Four Wheeling in Paradise

Today we took a road trip with a Marquesan named John in his Nissan 4WD double cab pickup along with our two friends Bob and Dianna from White Swan. Last night it rained buckets and we discussed cancelling but decided to hope for clearing later which it did, finally. We started at 8:30am and got back just before 5pm after a very long slow drive over extremely rough and steep terrain, which in parts was no wider than the truck - no guard rails and we slipped a bit on the muddy spots. John kept it in 2nd gear most of the way and many times put it in 1st gear to get up or down a particularly steep or rougher spot. We only went into 4WD a couple of times but other drivers would have kept it in 4WD the whole road.

The scenery was spectacular to say the least. The jungle here is true jungle but with every kind of fruit tree and flowering trees and bushes you can imagine. There are coconut palms, bananas, papayas, and mango trees growing wild, and on "farms" everywhere. The farms look like the jungle with only specific types of jungle trees. Chickens (and ever present crowing roosters) are also wild in the jungle along with goats and pigs. Cows and horses used to be wild here too, but the wild ones have been penned up. They go pig hunting at night and shoot the pigs from the trucks in the lights on the road (illegal in most US states).

The road wound up from sea level and went 45km (about 27 miles) up and over the volcanic plateau and ridges from when the island was formed thousands of years ago. The ridges are knife-edge sharp still with deep, deep valleys in between, all covered in jungle. The appearance of the different kinds of trees and bushes gives it a highly textured appearance. Very pleasing on the eye balls, and very exotic. We bumped along the road past the airport outside of town, then east up and up to the highest point of the road, about 2000 ft up, with gorgeous views of the coastline on the other side with the surf crashing in the far distance. There are just a very few houses along the main part of the road with some "villages" along the coast at the bottom of the other side. The biggest village has 80 people and a tiki site with some of the best preserved tikis in all of the South Pacific. Tikis are stone statues from the old religions. (They are mostly all Catholic now in the Marquesas because of the French and many of the tikis and old religious sites were severely vandalized by the missionaries trying to, and succeeding in, destroying the native religion.) The missionaries also brought diseases which wiped out most of the population, making it easier to convert the ones left. The ones who complained, they just killed. Very compassionate.

Our guide brought a BBQ grill and part of a large wahoo fish that he had caught the week before and we grilled fish and ate a superb lunch on the beach at our final destination. We got stuffed and could not finish all that was provided. We stopped at a fruit farm along the way and we couldn't even get to those items which we brought back to the boat for another day. It was not cheap, but nothing is here. And on the way back we stopped at a woodcarver's house in the village and we bought a wooden tiki made out of tau wood. The carver's face was almost completely covered in the Marquesan style tatoos. These tatoos are very popular here and several cruisers have had new ones from a really good artist here.

So it goes in Hiva Oa. We will leave in a day or so and go to Fatu Hiva, south of here, and stay a few days. More is happening but can't get it all on the radio emails. We miss all our friends and family but also enjoying it here. We still have to pinch ourselves to believe we are here.