Tahiti "17:35.05S 149:37.12W"
VulcanSpirit
Richard & Alison Brunstrom
Mon 16 Jul 2012 07:53
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Notification of our safe arrival in Tahiti has been
delayed due to a computer malfunction. Five hours work @ US$45 per hour and all
is again well (that's cheap compared to the US, unlike absolutely everything
else in Tahiti).
Anyway, we're safely moored in the lagoon - Tahiti
is a mountainous volcanic island like the Marquesas, but with a fringing coral
reef enclosing a lagoon.
I don't like Tahiti at all. It is filthy dirty,
covered in graffiti and litter, there are
mangy ill-looking dogs everywhere and the traffic is dreadful. The main town,
Papeete, is quite rundown with a lot of 1970s concrete architecture which has
not fared well in the tropical climate. Perhaps half the businesses are closed,
hit by the 30% decline in tourists. There are no nice beaches, and those
few that do exist are of unpleasant black volcanic sand. Food is incredibly
expensive, and nearly all of it imported because the Tahitians have closed
down their agricultural sector almost entirely. It seems they'd rather pay more
for imported food than work the land themselves - OK, but it means they have to
spend a high proportion of their available money on food which keeps them
poorer. And there are a lot of them now; when Tahiti was 'discovered' in the
1760s there were about 35 000 islanders. There are now about 250 000. It
must be one of the least sustainable communities on earth - and they do no
recycling, so everything is going into landfill. This is not the exotic and
romantic tropical idyll of my imagination and from the looks of it, it has not
been one for very many years.
All-in-all sadly not a place to which I'd
recommend anyone to come on holiday.
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