The Moorea Connection
I have a connection with Moorea going back to my childhood. On the street in Laguna Beach, where I grew up, there was a beautiful house built in the southern California style with large picture windows offering a panoramic view of the town, the ocean, and Catalina Island.
The house had a name spelled out in metal letters by the garage. The name was Moorea.
The name was mysterious and intriguing to me at the time. And when I eventually learned that it was the name of an island in the South Pacific, it became even more romantic in my young mind.
I never got a chance to go in the house, but I always pictured it as filled with treasures the owners had acquired on their travels to exotic places. It fueled my desire to travel myself, and especially my attraction to the islands of the Pacific.
When I finally got there, more than 50 years later, I was not disappointed.
Geographically, Moorea is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. The landscape is otherworldly, with strange, spiked peaks rising sheer out of the vivid green of profuse tropical foliage.
The island is shaped like a bird with outstretched wings. As you can see from the aerial view, it's half of an extinct volcano, with a central peak (the bird's head) in the center of the caldera. As the island continues to sink, the central peak will become a separate island.
Island Snobbery
I was warned not to come here, and I almost didn't. I found that some people who enjoy vacationing in the South Pacific have become island snobs. In books and websites I read while planning the trip and during my travels, in Fiji and the Cook Islands especially, I was repeatedly told that French Polynesia, particularly Bora Bora and Moorea were overdeveloped therefore not worth visiting. "As bad as Hawaii," several people sneered.
Because of my childhood dream of traveling here, I decided to keep Moorea on my itinerary, but I scheduled less time in French Polynesia than I allowed for the other island groups I visited.
That, it turns out, was a mistake.
The Benefits of Civilization
I flew into Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia on the island of Tahiti, after nearly a week in barely-developed Atiu in the Cook Islands.
Papeete is indeed developed. The city has a population of 25,000, considerably more that the entire population of the Cook Islands. There are multilane roads, high-end international retail outlets, and more.
But Hawaii it isn't.
There are no high-rise hotels. No souvenir shops mobbed with overweight tourists. Very little congestion.
There are, however plenty of outdoor cafes where you can sit a have a leisurely cup of espresso and a delicious pain au chocolat. These are just a few of the many advantages of a French cultural background. I enjoyed strolling the streets, taking in the colonial architecture of some of the older buildings.
I found Papeete to be a pretty, casual, small town offering many of the benefits of civilization with few of the drawbacks. Unfortunately, having heeded the words of the island snobs, I had scheduled only a day here. I later found out that the island of Tahiti is rich in places to go and things to do that most tourists, with their eyes set on the storied resorts of the outer islands, never explore. I missed them, too. Maybe next time.
Blissfully unaware of what I was missing, I headed for the ferry to Moorea. The island, easily visible from Papeete, is a forty-minute trip by boat.
Leaving Papeete.
Heading for Moorea.
Loneliness in the Lap of Luxury
I always wanted to stay in a tropical resort in a bungalow built over the water. On this trip, I resolved to do just that in Bora Bora. But when I investigated the prices, I quickly changed my mind. I had just about given up that particular dream when I saw an ad on Facebook for the Intercontinental resort in Moorea with a price substantially lower than comparable resorts in Bora Bora. So I snapped it up.
It's a beautiful place.
I arrived at the end of May, just before the rush of tourists from Australia and New Zealand that begins in June, so the resort was not overcrowded. Which was a good thing, because in my haste to lock in a good deal, I had booked the wrong Intercontinental resort.
My bungalow was waiting for me in Tahiti, not in Moorea. Luckily, the receptionist was able to switch the reservation for me.
My bungalow. There's a ladder to the water from the deck, so you can go snorkeling in the lagoon.
The room was spacious and well-appointed. After nearly two months of far less luxurious accommodations, it was very satisfying to have nice things again.
And excellent food.
The view of the lagoon from my deck was lovely.
I could look down into the clear, warm water and watch scores of colorful fish going about their business.
And that evening I was treated to the most stunning sunset I have ever seen. It went on for over an hour.
I was in paradise. So why wasn't I happy?
The solitude of two solo months on the road was beginning to get to me. I loved where I was and was eager to explore the two islands left on my trip, but I was also ready to go home, too. I missed Ophelia, I missed family and friends, I missed the familiarity and comfort of being in my own house.
I spent the next day lying by the pool and enjoying all the resort had to offer, which was quite a lot. But by the end of the day, I was ready to leave. I realized that I really don't like the generic luxury of a large resort as much as I thought I would. Don't get me wrong, I appreciated the break, but it felt that I could have been in any high-end resort anywhere in the world. I missed the funky local detail that locally-owned hotels and guesthouses offer. And I missed the easy camaraderie that comes with more intimate lodging. Large hotels are largely anonymous, and I craved more human contact.
So I was glad to leave the resort the next morning for the six-bungalow guesthouse of Fare Vaihere, located on beautiful Opunohu Bay. It was exactly what I was looking for: a casual place with friendly guests from around the world. The owners, Philippe and his wife Corinne, were the perfect hosts, cordial, helpful, and utterly professional. They were also very good cooks, which was helpful since there are only a few restaurants and none close by. I was happy to be able to share meals and stories with my fellow guests.
There was also good snorkeling right off the end of their pier where the reef drops off to about 50 to 60 feet. There were all the usual reef fish, as well as the occasional turtle, shark, or ray.
Falling in Love with Moorea
Once I was established at Fare Vaihere, I decided to explore more of the island.
I walked around the bay, awed by Moorea's spectacular scenery.
I had seen a bit of the island going to and from my hotels, but seeing it on foot was a far more jaw-dropping experience. Moorea's scenery is simply magnificent, from its impossibly-spiky peaks to the vivid green of the lush forests dotted with fragrant flowers of every hue and the clear turquoise of the surrounding reefs. The distinctive profile of Mouaroa towers above the surrounding landscape like the remains of an ancient citadel.
The mountain is so iconic that it appears on the country's coins.
Far from being overdeveloped, I found Moorea an excellent balance of civilized and bucolic. There are only three large resorts on the island, leaving plenty of coastline for small villages, locally-owned guesthouses, and open space. The few restaurants not attached to resorts are happy to pick you up and return you to your hotel.
I had an exquisite lunch at the Moorea Beach Club: tuna tartare with a truffled wasabi sauce garnished with baby greens and shavings of black truffle. Vive la France!
The next day, I went diving with Moorea Fun Dive. It's owned by a French couple, Christian and Marie. I was their only customer that day, and the diving was awesome. The reefs here, like those in the Cook Islands, are all hard coral, so the colors are fairly muted. The water, however, was crystal clear and teeming with fish.
The resorts here have a history of feeding the sharks to encourage them to come close, so when we reached the first dive site, there was a reception committee of four to five foot black-tips waiting for us.
And they followed us wherever we went.
We saw turtles, an eight or nine foot lemon shark, and had a close encounter with this much rarer eight-foot gray shark.
As we surfaced, the welcoming committee was there to bid us au revoir.
Next up was a jeep tour of the island. We saw some lovely vistas like this view of Opunohu Bay. The peak in the center is the west side of the bird's head. The cruise ship is pointing almost directly at the location of Fare Vaihere.
We visited the remains of Moorea's major marae (a meeting place or temple in Maori). When the missionaries suppressed the native religion, they planted trees in the middle of the sacred grounds to keep it from being used.
The altar where human and animal sacrifices were made.
On my last day, I rented a motorbike and drove all the way around the island. Almost all human habitation on the island is on the coast, so there are only a few roads into the interior. The day was partly cloudy, and the sight of the strange peaks appearing and disappearing in the mist as I drove along made the otherworldly landscape even more magical.
I felt at home in Moorea in a way that I have felt only once before in my travels, when I visited Bali. My attraction to Moorea wasn't quite as intense as that I felt for Bali, but I certainly fell in love with this beautiful island.
P.
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