Right now, we are sitting behind a computer in a very rainy and cold Sydney.
How different, the past week was! Wanna go back :)

French Polynesia is like we imagined, but then 3 times better! We started of with a day on Tahiti, French Polynesia's main island. The capital Papeete is bustling in a relaxed tropicalway, and everything oozes France: baguette for breakfast, Orangina on the menu everywhere,French cars, French fashion, and of coursethe language, mais oui, bien s^ur!
SpeakingFrench again after 3 months Spanish was really hard. But we managed!

Werented a car anddrove around the island of Tahiti. All guidebooks say that Tahiti is not that beautiful, but thatis so not true! It is absolutelygorgeous. Maybe not in apicture-perfect way of white sandy beaches and blue water, but it has mountains, tropical vegetation,many,many flowers, waterfalls,archeological sites (looks a bit like Easter Island's Ahus and moai), and small villages. We smelled the national flower: the tiare! Somethingbetweenjasmin and ylang ylang. Nice:) And of course the vanilla! I had for lunch a semi cooked tuna steak with vanilla oil and papaya! Downright heaven, I'm telling you!

Next day, we flew toone of the archipelagosof FP, the Tuamotu Islands.We first landed forafew days onTikehau and were welcomed with a tiare flowe necklace. All Ican say about Tikehau,take a look at the pictures! Blue and turquoise water, white and pink beaches, snorkling that blows you off your socks, really beautiful all those tropical fishes!We did a tourof the atoll, and visited an island(motu)packed with birds and afterwards snorkeled and had a BBQ lunch on anothermotu, with pink sand :) To top things of, Joost saw a manta ray in the pass of Tikehau. We collected some very nice shells, and no, we of course left the coral alone.In the garden of ourguesthouse were many palmtrees, and we cracked some coconuts open that just had fallen offthe tree. We felt so Robinson Crusoe......

FP glossary:
motu = small or big island
Atoll = circle of islands (motus) and coral, with a lagoonin the middle
pass = hole in the atoll coral reef, open connectionto the sea

After a few days of doing almost nothing on Tikehau, we flew to the neighbouring atoll of Rangiroa. Rangiroais world-famous for its diving and snorkeling, so we couldn't refuse! We did a tour to the Blue Lagoon, which is a lagoon within the main lagoon of Rangiroa. Wehave swum withreef sharks, which varied in size from 30 cm to3 meter. Cool, hay? We also saw some lemon sharks, which are 4 meters long. (our tourguide was feeding the sharks, but only after we had returned into the boat).Next day, wedid a snorkeling tripin the main pass ofRangiroa.Again, very impressive. We saw some 3 m black eel, lotsand lots of tropical small fishes, a Napoleon, baracudas,sharks and the most beautiful: a turtle! How elegantly itmoved through the water.

FP is also worldfamous for its black pearls. On Rangiroa we visiteda pearl farm where these pearls are cultivated. Technicians place a nucleus in theoisters, which isa kind of pearl from a sweet water oister in the Mississippi. The black pearl oister in FP coat these Mississippi pearls with theirblack materials, thuscreating a beautiful item, which can range in colour from black, to green,to blue, to rose or gold andcan have crazy shapes or perfectly round shapes.

After Rangiroa we returned to Tahiti andleft FPfrom there. We flew via Auckland, New Zealand to Sydney.

Next story will be about this great city!