Tahiti Encore

Well it's back to Tahiti for a few nights before we head home. All US-bound flights leave from the Faa'a Airport here, usually late at night. We had already stayed on the west coast near Puna'auia, so this time we decided to stay on the north coast near Arue. We are at a condo that is part of the Le Tahiti by Pearl resort. The property is on Lafayette beach, which has a wide stretch of black sand. It's really soft to walk on, but can get pretty hot in full sun. Shoes are a must!

Our rental condo had a very interesting layout. We could tell that in a past life it had been a hotel room and had later been converted to a condo. There were lots of clues indicating this but the main one was that the kitchen was literally installed on the balcony. As it turned out, we didn't really use the kitchen to cook anything. Instead we got takeout from a famous Chinese-Tahitian fusion restaurant called Le Dahlia so we could try the ma'a tinito -- an interesting mix of red beans, macaroni pasta, vegetables, and twice-cooked pork. It sounds weird but it was delicious, as was the pork with coconut sauce we ordered to go with it. So we mainly ended up using the balcony kitchen for breakfasts (and drinks at sunset) overlooking the resort pool.

From Lafayette beach just behind the resort, we could see Mo'orea on the horizon, and the sunsets were magnificent!

Since the Airbnb checkout was at 10am and our flight wasn't until 9pm we got day passes to the Intercontinental hotel for our final day on the island. We were able to score awesome loungers by the lagoon. We struck up a conversation with a lady at the next lounger. She asked if we were on the 9pm flight and we said yes. "Well that means I'm your pilot," she announced. She mentioned that she had big plans for the afternoon -- a jetski tour, snorkeling, and the flight crew went kayaking. Considering that our plans for our last day just included lounging and reading by the lagoon, that sounded exhausting! We wondered if she would be able to stay awake for the entire 8 hour overnight flight after that itinerary. We did run into her again that night at the airport buying an enormous coffee, and we got home safely, so I guess it worked out just fine!

We had just enough time to catch the beginning of the sunset before heading off to the airport to catch our flight home. Māuruuru (thank you) Tahiti, for a truly memorable vacation!