Aremiti ferry en arrėt

Tahiti, 08/02/13 - Suite aux mauvaises conditions mėtėorologiques, il a ėtė dėcidė d'anuler toutes les rotations de l'Aremiti Ferry, uniquement pour la journėe de demain, samedi. Les rotations reprendront dimanche aux heures habituelles.

In a few words: the rainman has arrived!

Well, it's not my presence alone. During the last two months - December to January - the Society Islands received 50% more rain than usual, with South Pacific's paradise island Bora Bora experiencing rain on 43 days (compared to the average of 15 days during the same period).

Comme si, comme ça - a globetrotter should not complain about the weather. Eventually I was lucky, because arriving late night at Faa'a airport, I decided to walk into town in search for a place to stay overnight. Tahiti still isn't on-route of the backpacker stream, what consequently means there are only few places offering some kind of dormitory accommodation. After one hour walk along empty roads and barking dogs I reached the city - maybe better described as "le village", because Papeete is more like a smallish harbour settlement, with a typical south pacific laisse-moi tranquille lifestyle that rekons the word "stress" only due to the daylight invasion of cars, cars and cars.

Sweating and exhausted I opted for the last open brasserie to enjoy the harbour view and one, two cold beers. I checked with the waiter my few addresses I wrote down from internet. Two eventually still seemed operational, but no reply ... who in the south pacific would attend around midnight a ringing phone?! Now I knew - stranded for the night, overcoming somehow the next hours to catch the first ferry to Moorea.

The bar keeper suggested me to sleep on a bench nearby, where locals sell each evening crepes from mobile stands to tourists disembarking from giant cruising boats - and so I did: my first night on a bench in company of a few guys - a kind of Polynesian "clochards" - that obviously selected this place as their habitual overnight residence. But as I mentioned earlier on: I was a lucky one! Rain only caught me once on my way to my quartier, joining some street workers escaping the tropical short downfall at an arcade, before negotiating "my" bench at the bright illuminated pavillon in the park.

Early morning the signal horn of the Ocean Princess - a cruiser probably taller than any building on Tahiti - brought me back to reality: I'm sleeping on a bench. Hey, great, my backpack still remains aside. My "roommates" already disappeared somewhere through the busy morning traffic, and my brain started slowly linking up with my tired eyes. Where's a big tourist ship, there's probably also a tourist info centre ... alright, there it is ... and what a welcome: "hula-hula" and ladies with the famous blossoms in their hairs.

Within half an hour I not only succeeded to locate the probably only hostel - TEAMO - that offers dorms, but also arrange a schedule for the next 20 days ahead: taking the Terevau ferry to Moorea, and afterwards the Hawaiki Nui cargo ship on its weekly round trip to Huahine, Raiatea and finally Bora Bora. Like 20 years ago. Same ship, same route, same schedule ... that's the South Pacific not only as I knew, but as it is. Life does have its own measurement of time. And that not only because I departed in Auckland at 5 pm on Thursday, February 7, spending upon arrival a night on a park bench in Papeete, just to "re-live" the February 7 a second time.

No problem with that ... because closer to an original Cafè aux Lait you cannot get on the opposite side of the globe ; )