A&J's Travels: SOUTH PACIFIC CRUISE: RAIATEA, SOCIETY ISLANDS, FRENCH POLYNESIA

Raiatea turned out to be one of our favorite places in French Polynesia. It is a deep water port with a lush mountainous backdrop. One of these mountains is Mt. Temehani which thousands of years ago had a similar status to Mt. Olympus. Raiatea is considered even today the spiritual center of Polynesia. The island's name translates to "far-away heaven."

Typical scenery

We stepped off the ship right in the heart of downtown Uturoa, with many palapa craft markets and an indoor fruit and vegetable market which also served crepes and Nutella, a reminder that this is FRENCH Polynesia.

Craft market right at ship-side

Crepes

Taro root

One of the real niceties of French Polynesia is these floral-wrapped posts. We saw them everywhere. Of course being in the tropics these "exotic" flowers are ubiquitous. I never got tired of seeing them.

In the middle of town was a square where local performers were dancing, surrounded by tourists from the ship. The really fun part was that they roped in the observers.

This one guy from the ship was "chosen" and was stripped of his shirt and wrapped in native garb. He was a really good sport about it and got into the spirit!

And there was much booty shaking!

In Uturoa I got to indulge in one of my favorite things to do when traveling - shop in the local grocery store. I love seeing all the different and odd things and I was not disappointed.

White sandwich bread

Rabbit pate, anyone?

Not on my menu anytime soon

I was very pleased with my purchases - Maille mustard (cheaper than a trip to Dijon, France), a tube of harissa from Tunsia (at home we can only find this at Whole Foods, which doesn't exist in my county) and a bag of shrimp chips, "enjoyed by Japanese for 40 years!"

I also found a wonderful variety store where locals shop - everything from hardware to fabric. At this fabulous place I bought soap made with the local gardenia, "Tiare Apetahi" which grows on Mt. Temehani and nowhere else in the world.

Our impressions of Raiatea: a very pleasant, civilized place; everyone speaks French and looks happy.

Sailing to Taha'a

As we sailed away from Raiatea our captain took us on a lengthy scenic tour of the sister island Taha'a, known as "The Vanilla Island." Millennia ago the two were one island and still share a common reef.

Inside the reef

Picnic, anyone?

Taha'a is sparsely populated and we were easily able to see the locals waving to us on shore as we sailed by. We also had three guys speed by in a boat and as they passed us one guy held up a huge fish. We all cheered.