Just a short note and a couple pictures. We're at the hotel and we've got 30 minutes to get out of the room. We aren't leaving Papeete until 11:30 pm, so we'll have a little time to kill before going to the airport.
We spent the day on Tahiti, of course, and drove around the north side of the island. Today is Saturday and the traffic has really died down. It also didn't seem to be as heavily developed on the north side of the island as it is on the south side. And Papeete wasn't nearly as crowded today as it was the first time we ventured into town on Thursday. It's been a great trip, and we're looking forward to seeing our son Patrick and to his graduation from Arizona State University.
The scenery is beautiful here if you just look past the litter and squalid living conditions. I guess you don't think of Tahiti as being a third-world country, but it is. The people have all been very nice, and they sure are laid-back, if you know what I mean. We've enjoyed it here and it's been a nice wind-down to our trip. The next 30 hours are going to be grueling with a 6-hour flight to Honolulu, an 8-hour layover, and another 6-hour flight to Phoenix. I think Pat understands now why I hate to fly...
Anyway, here's a couple pics from today:
This is the Manava Suites Resort where we've been staying:
We went to Les Tres Cascades, about 20 miles down the north side of the island. Really pretty:
And this one last shot along the shoreline:
