After lunch, the kids and I loaded up and headed to find the waterfall for good. Many of the boats were going up at 1:00pm. We left at 12:30pm since we have many small people and the 3-year-old really wanted to come rather than stay at the boat and nap. Weird. The hiking is good as long as she does it; I'm not carrying her. So Courage and the baby stayed at the boat for naptime and the other 5 kids and I headed out with snacks, water, and swim gear. A lady walked with us part way and I was practicing my French with her. She has 6 kids, mostly grown. Intrepid was wheezing and she said honey was good for that. She has honeybees and fruit trees. She would like to have rope for a horse harness and sheets for a bed. I told her I'd look and maybe we'll be back tomorrow. She lives in the last house in town, one of the landmarks in the directions. We said goodbye and followed the directions again. This time knowing we had to go up the hairpin turn and steep hill, then look for our turn off. We found it easily. It was a long hike for sure! It was really nice along the dirt road. There was a house, you cross a stream; you enter a jungle, then into the trees. Finally, you pop out at a waterfall. It's not a lot of water, but it does fall far down a rock cliff. There's a large pool under it that is surrounded by rock walls on 3 sides. The setting is what made it so nice.
The "naked French people" were there when we arrived. We have a joke that the French people are always naked, it's not a guarantee, but it is based on some reality. Now we are not talking about the French Polynesians, but the mainland Frenchmen. They were from another catamaran in the anchorage. We were getting ready to jump in and the rest of the cruisers arrived, even 7 kids!! It was a swim party!! It was very refreshing after a pretty warm hike. There was a cliff and needless to say, Integrity saw a couple people jump in, then up he went. He took a few jumps off the cliff. He's crazy. After swimming, talking, snacking, we headed out for a nice walk back down.
Along the way back down, two of the women were picking peppers from bushes growing next to the waterfall. Only boat people would provision while out on a hike. Impressive. When we got to town, our new friend at the last house in town met us and gave Intrepid a cup with some honey in it to drink for his asthma. His was great with this plan! I think he's ready to replace inhalers with cups of honey!
We continued along and a little girl, maybe 6 or 7, chased us down, yelling "attend" which mean wait. When we turned, she flashed us a plastic shopping bag. Not sure what it was and confused by a stranger chasing us down, we stood looking at her. Her mother told her to come show us, so she came and showed us a baguette, classic French bread. I told the girl that I don't have anything to trade right now, but we're coming back in two hours. She didn't understand me, so we walked back and told her mom. For some reason her mom was sure that we should have it, and then picked some egg shaped green fruit and put them in the bag. I told her I have nothing for change and she said no problem. I asked if she wanted something, what would it be. Guess what? Perfume. Not having that, she said lipstick. That I do have. I told her I'd come back in a couple hours, but she said she'd be at church, so maybe tomorrow. She wasn't worried.
We needed to get back as we'd arranged for a local woman to prepare us dinner at her house that evening. So we went back to the boat to get ready. Two families were going this dinner. She made rice, shredded coconut with salad dressing, fish (ceviche form), chicken chunks in coconut sauce, and octopus. Very similar to the first dinner that Cassidy and I went to. It was lovely. I don't think I'll be craving this food. The chicken chunks were mostly bones with shreds of chicken you could find on them. The fish was incredibly chewy, very hard to chew down to something you could swallow. The octopus was cooked well I guess. I tried it once in the Galapagos and now here. Similar. It's just rubbery and I don't really see myself looking forward to eating something like this. I like octopuses and don't find them that tasty, so I don't see it as a meal unless I'm starving. We had "pamplemousse" for dessert - huge grapefruit!!
Much more interesting to me than the food was the house and family in it. The woman who invited us has 6 children. Two of them live there with her still; the others are grown and gone. Her daughter has a 6-year-old daughter there also. The 6-year-old was gorgeous!! She had long thick black hair, smooth tan skin, just beautiful. She has asthma, they heard Intrepid's asthma and wanted to cure him. They wanted to give him amoxicillin because the girl has asthma and she was given this medication for it somehow. I don't know, I thanked them, but declined. They dressed the girl in "tapas" the bark from a tree that's pounded into cloth and made into native outfits. They also put Innocence in it. It was cute! They wanted to sell it to us, but it would just mold and be destroyed on a boat. We paid them for dinner in French Polynesian francs that we'd bought in Panama from a boat that had just returned. The other family has just arrived and didn't have any. They tried to go to the post office and exchange, but it's very informal and apparently rarely open. So we aren't sure they can exchange monies. I told them it was no problem, we really don't need money here, we sold them some of ours. We had enough to pay for the meals, but the woman didn't have change for the bills I had. We owed her roughly $7. The change she needed to give us would have been about $63, so we couldn't just let it go. Instead, this other family had brought wine to exchange since they didn't have money. So, they offered her a bottle of wine instead and she was fine with it. They also worked a provisioning deal where they got a bunch of grapefruit and bananas in exchange for rum. The son brought the fruit to the dock area in a wheelbarrow. So, they are all set until they get to an island with an ATM also! We also gave them some of our eggs since we have too many from the Galapagos and they will probably rot onboard. May as well share with someone who will use them.
I'm very happy with our provisioning before we left. I've heard many people wishing they'd picked up this or that, had more to drink or trade, had more of this food item or that, etc. I love that we need nothing. We enjoyed trading our dollar store items for fresh fruits/veggies. Fresh things are really the only thing we want/need. We can use money for local arts and meals. The meals were a little expensive, but it's a nice way to see the local foods, meet the people, and help them out. They are after all putting out an effort to make money, not just begging, and so it's really a good deal for everyone. But we don't have want for anything. I am pleased to have brought some cheap, but valued items for trade. I have some wine and alcohol I bought the day we left Panama after hearing how expensive it is out here, so I figured it would go up in value! Better return than investing in gold. I am happy with our food supplies, they last nicely each month, we run out of many things, but we aren't scraping the bottom of the barrel. We are slightly overstocked on pancake mix and syrup, so maybe I can trade it for fresh fruits/veggies. It has a long shelf life, so it'll be fine to keep until we need it. We have probably 20# of trade items, not totally weighed down with it, but it's enough for probably all the fresh fruits we'll be wanting until Tahiti. I don't think we can get away with trading in Tahiti. We also understand that this "pamplemousse" (French grapefruit) is easy to get in the Marquesas, but valuable in the Tuamotus, so we'll probably stock up before we leave here. I like that we are comfortable and can travel and trade wherever we'd like to, whenever we want to, without needing money or stores.
Shannon
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