Friday, November 2, 2018

Moorea and its Magical Mountains

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4/26/18

When we arrived to Moorea, we took the round the island public bus to our Air BnB. It was a cute open-air bungalow, with a pebble floor, bamboo storage areas, and plenty of mosquitos. The property has a lot of fruit trees that we were free to take from, and the hosts welcomed us with several types of fresh fruits from their garden. After settling in, we went down to the beach nearby, which had pretty water and great views of jagged peaks. Of all the islands we visited, Moorea had the best and most stunning jagged peaks

After checking out the beach, we rented a scooter for a circumnavigation of the island. We went by some pretty water areas, up to a nice viewpoint known as the Belvedere that had good views of the mountains and the 2 famous bays: Openahu and Cook’s. All around the island were views of impossibly sharp peaks! For dinner we cooked pizza at our bungalow.

4/27/18

We took the scooter back up to Belevedere and hiked up to 3-coconut pass, which had great views toward the bays as well as the other side of the island. On the way back, we cooled off in a waterfall. We then hiked up 3-pines pass for some additional views. We then scootered toward the base of Magical Mountain and climbed the short, but steep hike to the top of it. From the top were magnificent views of the gorgeous lagoons below as well as Openahu bay and Mount Rotui. We could even see our little bungalow. On the way down we collected about 50 passion fruits! Yum‼ We then scootered to the big supermarket on the island where we had some ice cream as the sun set and purchased a roasted chicken for dinner.

4/28/18

An absolutely beautiful weather day! We did a really cool lagoon excursion with Hiarito. Had ha a brown-footed booby that he fed and that followed us around for most of the tour (he fed it b/c it had a broken beak). Our first stop was snorkeling with some blacktip reef sharks out beyond the reef. Then we cruised around a good chunk of the island looking for dolphins. Eventually we found some spinner dolphins that we got to swim with‼ The way we did this is we were pulled along by the boat by holding onto a rope as the boat cruised alongside the dolphins. Super cool! We then did a cool drift snorkel through a pass where we just “flew” by. Saw a large white-tipped shark on this snorkel.

Next we moved to a really beautiful coral garden that was also equally beautiful above the water with its pretty turquoise water amongst little sandy, palm-tree lined motus. We had a yummy fruit snack (coconut, pineapple, papaya, pomelo, and banana). There were a couple of friendly stingrays here that we could play with and pet. We then moved to a spot with lots of black-tipped sharks and stingrays.

After the tour we hung out at the intercontinental resort and acted like we were guests: swam at the pool, lounged, had a picnic lunch by the lagoon, and the watched their captive and rescue dolphins and turtles. We then hitchhiked back to our place where we cooked up steak and pasta, which was a bit different (probably) from the $100.00 per person dinner at the intercontinental.

4/29/18

We hitchhiked to Cook’s Bay where we waded in the water and enjoyed the view for a bit before hitchhiking to the ferry. We took the ferry to a deserted Papeete (deserted because it was Sunday, so everything was closed). We had hoped to shop for gifts, but nothing was open.

In the afternoon we, we had our Air NZ flight to Auckland. We caught a bus and then walked the rest of the way to our air bnb.

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