains on all sides. Their peaks emerged from clouds, and we could not even see the bottom – the view reminded me of Jurassic Park and we expected to see with dinosaurs or King Kong. We finally got to the top right at 5:45, just in time to put down our stuff in the cabin, change out of extremely sweaty clothes (I won the sweaty clothes award), and check out the sun set. The view from the top was amazing – we were witnessing the sunset from above the clouds, with lush green peaks poking out and views of Papeete shining through the clouds as darkness settled. Ian and Ryan made a fire, and we heated up our cans of ravioli, which were quickly devoured along with a bottle of wine. We watched the stars for a while, seeing numerous shooting stars and some satellites, and then decided to go to bed, as we were all exhausted. We wrapped ourselves in whatever we had, as the French people had warned us “qu’on allait se peler le cu” (have our asses peeled) due to the cold. I wore a shirt, a thermal, a sweatshirt, capris, a raincoat on my legs, and a towel as a blanket, while others did similarly. Ryan was the funniest: he wore his field pants and some shorts over these, followed by a t-shirt, his man pareo, Chris’ hamak, and three or four head wraps. We lay out on the floor, Ryan, me, Annie, Pena, and Ian, and shut off the lights at 8:45. It was absolutely freezing. We lay close to each other for warmth, but it did not help much. I was convinced that others were sleeping, but at 11:00 pm we all burst out giggling in despair over how cold it was. We tried to sleep again, sleeping even closer to each other, but to no avail: at 2:30 we all started laughing again and decided to have a snack. We sat in a circle, all wrapped in our ridiculous gear, and ate GORP and peanut butter. Ryan told us about his dream that a 40 year old woman was in the cabin with us, trying to sleep as well, which Pena understood as 4-year-old, which was quite creepy. When we noticed a pink child sleeping bag hanging in the corner, the creepiness was magnified (this had been there all along, but none of the others had noticed it). Ian took it down and cut it to make a mat for Ryan and me, and this, along with the heat from the food, allowed us all to sleep for about an hour. At 5:00 am we noticed the sun was rising, so we clambered out of our hut, all bleary eyed and exhausted. The sunrise was pretty – the sky was finally clear and we could see Moorea, Tetiaroa, Papeete, and all the surrounding mountains. We had some breakfast, packed our stuff, engraved BERKELEY 2009 and left by 7 am. By now clouds had already settled in. The descent to the 1400 m hut was done without too much trouble, considerably easier than had been the hike up. Just as we got to the hut, it began to rain – we had avoided the rain on the deadly part of the hike, which was extremely lucky. We left the second hut by 9:45, and it soon began to pour. It rained non-stop all the way down, with thunder and lightning nearby and huge, powerful drops falling from the sky. Little rivers and waterfalls formed within minutes, and we were all entirely soaked and muddy by the time we got to the Belvedere at 12:00, as we had all managed to slip in the mud multiple times on the way down. I called a cab from the restaurant, and as we sat around waiting for it, some nice Tahitian hikers offered us a ride down in the back of their truck. We rode for about 2 minutes, then the cab came and drove us to the Tahiti Airport Motel, where Annie’s mom was providing us with a room. We dumped all our stuff and took well deserved showers, managing to get mud everywhere despite our efforts.
While the three others napped, Annie and I headed into Papeete on the bus to check out the market. We arrived by 4 pm, and although it wasn’t supposed to shut down until 5 pm, a lot of the stalls were already closed. I bought some Monoi oil and a pareo, and Annie got herself a toere (the drum Sam had taught her how to play), as well as some other trinkets. We then hung out for an hour and a half at a table at the Vaimo Center, and then met up with the others at the Roulottes at 6:30 for dinner. The Roulottes are a bunch of carts that sell cheap but delicious food out by the docks in Papeete, frequented by locals and tourists alike looking for cheaper food for a change. They seem to specialize in French food and Chinese food, as well as grilled fish, hamburgers, and pizza. Ryan, Ian, and Pena all ordered steak frites, which they had had at Maria’s volleyball game and loved, while Annie and I got two different kind of “chao men.” The food was all delicious, but the portions were huge – thankfully they let us take the leftovers home (we even stole bread for breakfast).
After dinner we caught the bus back to the hotel and laid stuff out to dry. Our room was soooo smelly and muddy…poor cleaning staff. Nick then called, as he was at the airport coming back from Huahine to meet up with his parents, so he popped by for a bit. I went to bed while he was there and slept straight through the night.
Next morning we awoke and visited the luggage locker again to exchange some stuff, as well as bid Annie farewell. We then caught the bus to the city and had breakfast at the market. I had delicious coconut bread, which for some reason they had in a variety of shapes, while Ian and Pena decided to try the Chao Men baguette sandwiches, a perfect example of the fusion of cultures in Tahiti (there is a large Chinese population there, mostly running businesses).The Market was full of fresh fruit and vegetables, with more kinds of bananas than I’ve ever seen. They also sold a lot of tikis and pearl shell jewelry, and of course pareos. It was fun to walk around, but I quickly became disillusioned with all these souvenirs – after being in Moorea for nine weeks, I don’t feel like a tourist at all, and there’s no way that any of those little trinkets could even come close to conveying the experiences we had there.
We then set out to find Robert Rent-a-car, which was quite a walk out of central Papeete, made more difficult by the giant dry bag filled with food we were lugging around. We passed a burned jeep and I laughingly commented that was our car. We trudged on and eventually reached the end of the street, so I asked at a gas station where the place was. When they heard what we were looking for, they said that it had been burned down and was no longer in business. As I had talked to someone on the phone earlier, I knew it existed, so they pointed us in the right direction – about 10 min back the other way. The guys were tired, so Pena and I went back and found that the burned jeep I had commented on was actually the right place! How ironic. Of course it was closed for lunch by the time we got there, so we went back to fetch the guys, stopped at Champion to get some groceries, and eventually Robert came, and within minutes, we had our jeep! It was a small white jeep, pretty new-looking compared to the rest of the lot, and it even had air-conditioning! We called Trisha, who we were supposed to meet up with, and then went to pick her up at the airport. It was so great to have the freedom of a car! We started driving down the west coast, stopping at some caves, where Ian and Ryan almost got stuck in the mud while wading around. We also stopped at the Gauguin Museum, which had a lot of interesting information about the painter as he had spent a large part of his life in French Polynesia, as well as giant tikis and some of his paintings. We continued driving into Tahiti Iti, which was even more rural than Moorea and absolutely gorgeous, with towering, green, lush peaks very close to the coast. There was this great collapsing house, completely caved in with plants taking it over and even a cow skull with a plant growing out of it just sitting in the middle of the house. We found Trisha an awesome pension (Pension Orianda) run by an extremely friendly woman. We had the most eclectic dinner ever (sardines, corned beef, venison, and lamb, bread, canned ratatouille, cheese, crackers, carrots…very strange) and the woman even gave us dishes to use. We hung out for a bit and used Trisha’s shower, then decided to go find a place to sleep. We drove to the end of the road and decided to stay in the parking lot of the Plage Publique, parking underneath a tree to reduce rain. So here we were sleeping in a jeep about 10 feet from the waves breaking in Teehaupoo, one of the best surf spots in the world, where huge annual competitions are held – not a bad deal. Ian and Ryan got the front seats, and Pena, me, and the food bag squished into the back seats/trunk. Surprisingly enough, we managed to sleep a decent amount. At 6 am, we awoke to music and found that we were parked about 5 feet from the bus stop, at which a bunch of kids were standing, waiting to go to school and staring at us, in particular Ian and Ryan, who were both shirtless in the front seats. Soon enough a bus came and parked RIGHT next to us…apparently we had decided to park IN the bus stop. It was hilarious, and we just decided to close our eyes and pretend no one was there. We eventually moved the car a bit and slept some more, had some breakfast, then headed back to Trisha’s to say bye and then head up the east coast. Using our Lonely Planet guides, we thought it’d be nice to drive up to the belvedere to see the view. We followed a long winding road up the hill, driving through gorgeous farm land – this area was more rural than any other part. We kept turning and following little roads, getting followed by barking dogs and more confused by the minute (where was the belvedere?). We eventually got to this road that seemed like it was going down, so we decided to follow, laughing when it got narrower and narrower due to plant overgrowth. The road became quite steep and there was an amazing view of the ocean filling the whole plane of view…and suddenly the road was eaten up entirely by plants. So here we were in the middle of nowhere, on an extremely steep road with cliffs and emptiness down the side, in a little rental manual jeep. Pena thankfully managed to turn the car around, and drove it up a bit up the hill, then popped out to take some pictures. We then all took a deep breath, buckled up, and got ready to go. Pena tried starting the car about 4 times, but it wouldn’t work. The engine didn’t seem like it would make it. Great. We all got out, and Pena tried again, and was able to get the engine going. The rest of us jumped in, but the car kept rolling backwards whenever she took her foot off the break…a little terrifying, considering there really wasn’t much road left behind us. On the third try, she somehow managed to do it, and we were finally headed back up the hill to safety! On our way back to “civilization,” we drove by a family of wild pigs, piglets included, and also decided to name our car in appreciation for serving us so well as home and rescuer. We settled on “Fare here”—the home of love. Back in town, we stopped by the Hyper Champion to celebrate our survival, where we picked up some stuff to bring home: Tahitian wine, Hinano, coconut and vanilla tea, etc. We then continued along our drive to the Blowhole, where we had a nice lunch of more random foods and watched the powerful air stream spurt out. We watched the strange guppies writhing on the rock nearby, fighting to stay on the rock and flopping on their tails without any apparent reason, then watched some surfers and hung out on the black sand beach for a while. We then headed back to see some waterfalls, which were gorgeous despite the mosquito attack – I got six bites in about five minutes. On our way out of there, we noticed a rental car coming towards us and were commenting on it, when suddenly it turned around and began to follow us, with a crazy guy waving to us (Pena’s words). Turns out it was Nick and his parents! This goes to show how small these islands are – Nick was the only other person on Tahiti from our class (besides Trisha), and we had managed to run into him! We passed him our bug spray through the window, then continued on to Papeete, where we visited the Pearl Museum (pearl growing is apparently quite a scientific practice!). We visited the tattoo parlor where Trisha and Pena would be getting tattoos next morning, and then grabbed a drink at a café. We enjoyed some delicious pizza at the roulottes, saw Nick and his parents AGAIN, and then we were off to the airport! I bid my wonderful travel buddies farewell, rearranged all my luggage, and went to check in, which took forever.
And here I am now, waiting at the airport, and getting ready to board the plane to leave this paradise forever.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
One more thing...
Last night, Maria, Irene, and Christine made fortune cookies to go along with their dinner, and put in fortunes that are each relevant to one person. Proof that I am not exaggerating: my fortune was "You will bring booty tan lines into fashion." Oh joy...
We're nearing the end.
It's only been a week since our performance, yet it feels like it's been ages. Time has a weird feel to it -- we do so much here that our days feel very long, yet at the same time, we're somehow finding ourselves with only a week left. Only one more week of daily baguettes and fresh tropical fruit, bananas hanging on our stairwell, swims and snorkels, hanging out with the locals...and only one more week to finish our projects, clean up the labs, and go! We have all decided that this is a topic not to be mentioned...
Pablo, who taught the guys Marquesian dancing, informed us yesterday that the mayor of Moorea was so impressed by our dancing that he wanted us to perform for this big event at the Hilton, with nice meal and open bar as a reward. Unfortunately this is happening November 28th, so we won't be around (one more reason to stay!)...but it's nice that we were appreciated!
The last week has been extremely busy. Saturday evening, we had a Halloween party at the Atitia center. A Tahitian was the DJ, so we had to listen to a lot of weird Tahitian techno music as well as more traditional pop songs, so it was actually pretty interesting. There were a lot of locals there, as Frank had invited all the station workers and their families, as well as our class...although the Americans were pretty much the only ones who dressed up. I attempted to be a Swiss Army Knife, with a red t-shirt and Swiss flag scotch-taped onto it, and cardboard scissors, knife, and nailfile taped onto my leg and arm. Stosh dressed up as a giant Hinano beer bottle, and at one point Ryan picked me and turned me upside down for a picture of the Swiss Army Knife being used to open the beer bottle. Our GSI David dressed as the plant he's studying, and Prof Vince Resh was "invasive plants" -- both were basically covered head to toe in plants. Maya had the best costume: she dressed up as all the maladies we had in the class: band-aids for nono bites, a bandaged foot and crutches for the stone fish, a hot water bottle on her head for the malaria fever, some more bandages for sea urchin spinings, etc. So the party was fun, I learned how to dance Tahitian-style to modern music, and we taught the locals how to dance to hiphop music American style. One funny thing about Tahitian culture is that it always seems as if they're trying to match you up with someone. Etienne, one of the rowers, waved me over and introduced me to his friend who wanted English lessons...and made sure to emphasize that he had lots of money and was an excellent dancer. I politely refused. The rest of the night was uneventful, besides one of our girls twisting her ankle, adding to Maya's list of maladies.
Sunday was the day to catch up on work -- we had to turn in the "Materials and Methods" section of our paper by that afternoon. Once that was done, Amanda and I biked over to the public beach, where we snorkeled for a bit and then just hung out and relaxed on the beach. Upon arrival we ran into "orange haired dude" (Tahitian names all sound the same, so we've kind of all given up), who danced the haka with the guys, and then some other girls who danced with us -- the public beach is where everyone hangs out on Sunday, playing volleyball, having barbecues, swimming, etc., and it's gotten to the point where we are now really part of the community and will hear a "ALEX!" wherever we go. As an aside, it has now become the running joke for a few people in the class to yell "Alex! Alex!" (in a French accent) whenever they want my attention. When we were learning the dances, Sam the drummer and two dance teachers would constantly be yelling this for me to translate this, so now it's yelled while playing volleyball or any other random moment. Also, this is the reason why everyone on this island knows my name...they've all heard it a billion times.
Anyway, on Monday I finally climbed Mount Rotui! I had been wanting to do this hike since about a month ago, when all the terrestrial kids did the climb and came back 10 hours later, covered in dirt and scratches and fearing for their lives. Apparently when they went, every person nearly fell off the mountain at least once...which somehow made it sound even more exciting. So Monday morning, Stosh, Becky, and I woke up at 5am - the three others who were supposed to come chickened out. The reason why we were going was because Becky, who is studying swamp herriers, needed to collect some pellets (regurgitated balls of feathers and bones), and needed a few people to go with her. David dropped us off at the bottom of Mount Rotui, which is a 900m peak right in between Cook's and Opunohu Bays, and we set out at 6am, crossing a random person's backyard to get to the trail. The first part of the hike was hard: extremely steep, sunny, and hot, and half the time we were basically rock climbing. The plus side was that we got high up very fast, and soon had a great view of turquoise waters, the Bays, and the Hilton's overwater bungalows. After the initial 300m abrupt climb, the rest of the hike wasn't too bad -- we were basically walking along the ridges of the mountain, which was only steep at some parts. More importantly, though, there were sheer cliffs on either side of the 30 cm wide path, covered only with little ferns, and thus nothing really to break a fall. These ferns were very useful throughout the hike for the parts when we were literally climbing the path, and my arms were actually very sore the next day. We got to the top at 10:15, having stopped along the way to pick up bird pellets and take little rest breaks. Apparently we were making much better time than the last group that had gone up. Unfortunately it was very foggy, and we couldn't actually see any view from the top, which was really sad, since it's supposed to be amazing. Anyway, we ate our lunch and headed back down, doing the butt slide and finally arriving at the bottom by 2pm. We arrived home smiling and laughing at 2:15, as opposed to the last group's getting home at 5pm, tired and looking as though they had stared Death in the face. No one could believe how normal we seemed after climbing Rotui -- I think we were just lucky to have a whole lot fewer people, and maybe we three had more experience hiking or something. Besides countless scratches on my arms that made me look as though I had been attacked by a pack of wild cats, everything was fine.
Right as we were relaxing and cooling down in the water, Steph came over and asked me if I wanted to go on a puppy mission. Someone had left a box with five little puppies near our property a few days beforehand. Now only two were left (we assume the others were adopted by locals), and Steph wanted to adopt one and try to find a home for the other. So we gathered our troops -- Stosh, Al and Maddox, the dog she's adopting, Christine, Steph, me, and the two puppies, quite a menagerie. We spent about an hour and a half at the vet's, where I spoke to them about all the details of adopting dogs from French Polynesia and bringing them back to the States, which is pretty complicated. Luckily, while we were all standing around, a woman decided that she wanted to adopt our second puppy, so that was taken care of. On the way home, we stopped by the mudflats for Christine to drop off some fiddler crabs (we had collected these a few days beforehand, trampling around barefoot in the mud and catching over fifty in a half hour). As Steph was turning around to pull out, she backed the big land rover into the mud...and we were stuck. This was such a hilarious situation: the car wouldn't budge, and we were all frantically trying to squeeze coconuts and palm fronds underneath the tires to give them some catch. The tires were literally sunken in half way, so there was little hope. Meanwhile, as we tried pushing the car, getting completely covered in mud in the process, little Rotui the puppy was sitting in her cardboard box howling incessantly at the top of her lungs. Of course it was 6pm, so the sun was setting and darkness was settling in (there aren't really any street lights on Moorea). We finally decided to call the station, since thankfully Steph had brough a cell phone, and David and Hinano (one of the directors of the station) came to the rescue about 20 min later. We tied up their truck to ours and tried to pull/push it out, but it still wasn't moving. Finally Hinano, knowing everyone on the island, made a few phone calls, and a friend came by with shovels to dig us out...and we were free within minutes. Finally, at 7:40 and exhausted after a long day of mountain climbing, car pushing, and puppy saving, we were on our way home.
Tuesday was spent at home, working on coral identifications. In the afternoon we went rowing, which was so much fun. This time Pablo, his cousin, and Prince (who taught the guys the haka), who are all around our age, took us out in two "va'a" (the canoes) and we had a great time racing. We then played a crazy game of volleyball with them, then had dinner and went to a lecture given by Vince on scientific writing. After a grueling amount of dishes, I eventually went to bed.
Wednesday Al and I went our to Nu'urua, where we were to collect some more data for our projects. It was a little nerve-wracking to be kayaking again, after what had happened last time, and I definitely thought we would topple over more than once. We got to the barrier reef and tied up and did our work, which went well despite a very strong current that resulted in more coral scratches on my legs (my legs are covered in gashes and bruises...everything takes much longer to heal in a tropical climate, so it looks a whole lot worse than it actually is...I hope). We collected some more data along the fringing reef, and as we were doing so, some local women were fishing with huge nets, which was really interesting to see: they would put them out in a big circle, then just start walking them together, tightening the circle until they had a bunch of fish stuck in the middle. We finished our work right on time for Maya to pick us up, and our classmates loaded up our kayak for us, and we were off for an impromptu trip around the entire island to Champion (we were picked up on the way)! Al and I walked around the supermarket in our bathing suits and towels, Al without shoes since she had left them lying around and they had gotten stolen. We eventually got home, and we began to cook dinner, which consisted of Pad Thai, coconut rice, papaya salad, shrimp, and chicken with peanut sauce.
Thursday morning I went to Temae to collect some transect data. People in this class are so nice: I needed a buddy, so Chris volunteered to sit on the beach and do work while I did mine. Even more convenient, Chris is over 23, and could thus drive the truck, so we didn't have to rely on the GSI's to drive us. I was in the water for three and a half hours and got a mild case of hypothermia (my lips were blue and hands were numb), but it went away very quickly. Thursday evening, Vince and the GSI's came over and cooked us a meal of spaghetti and salad in our kitchen. We set up the tables nicely, and decorated them with tropical fruits and flowers, as we had also invited the station staff to come over. Irma, Jacques, and their daughter came, as well as Loana, her two kids, and granddaughter. It was a great night, and we had a lot of fun hanging out with them, dancing with the kids and trying to learn some more Tahitian singing. Irma insists that we are her favorite class (and she is not one to say things like that without meaning it) :)
Friday I went out to the motu with Ryan and Julie. We were dropped off on someone's private property and took kayaks out to the motu. More proof of how nice people are here: Julie, Ryan, and Chris have been working on the motu the whole time, and met this guy who lets them borrow his kayak and use his private beach every time. It's funny because I haven't been to the motu since the first week...it was like doing a full circle, returning to it and realizing how much has happened in the last eight weeks of being here. It's still one of the most gorgeous spots on the island, little sand islands with palm trees, surrounded by turqoise waters and with very few people around (another thing that's nice around here -- on our Rotui hike, for example, we saw no one). I went snorkeling for a bit and collected data, getting freaked out by the huge sharks that kept swimming towards me, and then met the owner of a little private beach who let us do work there, a very tanned guy from Marseilles. He told me crazy stories about people who go fish hunting here: they swim down to 20-30m with their harpoon guns, and shoot huge fish. It's very important to kill the fish, though, as there have been numerous cases of injured fish pulling people down way deeper and them drowning as a result. While we were there, I saw some locals drive a boat over to the reef crest, and stand on the reef with a long spear that they throw at fish to catch them -- these Tahitians are skilled.
Friday evening was the biggest party on the island. We piled into the land rover and Maya drove us over to the Intercontinental hotel, which holds a huge party once a month. Some people jumped out of the car, so it was just Katie and I sitting in the back, and before we knew it, two Tahitian boys had jumped in to join us...they soon left. We arrived to the party, where we were welcomed by people saying "BERKELEY!" (everyone knows us here), and hit the dance floor. It was so much fun, everyone was there -- the dance teacher Hiriata, Prince and his rugby friends, the guys from CRIOBE, and even this random guy from the Miki Miki that gave us a ride home once...this is where you realize how small the island is (15000 people), and that the big party in town is likely to have a lot of familiar faces. Even better, girls got in for free (and guys had to pay 2500 francs, or $30!). We had a great time, and when David picked us up later, we all sat around on the dock outside with the dogs and cooled down.
Well that's about all for now! This afternoon I'll be using this high-tech microscope camera to take amazing pictures of the bugs we collected back at Tetiaroa, as part of the Biocode project that's going on here at the Gump Station. And then who knows...I need to find a way to cram in all the billion things I still want to do here before leaving :(
Pablo, who taught the guys Marquesian dancing, informed us yesterday that the mayor of Moorea was so impressed by our dancing that he wanted us to perform for this big event at the Hilton, with nice meal and open bar as a reward. Unfortunately this is happening November 28th, so we won't be around (one more reason to stay!)...but it's nice that we were appreciated!
The last week has been extremely busy. Saturday evening, we had a Halloween party at the Atitia center. A Tahitian was the DJ, so we had to listen to a lot of weird Tahitian techno music as well as more traditional pop songs, so it was actually pretty interesting. There were a lot of locals there, as Frank had invited all the station workers and their families, as well as our class...although the Americans were pretty much the only ones who dressed up. I attempted to be a Swiss Army Knife, with a red t-shirt and Swiss flag scotch-taped onto it, and cardboard scissors, knife, and nailfile taped onto my leg and arm. Stosh dressed up as a giant Hinano beer bottle, and at one point Ryan picked me and turned me upside down for a picture of the Swiss Army Knife being used to open the beer bottle. Our GSI David dressed as the plant he's studying, and Prof Vince Resh was "invasive plants" -- both were basically covered head to toe in plants. Maya had the best costume: she dressed up as all the maladies we had in the class: band-aids for nono bites, a bandaged foot and crutches for the stone fish, a hot water bottle on her head for the malaria fever, some more bandages for sea urchin spinings, etc. So the party was fun, I learned how to dance Tahitian-style to modern music, and we taught the locals how to dance to hiphop music American style. One funny thing about Tahitian culture is that it always seems as if they're trying to match you up with someone. Etienne, one of the rowers, waved me over and introduced me to his friend who wanted English lessons...and made sure to emphasize that he had lots of money and was an excellent dancer. I politely refused. The rest of the night was uneventful, besides one of our girls twisting her ankle, adding to Maya's list of maladies.
Sunday was the day to catch up on work -- we had to turn in the "Materials and Methods" section of our paper by that afternoon. Once that was done, Amanda and I biked over to the public beach, where we snorkeled for a bit and then just hung out and relaxed on the beach. Upon arrival we ran into "orange haired dude" (Tahitian names all sound the same, so we've kind of all given up), who danced the haka with the guys, and then some other girls who danced with us -- the public beach is where everyone hangs out on Sunday, playing volleyball, having barbecues, swimming, etc., and it's gotten to the point where we are now really part of the community and will hear a "ALEX!" wherever we go. As an aside, it has now become the running joke for a few people in the class to yell "Alex! Alex!" (in a French accent) whenever they want my attention. When we were learning the dances, Sam the drummer and two dance teachers would constantly be yelling this for me to translate this, so now it's yelled while playing volleyball or any other random moment. Also, this is the reason why everyone on this island knows my name...they've all heard it a billion times.
Anyway, on Monday I finally climbed Mount Rotui! I had been wanting to do this hike since about a month ago, when all the terrestrial kids did the climb and came back 10 hours later, covered in dirt and scratches and fearing for their lives. Apparently when they went, every person nearly fell off the mountain at least once...which somehow made it sound even more exciting. So Monday morning, Stosh, Becky, and I woke up at 5am - the three others who were supposed to come chickened out. The reason why we were going was because Becky, who is studying swamp herriers, needed to collect some pellets (regurgitated balls of feathers and bones), and needed a few people to go with her. David dropped us off at the bottom of Mount Rotui, which is a 900m peak right in between Cook's and Opunohu Bays, and we set out at 6am, crossing a random person's backyard to get to the trail. The first part of the hike was hard: extremely steep, sunny, and hot, and half the time we were basically rock climbing. The plus side was that we got high up very fast, and soon had a great view of turquoise waters, the Bays, and the Hilton's overwater bungalows. After the initial 300m abrupt climb, the rest of the hike wasn't too bad -- we were basically walking along the ridges of the mountain, which was only steep at some parts. More importantly, though, there were sheer cliffs on either side of the 30 cm wide path, covered only with little ferns, and thus nothing really to break a fall. These ferns were very useful throughout the hike for the parts when we were literally climbing the path, and my arms were actually very sore the next day. We got to the top at 10:15, having stopped along the way to pick up bird pellets and take little rest breaks. Apparently we were making much better time than the last group that had gone up. Unfortunately it was very foggy, and we couldn't actually see any view from the top, which was really sad, since it's supposed to be amazing. Anyway, we ate our lunch and headed back down, doing the butt slide and finally arriving at the bottom by 2pm. We arrived home smiling and laughing at 2:15, as opposed to the last group's getting home at 5pm, tired and looking as though they had stared Death in the face. No one could believe how normal we seemed after climbing Rotui -- I think we were just lucky to have a whole lot fewer people, and maybe we three had more experience hiking or something. Besides countless scratches on my arms that made me look as though I had been attacked by a pack of wild cats, everything was fine.
Right as we were relaxing and cooling down in the water, Steph came over and asked me if I wanted to go on a puppy mission. Someone had left a box with five little puppies near our property a few days beforehand. Now only two were left (we assume the others were adopted by locals), and Steph wanted to adopt one and try to find a home for the other. So we gathered our troops -- Stosh, Al and Maddox, the dog she's adopting, Christine, Steph, me, and the two puppies, quite a menagerie. We spent about an hour and a half at the vet's, where I spoke to them about all the details of adopting dogs from French Polynesia and bringing them back to the States, which is pretty complicated. Luckily, while we were all standing around, a woman decided that she wanted to adopt our second puppy, so that was taken care of. On the way home, we stopped by the mudflats for Christine to drop off some fiddler crabs (we had collected these a few days beforehand, trampling around barefoot in the mud and catching over fifty in a half hour). As Steph was turning around to pull out, she backed the big land rover into the mud...and we were stuck. This was such a hilarious situation: the car wouldn't budge, and we were all frantically trying to squeeze coconuts and palm fronds underneath the tires to give them some catch. The tires were literally sunken in half way, so there was little hope. Meanwhile, as we tried pushing the car, getting completely covered in mud in the process, little Rotui the puppy was sitting in her cardboard box howling incessantly at the top of her lungs. Of course it was 6pm, so the sun was setting and darkness was settling in (there aren't really any street lights on Moorea). We finally decided to call the station, since thankfully Steph had brough a cell phone, and David and Hinano (one of the directors of the station) came to the rescue about 20 min later. We tied up their truck to ours and tried to pull/push it out, but it still wasn't moving. Finally Hinano, knowing everyone on the island, made a few phone calls, and a friend came by with shovels to dig us out...and we were free within minutes. Finally, at 7:40 and exhausted after a long day of mountain climbing, car pushing, and puppy saving, we were on our way home.
Tuesday was spent at home, working on coral identifications. In the afternoon we went rowing, which was so much fun. This time Pablo, his cousin, and Prince (who taught the guys the haka), who are all around our age, took us out in two "va'a" (the canoes) and we had a great time racing. We then played a crazy game of volleyball with them, then had dinner and went to a lecture given by Vince on scientific writing. After a grueling amount of dishes, I eventually went to bed.
Wednesday Al and I went our to Nu'urua, where we were to collect some more data for our projects. It was a little nerve-wracking to be kayaking again, after what had happened last time, and I definitely thought we would topple over more than once. We got to the barrier reef and tied up and did our work, which went well despite a very strong current that resulted in more coral scratches on my legs (my legs are covered in gashes and bruises...everything takes much longer to heal in a tropical climate, so it looks a whole lot worse than it actually is...I hope). We collected some more data along the fringing reef, and as we were doing so, some local women were fishing with huge nets, which was really interesting to see: they would put them out in a big circle, then just start walking them together, tightening the circle until they had a bunch of fish stuck in the middle. We finished our work right on time for Maya to pick us up, and our classmates loaded up our kayak for us, and we were off for an impromptu trip around the entire island to Champion (we were picked up on the way)! Al and I walked around the supermarket in our bathing suits and towels, Al without shoes since she had left them lying around and they had gotten stolen. We eventually got home, and we began to cook dinner, which consisted of Pad Thai, coconut rice, papaya salad, shrimp, and chicken with peanut sauce.
Thursday morning I went to Temae to collect some transect data. People in this class are so nice: I needed a buddy, so Chris volunteered to sit on the beach and do work while I did mine. Even more convenient, Chris is over 23, and could thus drive the truck, so we didn't have to rely on the GSI's to drive us. I was in the water for three and a half hours and got a mild case of hypothermia (my lips were blue and hands were numb), but it went away very quickly. Thursday evening, Vince and the GSI's came over and cooked us a meal of spaghetti and salad in our kitchen. We set up the tables nicely, and decorated them with tropical fruits and flowers, as we had also invited the station staff to come over. Irma, Jacques, and their daughter came, as well as Loana, her two kids, and granddaughter. It was a great night, and we had a lot of fun hanging out with them, dancing with the kids and trying to learn some more Tahitian singing. Irma insists that we are her favorite class (and she is not one to say things like that without meaning it) :)
Friday I went out to the motu with Ryan and Julie. We were dropped off on someone's private property and took kayaks out to the motu. More proof of how nice people are here: Julie, Ryan, and Chris have been working on the motu the whole time, and met this guy who lets them borrow his kayak and use his private beach every time. It's funny because I haven't been to the motu since the first week...it was like doing a full circle, returning to it and realizing how much has happened in the last eight weeks of being here. It's still one of the most gorgeous spots on the island, little sand islands with palm trees, surrounded by turqoise waters and with very few people around (another thing that's nice around here -- on our Rotui hike, for example, we saw no one). I went snorkeling for a bit and collected data, getting freaked out by the huge sharks that kept swimming towards me, and then met the owner of a little private beach who let us do work there, a very tanned guy from Marseilles. He told me crazy stories about people who go fish hunting here: they swim down to 20-30m with their harpoon guns, and shoot huge fish. It's very important to kill the fish, though, as there have been numerous cases of injured fish pulling people down way deeper and them drowning as a result. While we were there, I saw some locals drive a boat over to the reef crest, and stand on the reef with a long spear that they throw at fish to catch them -- these Tahitians are skilled.
Friday evening was the biggest party on the island. We piled into the land rover and Maya drove us over to the Intercontinental hotel, which holds a huge party once a month. Some people jumped out of the car, so it was just Katie and I sitting in the back, and before we knew it, two Tahitian boys had jumped in to join us...they soon left. We arrived to the party, where we were welcomed by people saying "BERKELEY!" (everyone knows us here), and hit the dance floor. It was so much fun, everyone was there -- the dance teacher Hiriata, Prince and his rugby friends, the guys from CRIOBE, and even this random guy from the Miki Miki that gave us a ride home once...this is where you realize how small the island is (15000 people), and that the big party in town is likely to have a lot of familiar faces. Even better, girls got in for free (and guys had to pay 2500 francs, or $30!). We had a great time, and when David picked us up later, we all sat around on the dock outside with the dogs and cooled down.
Well that's about all for now! This afternoon I'll be using this high-tech microscope camera to take amazing pictures of the bugs we collected back at Tetiaroa, as part of the Biocode project that's going on here at the Gump Station. And then who knows...I need to find a way to cram in all the billion things I still want to do here before leaving :(
Saturday, October 31, 2009
We did it!
After five weeks of two hour practices, four times a week, we finally had our dance performance today! And it was SO MUCH FUN!
First came the costumes. We spent four hours yesterday making beautiful braided belts made of leaves. We took long strips of dried Pandanus leaves (which are very solid and used to make roofs) and braided a bit of these, then began to incorporate strips of Outi. Leaves were incorporated every stitch, so we ended up with a very dense belt of bright green leaves pointing out in every direction. Next we tied beautiful yellow and white flowers onto headbands, about a third of the way around, and we were done! Somehow this took four hours.
After the costume making, some of us went to Maria's last volleyball game, which was a lot of fun: the local kids decided to imitate our loud cheering, which was hilarious, and Maria's team won every game! Interesting also that we saw a few of what we refer to as "she-men." Apparently it is a Tahitian custom for families to occasionally raise boys as girls, although I am not sure why. These men dress like women and are very accepted by everyone. Anyway, back from the volleyball game, the guys decided to get accustomed to their costumes, which consisted of leaves tied onto a belt...and nothing more besides little leaf cuffs on arms, legs, and head. Once we got over the initial giggling of seeing the appropriately termed "side butt" (gaps are left in the skirt on both sides to allow crouching), they did their dance. It looked great besides the fact that we occasionally saw of these guys than we ever wanted to. While the guys were dancing, all the girls wet their hair and braided it as instructed, so that everyone would have wavy hair in the morning. I was specifically told NOT to do anything...
This morning we awoke at 6:30 and met with Hiriate and Iriate, our two dance teachers (with confusingly similar names), to get dressed. Girls were given two brown or red pareos depending on standing position These we tied around our hips as skirts, and tied another, smaller one as a top. We then added the leaf belt we had made the day before, our flower headbands, and a flower lei, and we were good to go! To their dismay, the guys were told that they had to wear underwear underneath their leaves to avoid flashing the president, so all that practice the night before had been in vain.
We all walked over to the Atitia center, leaves rustling. We really lucked out: it's been raining the last few days, but today the sun was shining and there was virtually no wind (but oh so hot). We lined up and sang a round of the Atitia song, then made our way up to the amphitheater where we were to perform. The show was great: the guys opened with the Haka, a traditional Maori dance designed to scare the enemy, as we well as some Marquesian dancing. Then we did our three dances. The first was the Otea, a fast-moving, hip-shaking dance with occasional screams of 'ia orana, Maeva, and Kura Ora ("welcome" in three different Polynesian languages). Next we did an Aparima, a slower-moving dance in which we also sang the Atitia song, which was written specifically for the event. We ended the show with another Otea, fast-moving and featuring Sam the drummer's prouesse, and then we were done! The whole performance was so much fun -- Tahitian dancers are always supposed to smile widely, and I was worried it'd be forced, but it ended up being so much fun that I didn't even have to think about it. After our performance, we were congratulated by Polynesians and American millionaires (who came to see the station and consider donating) alike, and then we all shared a huge Polynesian feast, or Ma'a tahiti, consisting of traditional starches, roast pig, poisson cru, and much more. The president, Oscar Temaru, then made an appearance, and the guys danced a special Haka just for him.
It was really such a great experience: the teachers were so proud of us, and everyone was so impressed with our dancing...and of course we all had so much fun doing it! Hopefully we'll be receiving a DVD of the performance soon...
And now to figure out what to do with all of our extra time! Work perhaps?
First came the costumes. We spent four hours yesterday making beautiful braided belts made of leaves. We took long strips of dried Pandanus leaves (which are very solid and used to make roofs) and braided a bit of these, then began to incorporate strips of Outi. Leaves were incorporated every stitch, so we ended up with a very dense belt of bright green leaves pointing out in every direction. Next we tied beautiful yellow and white flowers onto headbands, about a third of the way around, and we were done! Somehow this took four hours.
After the costume making, some of us went to Maria's last volleyball game, which was a lot of fun: the local kids decided to imitate our loud cheering, which was hilarious, and Maria's team won every game! Interesting also that we saw a few of what we refer to as "she-men." Apparently it is a Tahitian custom for families to occasionally raise boys as girls, although I am not sure why. These men dress like women and are very accepted by everyone. Anyway, back from the volleyball game, the guys decided to get accustomed to their costumes, which consisted of leaves tied onto a belt...and nothing more besides little leaf cuffs on arms, legs, and head. Once we got over the initial giggling of seeing the appropriately termed "side butt" (gaps are left in the skirt on both sides to allow crouching), they did their dance. It looked great besides the fact that we occasionally saw of these guys than we ever wanted to. While the guys were dancing, all the girls wet their hair and braided it as instructed, so that everyone would have wavy hair in the morning. I was specifically told NOT to do anything...
This morning we awoke at 6:30 and met with Hiriate and Iriate, our two dance teachers (with confusingly similar names), to get dressed. Girls were given two brown or red pareos depending on standing position These we tied around our hips as skirts, and tied another, smaller one as a top. We then added the leaf belt we had made the day before, our flower headbands, and a flower lei, and we were good to go! To their dismay, the guys were told that they had to wear underwear underneath their leaves to avoid flashing the president, so all that practice the night before had been in vain.
We all walked over to the Atitia center, leaves rustling. We really lucked out: it's been raining the last few days, but today the sun was shining and there was virtually no wind (but oh so hot). We lined up and sang a round of the Atitia song, then made our way up to the amphitheater where we were to perform. The show was great: the guys opened with the Haka, a traditional Maori dance designed to scare the enemy, as we well as some Marquesian dancing. Then we did our three dances. The first was the Otea, a fast-moving, hip-shaking dance with occasional screams of 'ia orana, Maeva, and Kura Ora ("welcome" in three different Polynesian languages). Next we did an Aparima, a slower-moving dance in which we also sang the Atitia song, which was written specifically for the event. We ended the show with another Otea, fast-moving and featuring Sam the drummer's prouesse, and then we were done! The whole performance was so much fun -- Tahitian dancers are always supposed to smile widely, and I was worried it'd be forced, but it ended up being so much fun that I didn't even have to think about it. After our performance, we were congratulated by Polynesians and American millionaires (who came to see the station and consider donating) alike, and then we all shared a huge Polynesian feast, or Ma'a tahiti, consisting of traditional starches, roast pig, poisson cru, and much more. The president, Oscar Temaru, then made an appearance, and the guys danced a special Haka just for him.
It was really such a great experience: the teachers were so proud of us, and everyone was so impressed with our dancing...and of course we all had so much fun doing it! Hopefully we'll be receiving a DVD of the performance soon...
And now to figure out what to do with all of our extra time! Work perhaps?
Thursday, October 29, 2009
A memorable birthday.
It's been quite a while since I updated...things have been getting pretty busy over here. I was contemplating changing projects for a while after talking to a marine specialist appropriately named Seabird -- I wanted to study the effects on coral biodiversity of the ongoing outbreak of Acanthaster planci, huge coral-eating starfish. Unfortuately, even though the GSI's loved my idea, the professors like my original topic too much and won't let me change...so back to comparing Great Barrier Reef and Moorea coral biodiversity instead.
So the last couple of weeks have basically been spent doing work, with a few minor adventures here and there (kayaks to snack stands, swims, snorkels, etc.). One thing I've really been appreciating is how friendly the Polynesians are. One guy named Ariitea has made it his goal to entertain us, and drives half way around the island to pick a few of us up and take us back to his amazing house with a pool table, beautiful island art, and a gorgeous view of Tahiti. Pablo, who has been teaching the guys some Marquesan dancing, is so delighted to have new friends that he has devoted every Sunday to us. Last Sunday he invited eight of us over to his friend's pension (family run hotel) right next to Temae public beach. This place had a salt water pool (so we the choice between the "big pool," the ocean, or the little pool) and paddle tennis courts, so we spent the afternoon hanging out there and having a barbecue on our own private little beach. The owner's story was typical of many people's here: he was moving back to France from Vietnam as a child, had a stopover in Tahiti, and never left.
In other funny random news, one of my classmates, Stosh, is working on a project studying clams, which happen to be a delicacy here (and highly illegal to eat, as they are protected). He set up an experiment in which he spent hours collecting clams and repositioning them by a public beach to see how they their predation rate changed, and returned a few days later to find that predation had indeed increased...not by fish, but by people! Someone had eaten his project. And this is where you realize how small Moorea is: turns out Irma knows the person who ate the clams, as they bragged to her about all the clams they got, and Irma yelled at them in defense of poor Stosh.
Besides that, dance practice has been getting very intense, considering we have only a few days before the big performance, which is this Saturday. The dance teachers want it all to be perfect, as we are the first international group of students to ever perform Tahitian dancing in a cultural event like this one, so it had better be good! Apparently they are all really proud of us.
Last weekend was the big weekend of birthdays. It's funny, only three of us will have had birthdays here, and they were all clustered together: Oct 17, 25, and 26. For Vanessa's birthday on the 17th, we had a big party in the Fare Pote'e outside with music and dancing. Some people decided to dance on the table, and we actually managed to break one of the tables (it was old), which was pretty funny. We were all afraid that Irma would kill us, but she thankfully never did.
This past Friday night, a few of us went over to Ariitea's, then Saturday night we had another evening outside in the Fare Pote'e. One thing that's nice out here is the weather never cools down too much in the evening, so you can be outside without a sweater...in fact I haven't worn a sweater or long pants since we got here. Sunday, which was Danielle's 21st birthday, the cooking group made us a cake for the both of us with "21" written in chocolate on it. Once the clock hit 9 pm, midnight in California, the "Happy birthday's" began (which, when you live in a house of 22 people, is quite often).
My actual birthday was probably my most memorable yet. It's funny how on their 21st birthdays, most people go out to a bar, use their ID for the first time, and buy themselves a drink (and some then drink way too much and get very sick). While I wasn't expecting that to happen here in quiet little Moorea, I wasn't quite expecting what actually DID happen.
I went out with Al that day to do some field work in Ma'atea, on the southern side of the island. We were snorkeling right off the private property of Jimmy B., a funny little old American who moved to Moorea about 40 years ago and is now caretaker for a very wealthy family's vacation home. It was pretty windy out, but we decided it would be fine, and set out pushing our kayak through the waves. As we got to deeper waters, I clambered into the kayak, but as Al got in after me, the whole thing toppled over. All our stuff (pencils, measuring tapes, clipboards, cameras, etc.) went floating away, and we managed to grab everything...except for Al's hundred dollar fins, which were swept away by the current within minutes. Discouraged, we nevertheless decided to continue on. We paddled on for about 15 minutes to the barrier reef, crossing a deep channel on the way. Once arrived, we tied our boat to a pole, and took turns doing our field work as we only had one pair of fins. Meanwhile the waves were crashing nearby and the strong current kept tugging at the kayak. Al actually managed to break one of my fins, but we were able to fix it. The reef out there was probably the best I've seen. I went snorkeling around for an hour, and everything was so vibrant and diverse: large purple Montipora species, big bulky Porites, delicately branched Acropora, and tons of intricate little encrusting corals everywhere. There were so many fish out there, including swarms of blue fish that pulsated around corals in clouds. I saw a beautiful red octopus out there, and got freaked out by a 2m long black-tipped reef shark that came out of nowhere, which are harmless but definitely have that stereotypical scary-looking shark shape. When I got back to the kayak, Al made a reassuring comment, "I think our boat is sinking!" Sure enough, there was definitely a few inches of water in the ancient kayak that hadn't been there before. She quickly finished her field work, and then we began our journey back to shore.
By then the rain had started to fall and the wind had gotten a lot stronger: we were in a little, old, sinking kayak about 20 minutes from shore, with waves running perpendicular to shore and the sky darkening by the minute. We managed to move forward for about 2 minutes, then suddenly a wave pushed us over. The problem was not only that the current was hitting the boat from the side, but also that the kayak had filled with water internally, and thus had no balance at all. By reflex we grabbed the oars and our data sheets first, then were able to collect everything else. Thankfully there were large coral heads around, so we were able to climb back into the kayak by standing on it. This time we only paddled on one side of the boat, but the current was so strong that we still weren't really moving forward. This time we managed to stay onboard for about 5 minutes, and then we were pushed over again. We lost all of the measuring tapes we had brought as well as Al's water bottle, but once again managed to save the oars and the data sheets. We realized that there was no way to paddle back to shore, especially since there were no more corals to stand on to climb back in, and that we had to swim it back in. Not an easy feat considering only I had fins, and that we were lugging an overturned, water-filled kayak as well as oars and clipboards with our valuable data. It took us at least 15 minutes of swimming hard against the current to get back to shallow waters. We swam over a deep channel where we could no longer see the bottom, and although I was delighted to see a spotted eagle ray, Al saw a few hammerhead sharks below us, which are known to be aggressive towards humans. We finally made it back to shore, where Jimmy welcomed us and told us he'd called our GSI when he could no longer see us as he was worried about the storm. We took showers in an awesome little outdoor shower hut, and then Jimmy made us hot chocolate and provided us with toast and peanut butter while telling us tales of Moorea, shipfaring, and drowning. Anyway, all is well that ends well, and all I have to remember the adventure by is some coral scrapes, a large bruise, and a good story to tell.
When we got back to the dorms, we ran to dance practice and then had the most delicious dinner yet: at my request, the cooking group made Greek food, including hummus, Greek salad, pita from scratch, stuffed eggplant, and Spanakopita. I was given a glass of wine with my dinner, and then the cooking group brought in an amazing cake and everyone sang. I spent the rest if the evening exhausted and just hanging out in the living room, with no energy left to celebrate. The day had ended up being exciting in a very different way than I had anticipated, and definitely a memorable one.
So the last couple of weeks have basically been spent doing work, with a few minor adventures here and there (kayaks to snack stands, swims, snorkels, etc.). One thing I've really been appreciating is how friendly the Polynesians are. One guy named Ariitea has made it his goal to entertain us, and drives half way around the island to pick a few of us up and take us back to his amazing house with a pool table, beautiful island art, and a gorgeous view of Tahiti. Pablo, who has been teaching the guys some Marquesan dancing, is so delighted to have new friends that he has devoted every Sunday to us. Last Sunday he invited eight of us over to his friend's pension (family run hotel) right next to Temae public beach. This place had a salt water pool (so we the choice between the "big pool," the ocean, or the little pool) and paddle tennis courts, so we spent the afternoon hanging out there and having a barbecue on our own private little beach. The owner's story was typical of many people's here: he was moving back to France from Vietnam as a child, had a stopover in Tahiti, and never left.
In other funny random news, one of my classmates, Stosh, is working on a project studying clams, which happen to be a delicacy here (and highly illegal to eat, as they are protected). He set up an experiment in which he spent hours collecting clams and repositioning them by a public beach to see how they their predation rate changed, and returned a few days later to find that predation had indeed increased...not by fish, but by people! Someone had eaten his project. And this is where you realize how small Moorea is: turns out Irma knows the person who ate the clams, as they bragged to her about all the clams they got, and Irma yelled at them in defense of poor Stosh.
Besides that, dance practice has been getting very intense, considering we have only a few days before the big performance, which is this Saturday. The dance teachers want it all to be perfect, as we are the first international group of students to ever perform Tahitian dancing in a cultural event like this one, so it had better be good! Apparently they are all really proud of us.
Last weekend was the big weekend of birthdays. It's funny, only three of us will have had birthdays here, and they were all clustered together: Oct 17, 25, and 26. For Vanessa's birthday on the 17th, we had a big party in the Fare Pote'e outside with music and dancing. Some people decided to dance on the table, and we actually managed to break one of the tables (it was old), which was pretty funny. We were all afraid that Irma would kill us, but she thankfully never did.
This past Friday night, a few of us went over to Ariitea's, then Saturday night we had another evening outside in the Fare Pote'e. One thing that's nice out here is the weather never cools down too much in the evening, so you can be outside without a sweater...in fact I haven't worn a sweater or long pants since we got here. Sunday, which was Danielle's 21st birthday, the cooking group made us a cake for the both of us with "21" written in chocolate on it. Once the clock hit 9 pm, midnight in California, the "Happy birthday's" began (which, when you live in a house of 22 people, is quite often).
My actual birthday was probably my most memorable yet. It's funny how on their 21st birthdays, most people go out to a bar, use their ID for the first time, and buy themselves a drink (and some then drink way too much and get very sick). While I wasn't expecting that to happen here in quiet little Moorea, I wasn't quite expecting what actually DID happen.
I went out with Al that day to do some field work in Ma'atea, on the southern side of the island. We were snorkeling right off the private property of Jimmy B., a funny little old American who moved to Moorea about 40 years ago and is now caretaker for a very wealthy family's vacation home. It was pretty windy out, but we decided it would be fine, and set out pushing our kayak through the waves. As we got to deeper waters, I clambered into the kayak, but as Al got in after me, the whole thing toppled over. All our stuff (pencils, measuring tapes, clipboards, cameras, etc.) went floating away, and we managed to grab everything...except for Al's hundred dollar fins, which were swept away by the current within minutes. Discouraged, we nevertheless decided to continue on. We paddled on for about 15 minutes to the barrier reef, crossing a deep channel on the way. Once arrived, we tied our boat to a pole, and took turns doing our field work as we only had one pair of fins. Meanwhile the waves were crashing nearby and the strong current kept tugging at the kayak. Al actually managed to break one of my fins, but we were able to fix it. The reef out there was probably the best I've seen. I went snorkeling around for an hour, and everything was so vibrant and diverse: large purple Montipora species, big bulky Porites, delicately branched Acropora, and tons of intricate little encrusting corals everywhere. There were so many fish out there, including swarms of blue fish that pulsated around corals in clouds. I saw a beautiful red octopus out there, and got freaked out by a 2m long black-tipped reef shark that came out of nowhere, which are harmless but definitely have that stereotypical scary-looking shark shape. When I got back to the kayak, Al made a reassuring comment, "I think our boat is sinking!" Sure enough, there was definitely a few inches of water in the ancient kayak that hadn't been there before. She quickly finished her field work, and then we began our journey back to shore.
By then the rain had started to fall and the wind had gotten a lot stronger: we were in a little, old, sinking kayak about 20 minutes from shore, with waves running perpendicular to shore and the sky darkening by the minute. We managed to move forward for about 2 minutes, then suddenly a wave pushed us over. The problem was not only that the current was hitting the boat from the side, but also that the kayak had filled with water internally, and thus had no balance at all. By reflex we grabbed the oars and our data sheets first, then were able to collect everything else. Thankfully there were large coral heads around, so we were able to climb back into the kayak by standing on it. This time we only paddled on one side of the boat, but the current was so strong that we still weren't really moving forward. This time we managed to stay onboard for about 5 minutes, and then we were pushed over again. We lost all of the measuring tapes we had brought as well as Al's water bottle, but once again managed to save the oars and the data sheets. We realized that there was no way to paddle back to shore, especially since there were no more corals to stand on to climb back in, and that we had to swim it back in. Not an easy feat considering only I had fins, and that we were lugging an overturned, water-filled kayak as well as oars and clipboards with our valuable data. It took us at least 15 minutes of swimming hard against the current to get back to shallow waters. We swam over a deep channel where we could no longer see the bottom, and although I was delighted to see a spotted eagle ray, Al saw a few hammerhead sharks below us, which are known to be aggressive towards humans. We finally made it back to shore, where Jimmy welcomed us and told us he'd called our GSI when he could no longer see us as he was worried about the storm. We took showers in an awesome little outdoor shower hut, and then Jimmy made us hot chocolate and provided us with toast and peanut butter while telling us tales of Moorea, shipfaring, and drowning. Anyway, all is well that ends well, and all I have to remember the adventure by is some coral scrapes, a large bruise, and a good story to tell.
When we got back to the dorms, we ran to dance practice and then had the most delicious dinner yet: at my request, the cooking group made Greek food, including hummus, Greek salad, pita from scratch, stuffed eggplant, and Spanakopita. I was given a glass of wine with my dinner, and then the cooking group brought in an amazing cake and everyone sang. I spent the rest if the evening exhausted and just hanging out in the living room, with no energy left to celebrate. The day had ended up being exciting in a very different way than I had anticipated, and definitely a memorable one.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
I now have snorkel mask tan lines (and worse booty tan lines).
The last few days have been absolutely amazing. WARNING: this will probably be a very long blog entry.
Friday evening we decided to all finally go out. My friend Danielle had met a Polynesian guy a few weeks earlier, so he came to pick about six of us up to take us to the Miki Miki, the club where all the locals go. We stopped by his house on the way, which was gorgeous. It was actually his dad's house (his dad used to work for the bank here), up on a hill with a great view of Tahiti. The living room had an ocean theme, with blue lighting, a Va'a (Polynesian row boat) hanging on the ceiling, sea shells, and beautiful island artwork everywhere. I saw this big, elaborately carved wooden "pole" on the wall, so I asked the dad what it was; turns out it's a "casse-tete" in the literal sense of the term (head-breaker), a pole that was once used in the Marquesas for human sacrifices. So we had a nice time hanging out there for a bit, then headed over to the Miki Miki, where we met up with the rest of our class. It was fun, they were playing music from Grease followed by Tahitian music, and everyone was dancing, which was great. After that we stopped by a huge parking lot where a whole bunch of people were hanging out and listening to music, and then got a ride home. (for anyone who is worried about my safety, we ALWAYS travel in groups...and this island is extremely safe)
Saturday morning I rolled out of bed and pretty much jumped right into a jeep headed to the public beach, where I was to go check out the corals. As I was snorkeling around, I saw two huge day octopuses: one of them was hiding inside a coral head, and the other was actually undulating across a coral head right beneath me. Octopuses are really the masters of disguise: this octopus would come out and move around a bit (from one end of his arm to the other, it was probably about 1 m diameter), then suddenly change its color and texture to look exactly like the coral, then change again and move further, etc. When I got out of the water an hour and half later, I found three more people from the class had come by bike to the beach. Maria's volleyball team was having a barbecue there, so we all wandered over (even though Maria was technically the only one invited), and of course the friendly Polynesians offered us food. Once again, this was a really great experience because we got to spend time with the locals and join them in their everyday activities.
In the evening we were invited over to the CRIOBE station (the French research station nearby) for a barbecue of Mahi Mahi, breadfruit, and vegetable kebabs. It was great to meet all these French scientists and just hang out with them, talking about science and (mostly) other random things...and getting my Swiss accent made fun of as usual.
Sunday was another great day. In the morning, a couple of us got to go out rowing with some toursists (elderly Americans). Frank, one of the heads of Gump Station, also runs a tourism business, and as one of the activities he offers is rowing, we got to fill in the empty spots in the boats. It was funny that the tourists were questioning us about the island, but I guess we have been here for a month, and we were surprisingly knowledgeable about everything they asked about. Next I went out by boat with a few others to explore the barrier reef just outside of Cook's Bay, where I will be conducting some parts of my project. Within two minutes of jumping into the water, I was lucky enough to see a large sea turtle just hanging out on the sea floor (and I got a great picture!). After spending a few hours out on the water, some of which was spent waiting for my friend to hack out giant clams from coral heads, we came back to land and I showered. Five minutes later I decided to join in on a kayak mission across the bay to check out an abandoned hotel (that Gump Station will probably buy in the near future and expand into). It was so much fun, we took out two two-person kayaks and stealthily made our way across, where we tied up our boats and explored the hotel (there really wasn't too much to see, except for some cool-looking tikis). By the time we were making it back across, the sun had set and we were rowing at starlight, which was so beautiful and peaceful.
Monday I actually spent most of the day working on identifying corals based on pictures I had taken and guides. It's surprisinlgy difficult: corals have a tendency to look very similar, and there's also the problem that they tend to be extremely variable, and can thus look very different from one area to the next, even if it's the same species. Anyway, at about 2 pm we found out that we would be going to Tetiaroa the next day, an island about two hours away, where we would spend the night. As this island is basically uninhabited, we had a mad rush of going out to buy food for the next two days and dozens of cases of water for the entire class.
And then the adventure began.
We all got up at 5:30 am and were amazingly ready to go on the dock by 6:30 am (actually on time for once). We divided the 22 students, 3 GSI's (graduate student instructors), and 2 Biocode scientists among three boats, and off we were! The next two hours were basically like being on a two hour long roller coaster. The boat I was on was just a simple fisherman's boat (which we later found out is not supposed to hold passengers), and we all held on for dear life as we bounced across giant waves all the way to Tetiaroa, getting soaked in the process (at some point I was even considering putting a snorkel mask on). A few times along the way, our driver whipped out a harpoon and went chasing after Mahi Mahi, but unfortunately never caught any. Anyway, we survived and when we got to Tetiaroa, we were greeted by four humpback whales (two mother and two calves). It was amazing, the whales came up to within 30-40 feet of the boat, and we could even see the white of their underbellies through the clear water. The whales were even kind enough to jump out and do some acrobatics for us.
So now a little bit more about WHY we were on Tetiaroa. Tetiaroa is an "atoll" (in quotation marks because geologically, it is not technically an atoll, but just an island sunken down by the weight of Tahiti and Moorea) that belongs to Marlon Brando's family. It is basically a bunch of motus (little sand islands covered in palms and other plants) in a ring around a shallow lagoon of crystal clear water. They are currently in the process of building an "eco-lodge" on the Onetahi motu, a supposedly environmentally friendly resort that will be the most posh resort in French Polynesia, with bungalows going for $2000 a night. The hotel has a partnership with the Gump Station, as they will work together to study the ecological impact of the hotel. The hotel owners will also build a satellite research station to the Gump Station on Tetiaroa, so scientists will be able to do work there and entertain guests at the same time. The construction is thus in progress, and should (maybe) be done in 2012.
Anyway, we were invited to come check out the island thanks to this partnership, but also to collect some bug and plant specimens for the Biocode lab, as well as take pictures of all marine life (Biocode is a project the Gump Station is involved in, in which they are working on coding out the DNA for all species on Moorea). So we arrived to the construction site for the wharf they're working on, which is currently a platform of concrete jutting out in the middle of pristine turquoise waters ("eco-lodge"?). Two very enthusiastic construction workers rode their little launch over to pick us off our larger boats and take us to land, refusing to take anyone but the girls first, much to the guys' distress. Once we had all arrived on land, girls AND guys, it was announced that we would all be climbing into the back of a huge dump truck to take us to the hotel construction grounds. And we did just that: we literally scaled a huge truck, all stood in the part that normally holds concrete and such, and drove all the way to the motu, crossing ocean and coral heads along the way (and following a path made of sticks and coconuts). That was definitely a very unique method of travel...probably won't be riding in a dump truck again anytime soon. When we finally arrived at our site, we dropped our stuff on the beach and jumped into the beautiful water. It was so nice and warm and clear...and full of squishy sea cucumbers -- hundreds of them surrounded us, and of course we couldn't resist picking them up and watching them eject their internal water in super-soaker style (anyone ever have a sea cucumber water fight?). After claiming our accomodation for the night, grey trailors on the beach with rock hard mattresses reminiscent of a prison cell, we had lunch. The hotel is nowhere near done, so we basically got to stay on a construction site with amazing scenery (I'm not complaining at all). And I should probably mention that we had no running water and no bathrooms.
We then set out on an adventure, snorkeling through blue waters from motu to motu and walking on beautiful white beaches in between. The most amazing part of it all was that no one was there: the only official resident of Tetiaroa is Marlon Brando's son, who was invited to dinner but too shy to come (he grew up on an uninhabited island, so I imagine his social skills are a bit undeveloped). We were thus walking on sands and through waters that very few people have walked on before, considering this "eco-lodge" is the first hotel to be built on the island. After a day of exploring, relaxing, and playing with the hundreds of hermit crabs out there, we had dinner (we cooked in the workers' kitchen), hung out a bit, and went to bed. Besides the rock hard mattresses and lack of pillow, the night went rather smoothly.
Next morning we got up, had breakfast on the beach, and set out to do some SCIENCE! I joined the marine "photosafari" group: our goal was to go to a variety of sediment types and photograph every living thing was saw there to add to the Biocode library. We set out for a walk to find a good spot, but due to really intense waves, we weren't able to find a safe place to snorkel. So we walked back to our camp site and just ended up snorkeling there instead, getting a few not-so-exciting photos mostly of sea snails. And then it was already time to head home. We all piled into the dump truck once again and got out to the wharf construction site where the little boat was waiting to take us out to the Gump Station boats. This time, though, the waves were really intense and the tide was a lot higher than the day before, and we had to go out in threes, waiting for the opportune moment to get past the reef crest without getting smashed by the waves -- definitely kind of terriying. Back in our boats, I was imagining the worst considering the waves we had just seen, but the ride back ended up being much, much smoother than on the way there, and I never once feared for my life. We again had a few unsuccessful harpooning expeditions, although when we got back to the Gump Station, our driver was nice enough to give us a huge Mahi Mahi he had caught earlier that day.
Back at home, it was so nice to take a shower and rid myself of two days' worth of sunscreen, bug spray, dirt, and sand. We picked up some pizzas at the local Allo Pizza and had a nice dinner. I also finally got to look in the mirror and see the perfect outline of my snorkel mask I have printed on my face due to how tanned I got in the last couple days (I definitely got a few shades darker in Tetiaroa)...hopefully this tan will even out soon and I will not go on looking like a racoon for long. Oh, and my booty tans got a whole lot darker too.
Friday evening we decided to all finally go out. My friend Danielle had met a Polynesian guy a few weeks earlier, so he came to pick about six of us up to take us to the Miki Miki, the club where all the locals go. We stopped by his house on the way, which was gorgeous. It was actually his dad's house (his dad used to work for the bank here), up on a hill with a great view of Tahiti. The living room had an ocean theme, with blue lighting, a Va'a (Polynesian row boat) hanging on the ceiling, sea shells, and beautiful island artwork everywhere. I saw this big, elaborately carved wooden "pole" on the wall, so I asked the dad what it was; turns out it's a "casse-tete" in the literal sense of the term (head-breaker), a pole that was once used in the Marquesas for human sacrifices. So we had a nice time hanging out there for a bit, then headed over to the Miki Miki, where we met up with the rest of our class. It was fun, they were playing music from Grease followed by Tahitian music, and everyone was dancing, which was great. After that we stopped by a huge parking lot where a whole bunch of people were hanging out and listening to music, and then got a ride home. (for anyone who is worried about my safety, we ALWAYS travel in groups...and this island is extremely safe)
Saturday morning I rolled out of bed and pretty much jumped right into a jeep headed to the public beach, where I was to go check out the corals. As I was snorkeling around, I saw two huge day octopuses: one of them was hiding inside a coral head, and the other was actually undulating across a coral head right beneath me. Octopuses are really the masters of disguise: this octopus would come out and move around a bit (from one end of his arm to the other, it was probably about 1 m diameter), then suddenly change its color and texture to look exactly like the coral, then change again and move further, etc. When I got out of the water an hour and half later, I found three more people from the class had come by bike to the beach. Maria's volleyball team was having a barbecue there, so we all wandered over (even though Maria was technically the only one invited), and of course the friendly Polynesians offered us food. Once again, this was a really great experience because we got to spend time with the locals and join them in their everyday activities.
In the evening we were invited over to the CRIOBE station (the French research station nearby) for a barbecue of Mahi Mahi, breadfruit, and vegetable kebabs. It was great to meet all these French scientists and just hang out with them, talking about science and (mostly) other random things...and getting my Swiss accent made fun of as usual.
Sunday was another great day. In the morning, a couple of us got to go out rowing with some toursists (elderly Americans). Frank, one of the heads of Gump Station, also runs a tourism business, and as one of the activities he offers is rowing, we got to fill in the empty spots in the boats. It was funny that the tourists were questioning us about the island, but I guess we have been here for a month, and we were surprisingly knowledgeable about everything they asked about. Next I went out by boat with a few others to explore the barrier reef just outside of Cook's Bay, where I will be conducting some parts of my project. Within two minutes of jumping into the water, I was lucky enough to see a large sea turtle just hanging out on the sea floor (and I got a great picture!). After spending a few hours out on the water, some of which was spent waiting for my friend to hack out giant clams from coral heads, we came back to land and I showered. Five minutes later I decided to join in on a kayak mission across the bay to check out an abandoned hotel (that Gump Station will probably buy in the near future and expand into). It was so much fun, we took out two two-person kayaks and stealthily made our way across, where we tied up our boats and explored the hotel (there really wasn't too much to see, except for some cool-looking tikis). By the time we were making it back across, the sun had set and we were rowing at starlight, which was so beautiful and peaceful.
Monday I actually spent most of the day working on identifying corals based on pictures I had taken and guides. It's surprisinlgy difficult: corals have a tendency to look very similar, and there's also the problem that they tend to be extremely variable, and can thus look very different from one area to the next, even if it's the same species. Anyway, at about 2 pm we found out that we would be going to Tetiaroa the next day, an island about two hours away, where we would spend the night. As this island is basically uninhabited, we had a mad rush of going out to buy food for the next two days and dozens of cases of water for the entire class.
And then the adventure began.
We all got up at 5:30 am and were amazingly ready to go on the dock by 6:30 am (actually on time for once). We divided the 22 students, 3 GSI's (graduate student instructors), and 2 Biocode scientists among three boats, and off we were! The next two hours were basically like being on a two hour long roller coaster. The boat I was on was just a simple fisherman's boat (which we later found out is not supposed to hold passengers), and we all held on for dear life as we bounced across giant waves all the way to Tetiaroa, getting soaked in the process (at some point I was even considering putting a snorkel mask on). A few times along the way, our driver whipped out a harpoon and went chasing after Mahi Mahi, but unfortunately never caught any. Anyway, we survived and when we got to Tetiaroa, we were greeted by four humpback whales (two mother and two calves). It was amazing, the whales came up to within 30-40 feet of the boat, and we could even see the white of their underbellies through the clear water. The whales were even kind enough to jump out and do some acrobatics for us.
So now a little bit more about WHY we were on Tetiaroa. Tetiaroa is an "atoll" (in quotation marks because geologically, it is not technically an atoll, but just an island sunken down by the weight of Tahiti and Moorea) that belongs to Marlon Brando's family. It is basically a bunch of motus (little sand islands covered in palms and other plants) in a ring around a shallow lagoon of crystal clear water. They are currently in the process of building an "eco-lodge" on the Onetahi motu, a supposedly environmentally friendly resort that will be the most posh resort in French Polynesia, with bungalows going for $2000 a night. The hotel has a partnership with the Gump Station, as they will work together to study the ecological impact of the hotel. The hotel owners will also build a satellite research station to the Gump Station on Tetiaroa, so scientists will be able to do work there and entertain guests at the same time. The construction is thus in progress, and should (maybe) be done in 2012.
Anyway, we were invited to come check out the island thanks to this partnership, but also to collect some bug and plant specimens for the Biocode lab, as well as take pictures of all marine life (Biocode is a project the Gump Station is involved in, in which they are working on coding out the DNA for all species on Moorea). So we arrived to the construction site for the wharf they're working on, which is currently a platform of concrete jutting out in the middle of pristine turquoise waters ("eco-lodge"?). Two very enthusiastic construction workers rode their little launch over to pick us off our larger boats and take us to land, refusing to take anyone but the girls first, much to the guys' distress. Once we had all arrived on land, girls AND guys, it was announced that we would all be climbing into the back of a huge dump truck to take us to the hotel construction grounds. And we did just that: we literally scaled a huge truck, all stood in the part that normally holds concrete and such, and drove all the way to the motu, crossing ocean and coral heads along the way (and following a path made of sticks and coconuts). That was definitely a very unique method of travel...probably won't be riding in a dump truck again anytime soon. When we finally arrived at our site, we dropped our stuff on the beach and jumped into the beautiful water. It was so nice and warm and clear...and full of squishy sea cucumbers -- hundreds of them surrounded us, and of course we couldn't resist picking them up and watching them eject their internal water in super-soaker style (anyone ever have a sea cucumber water fight?). After claiming our accomodation for the night, grey trailors on the beach with rock hard mattresses reminiscent of a prison cell, we had lunch. The hotel is nowhere near done, so we basically got to stay on a construction site with amazing scenery (I'm not complaining at all). And I should probably mention that we had no running water and no bathrooms.
We then set out on an adventure, snorkeling through blue waters from motu to motu and walking on beautiful white beaches in between. The most amazing part of it all was that no one was there: the only official resident of Tetiaroa is Marlon Brando's son, who was invited to dinner but too shy to come (he grew up on an uninhabited island, so I imagine his social skills are a bit undeveloped). We were thus walking on sands and through waters that very few people have walked on before, considering this "eco-lodge" is the first hotel to be built on the island. After a day of exploring, relaxing, and playing with the hundreds of hermit crabs out there, we had dinner (we cooked in the workers' kitchen), hung out a bit, and went to bed. Besides the rock hard mattresses and lack of pillow, the night went rather smoothly.
Next morning we got up, had breakfast on the beach, and set out to do some SCIENCE! I joined the marine "photosafari" group: our goal was to go to a variety of sediment types and photograph every living thing was saw there to add to the Biocode library. We set out for a walk to find a good spot, but due to really intense waves, we weren't able to find a safe place to snorkel. So we walked back to our camp site and just ended up snorkeling there instead, getting a few not-so-exciting photos mostly of sea snails. And then it was already time to head home. We all piled into the dump truck once again and got out to the wharf construction site where the little boat was waiting to take us out to the Gump Station boats. This time, though, the waves were really intense and the tide was a lot higher than the day before, and we had to go out in threes, waiting for the opportune moment to get past the reef crest without getting smashed by the waves -- definitely kind of terriying. Back in our boats, I was imagining the worst considering the waves we had just seen, but the ride back ended up being much, much smoother than on the way there, and I never once feared for my life. We again had a few unsuccessful harpooning expeditions, although when we got back to the Gump Station, our driver was nice enough to give us a huge Mahi Mahi he had caught earlier that day.
Back at home, it was so nice to take a shower and rid myself of two days' worth of sunscreen, bug spray, dirt, and sand. We picked up some pizzas at the local Allo Pizza and had a nice dinner. I also finally got to look in the mirror and see the perfect outline of my snorkel mask I have printed on my face due to how tanned I got in the last couple days (I definitely got a few shades darker in Tetiaroa)...hopefully this tan will even out soon and I will not go on looking like a racoon for long. Oh, and my booty tans got a whole lot darker too.
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