Day 1

We arrived in Tahiti around 6pm local time (9pm our time). Immediately you notice how small the airport is. Instead of disembarking the plane and going into a terminal, we were escorted onto the tarmac and into a building where we lined up for customs. Immediately behind customs are two bag terminals where upon getting your bag you walk right through some doors that say no re-entry and back outside!

We rented a little manual Peugeot 208 that we were lucky to get. To my fault we hadn’t tried booking a car until the night before the trip and everything was sold out. Including the shadiest of looking car dealers. Becca had managed to find one at Hertz I’d missed but come morning as we were preparing to leave, I got an email saying the car wasn’t available. I asked ChatGPT agent to try again and within 22 minutes I was booking another car at Hertz. By the time we landed there was another email that this rental wasn’t available but this time they offered a replacement.

The little Peugeot that could had no apparent damage but it’s maintanence light was already on. Probably from other drivers abusing the clutch+transmission like I would soon do not having had driven a manual in a couple of years. On top of that, I was used to a high revving Civic instead of the tiny 1.2L Peugeot that wanted to shift every 2.5 RPMS. With a 1.2L , 5 speed, that’s a whopping 0-60 in 9.6 seconds. You’d floor it and barely move but you’d still fly through the gears like you were.

Once in the car we headed for the next obvious stop, McDonalds. Becca had barely eaten for a full day and I was just hungry. Every McDonalds in foreign countries has something we don’t have in the States. For this trip, that was the boss burger that was a quarter pounder with hawaiin bread instead of the normal sesami bun.

We then headed off to the AirBnb where we met with the owner who showed us around before crashing out in bed.

Day 2

Store trip Universal charget coral reef Pizza

Day 3

Store trip Walked to Le Passeon Swimming Grottes De Mara’a hike Kayak attempt (rain) Le Foodcourt storm driving back

Day 4

Store trip Papeete Market Black sand beach in Papeete, Ahonu Beach Boba Le Foodcourt Tsunami warning - Earthquake in Russia

Day 5

Drive out to Super U for snacks and drinks Went to pharmacy for IBProfin Drive out to hiking trail for water falls Hike was cancelled due to huge mudslide from the storm. Proposal McDs

Day 6

Hike falls food trucks