French Polynesia – Marquees islands – Nuku Hiva

I went from Rarotonga to French Polynesia. First several days at Tahiti, and then to Nuku Hiva, the biggest of the Marquees’ islands. French Polynesia is big, almost the same size as Europe. The biggest town is Taiohae, placed by a bay, which is a volcanic crater, and the surroundings are fantastic.  

A much bigger crater covers much of the island, whereas half the edge of the crater is rugged mountains on land, and the other half is in the ocean. I went to a guided walk along a path beneath the crater edge. The walk (both ways) took 4 hours. First it was farmed land, but after a while it was quite dents rain forest, and in between we could see these very special mountains.

We had lunch by a river, en here several fresh water eels appeared, and we feed them.

The day after we had a guided tour by car, to see more of the island, among other thing those rugged mountains peaks, which are a part of the crater edge.  

I got the impression that people at Nuku Hiva are very proud of their heritage, and do a great effort to reconstruct historical sites. At this picture the stone foundation is from 12^th century, but the house is quite new.

 

The fauna is very special. Coconuts, bananas and papayas are grooving all over on the Pacific islands I have been to, also at Nuku Hiva, so I am getting accustomed to those kind of fruits. But here at Nuku Hiva there are so enormous many types of exotic fruits, which both is farmed and growing wild: mango, vanilla, cashew nut, passion fruit, cacao beans, pineapple, guava, star fruit, to mentions some, and then in addition other fruits I never seen or heard about. It grows 10 different types of banana. There are also many different kind of flowers, but I am interested in what can be eaten. This is the closest I have been to the Garden of Eden. 

Mango is my favourite fruit, and it is special to see how they grow, and also pick them from the ground and eat them totally fresh.

There are fish and shellfish in the ocean, and here is a little bit of the days catch.

Yes, this is exiting, and not the least exotic.