Last Post for Bora Bora!

It’s hard to believe that today was our last day. We had a wonderful time. One thing that struck us is how many French tourists there were…even more than the number of American tourists. It’s so much farther to France than the US. I guess there’s a reason it’s called French Polynesia. The hotel desk workers spoke English with and accent, but most the other hotels workers spoke very little English. Whenever we passed a hotel attendant, we were greeted with “La Orana” which is the local Tahitian greeting.

We will miss the breakfasts that included fresh mango, papaya, banana and pineapple. Even though the breakfasts were part of our meal plan, we were given a receipt to sign each day. The breakfast would have been $45 each per day if we were paying for it. We had heard that things were expensive, so we packed some food to take with us. A Kit Kat candy bar was $4.00 USD in the store and $9.00 USD in our minibar.
The money was so colorful and it such large denominations that I felt rich until I had to pay 1,100F for a jar of vanilla paste.
We’ll also miss the fresh flowers in our room. Each morning, while we were at breakfast, our room would be cleaned and they would leave fresh flowers on the bed, in the living room and in the bathroom.
We are so excited that we were able to go to Bora Bora as it is somewhere that both of us have always wanted experience. The blue waters of the lagoon were beautiful…even when it was cloudy. This photograph was taken from our bungalow deck looking toward the shore. It was about a quarter mile to walk on board walks from the beach to our guest bungalow.
The main items that were for purchase were pareos (wrapped dresses), vanilla and black pearls.  Other available pearls included dark blues, greens and pinks. Here are some that were for sale in the resort gift shop, some as much as $65,000 USD.Here we are, dressed in warmer clothes as we’re getting ready to walk down the dock one last time before taking the water taxi to the airport. About five minutes later, it started raining and I was able to wear my stylish rain poncho (compliments of the hotel!) one last time. A couple days after we left, Cyclone Oli went through the area with 90 mph winds and gusts up to 120 mph. Even though we had some rain (a tropical storm passed through one night), we were blessed to have our wedding and honeymoon during a window of nice weather after the torrential rains of SoCal and before Cyclone Oli in French Polynesia. The day after we left guests in the overwater bungalows had to be evacuated and moved to secure rooms, churches and schools. Our prayers are with the members of the little church we attended and hope that none of them suffered any damage or loss.