Next stop: Taiohae Bay in Nuku Hiva, French Polynesia

So we have left the southern part of the Marquesas and are now in the more populated Northern Islands.  By “more populated” I mean a total population of 5,000 spread out over four islands vice a total population of 3,000 spread out over four islands.  Needless to say, a total population of about 8,000 people is a small, small amount for an island chain that has it’s own flag, identity and has considered being a separate country than the rest of the other four major island chains in French Polynesia.  The other French Polynesian chains are the Tuamotu Islands, Society Islands, Gambier Islands, and Austrial Islands chains.  Tahiti and Bora Bora are part of the Society Islands, FYI.  I was curious about this odd independence of such a small amount of people and did a little reading and asking around at the tiny museum in Nuku Hiva, which is where we are now.

Let me say this and don’t laugh at me when you hear it, but the Ruskies have got absolutely nothing on the Polynesians when it comes to putting up with difficulty.  These people have been plagued (syphilis), cannibalized, colonized, converted, warred upon, beaten down, re-plagued (smallpox) and then one of their islands in the Tuamotus was hit by 141 atomic  bombs (let me say that again: One hundred forty one atomic bombs, 6 of which were hydrogen bombs!) by France when they were conducting nuclear testing.  In the Marquesas alone the population was devastated by a whopping 95% before people stopped dying in droves and they were able to begin rebuilding their society.  According to one book, The Marquesas alone started with 800,000 people at the start of the 19^th century and dropped as low as 2,000 at one point!  Now, to be fair, before us Westerners got here, they weren’t exactly a peaceful people with everything going on perfectly; islands were constantly at war with each other, raids for human sacrifices occurred and cannibalism most assuredly was practiced.  Still these people took a beating and are starting a long bounce back from pretty dire straights.  Despite all this they are the nicest people you have ever met, they put up with me bumbling through a language that isn’t theirs but that they adopted in addition to their own in order to better communicate with their sponsor country / people who colonized them.  All in all, I respect the heck out of ‘em.

So we were going to stop at Ua Pou, another major island in the Marquesas but we gave it a quick flyby instead.  Tiff explains:

We did get some awe inspiring pictures of the giant spires formed by dormant volcanoes that this island is known for.  Spires like this are all over the island and are so high many are enshrouded in clouds.

We pressed onto Nuku Hiva and into Taiohae Bay, which with a population of 1,700 is the “big city” and capital of the Marquesas.  We were greeted with sights of civilization such as pizza, crepes and a grocery store.  What I describe below is by far the most advanced cruising port in the Marquesas.

I would include internet in the list of modern conveniences; however, when I say “internet” I would think most people would picture things like Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, email and the like.  If I said I had internet you may write me nasty emails saying, “Hey, why haven’t you responded to my Facebook message I sent you!?”  This would because it is, for your reference purposes, a 60 minute process to download and read a 2 line text email.  Pictures and videos ain’t happening.  Web 2.0?  Right, we’re working on web 0.3 here.  Little perspective on Marquesian internet access for ya: I asked one of the locals and they told me that the internet is in fact satellite based – but wait, here’s the bad news – the ONE SERVER for the ENTIRE ISLAND CHAIN is in Tahiti.  Remember that island that’s about 2,000 miles away?  Ya, that’s where the ONE server is.  You thought dial up AOL was slow?  Lightning compared to what we can get here.

On the up side, by giving up all hope of accessing the web, I get a lot more time to wander about, get in trouble, get humiliated by high school kids in volleyball and find interesting things for this blog, like a local tiki park created for cultural preservation (though the locals spell it “ti’i”).  This one is my favorite: a naked tiki holding a war club in one hand and the head of another tiki in his other hand.  Why do I call the Tiki a he?  Nope, no assumption here, lets just say this guy could easily fit in at a particular bay on the island of Fatu Hiva.  It should be noted that of all the islands in French Polynesia, the Marquesas are known for their exquisitely detailed and precise tikis…

In addition to the Tiki park, it first must be said that this place is simply gorgeous.  Not just this town, all the islands we’ve come to so far have been jaw-droppingly amazing.  These people live out their lives within mother nature’s personal art gallery.  No words can accurately describe the abundance of picture perfect plants that surround us on a daily basis.  The flower bush in this video was just on the roadside.  It is not overly unusual, I just picked it to give you an example visual assault of perfection that we are bombarded with on a typical day:

Speaking of natural beauty, as it were, I also discovered that if you think that school clothing regulations in the US educational system are lax, you will have a very different perspective once you see what these kids wear at recess:

-Greg