Surely at the Bay of Virgins you would find one or two? This is a really small village filled with really nice people. We walked through town which took about 7 minutes. The magasin is small and stocked with the basics. I met the owner who tried to convince me to trade a bottle of rum for some tapa. I politely declined because we’ve been told by many, many people NOT to trade liquor.
New Year’s Eve
Meats have been really difficult, if not impossible, to find in French Polynesia. We’ve been able to find chicken in bulk and a few small bags of wings. But we have not seen steak, pork chops or pork shoulder since Tahiti. We have one more meal of pork chops and two small pork shoulders left. Then it will be lots of chicken until we get back to Tahiti next summer. So, it is a treat to eat pork. For Christmas Matt made pork chops for us and for NYE he broke out a pork shoulder and made BBQ pulled pork sandwiches which were divine! We followed it down with a lovely bottle of bubbly and tried our best to stay up. However, at 2230, we decided it was midnight somewhere and called it a night. Party animals that we are!
NEW YEAR
New Year’s Day was spent hiking to a waterfall with our friends on Maple. We decided that it would be a great way to start the year. It was a relatively short hike 2.1 miles up on a paved road that turned into a dirt road. The last 1/3 of the trail was a tad bit tricky but since it is summer here, it was dry. I can imagine it would be more challenging during the winter when the trail is slippery and muddy.
Hike to waterfall
A nice local marked the trail with rock formations on the last 1/3 of the trail (see bottom right photo). It proved to be helpful keeping us on track.
The waterfall was super tall and very lovely. The photos don’t do it justice, but trust me when I say how pretty it is. I had to take two photos to get the top and the bottom. A refreshing pool lay at the base of the waterfall and we all took a dip. We enjoyed some snacks and beverages before heading back down the mountain.
Waterfall
Fatu Hiva is a really green island. It is unusual because it is summer time and their dry season. Most of the other islands are a little brown so it is amazing to see so much greenery here. On the way down, we could clearly see the caldera which was stunning. See bottom right photo.
View of Bay from Shore
A sweet female dog adopted a kitten. It was the cutest thing to see this cat and dog together. The kitten had no idea her mom was different than her, it just didn’t matter.
Mamma dog to a cat
DAY TRIP WITH MAPLE
The main village of Fatu Hiva is called Omoa and is about 3nm away from Bay of Virgins. It is a little too far to take the dinghy so we decided to take the big boat over for a day trip. We invited Maple on board and made the short 1-hour motor to Omoa.
Not sure why they consider this the “main village” as it was no bigger than Hanavave. It too had one magasin, post office, Le Mairie, church, and school. It did have a small stadium for events and a museum. We tried really hard to find someone to open the museum. We asked at the post office, magasin, and stopped several locals. We found the proprietor’s home but she was not home so no luck seeing the museum.
The village is full of lots of fruit trees. Bananas, papaya, mango, avocado, pumplemouse and more. Beautiful twin tikis stood guard at the marina.
Twin Tikis and Sugar Shack
On the way back we saw this super cool cave formation that created a giant opening. We took the dinghy to explore it closer because it was so pretty. The top photo is of Bay of Virgins with Sugar Shack super small just before the jetty opening.
Cool cave formation in Bay of Virgins
