TAHITI
10 miles
Kids surfing small waves at the river mouth near the vilage of Teahupo’o
PAPE’ETE
Mount Orohena
Tahiti Nui Tahiti Iti Teahupo’o
FENUA AIHERE Vaipoiri River
TE PARI FRENCH POLYNESIA Tahiti
SOUTH PACIFIC OCEAN
GETTING THERE & AROUND Air France runs daily flights from Heathrow, travelling via Los Angeles.
airfrance.co.uk Average flight time: 25h United Airlines has flights from Heathrow via San Francisco while Air Tahiti Nui and French Bee have cheaper two-stop flights via Paris and the US.
united.com
frenchbee.com
airtahitinui.com You’ll want to rent a car to explore
Tahiti. Buses run infrequently, but offer a local experience.
hertz.com
teretahiti.pf
poisson cru — a slightly sweet salad, creamy from coconut milk, tangy from lime and featuring raw tuna that’s as tender as butter. As we eat, Cindy explains that Tahitians traditionally bathed in rivers like this one using local red ginger fl owers as shampoo, and many still do today. After lunch, Cindy and her assistant scour
the clearing for snow-white gardenias, a gently sweet bloom that’s added to a range of other ingredients — fragrant wild basil, shredded coconut, and hot pink petals from the red ginger fl owers — from which I’m tasked with picking my own blend to make a body scrub, piling everything into a hollowed-out coconut shell. We are then instructed to carry our organic mixture to the riverbank and add a small dollop of black sand, before mashing it together with a little coconut oil. Sitting in the shallow river, I lather my legs, arms and chest in the rough mixture until I feel like a newborn baby, with smooth, glowing skin. But all of this is just preparation for the
main event: a traditional Tahitian massage, characterised by strong hand pressure. Cindy uses gardenia-scented coconut oil as she pummels me underneath a canopy of coconut palms that fl utter in a light breeze, waves lapping on the shore beside me as fruit doves and bulbuls call to each other in the trees. With the scent of the tropics on my skin,
I fi nd myself at another black-sand river later that day after Cindy drops me back in Teahupo’o. About 10 kids are surfi ng the gentle
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waves at the river mouth, close to a handful of simple, pastel-coloured plywood houses with corrugated metal roofs that mark the boundary between Teahupo’o and the Fenua Aihere. It’s here that I meet Brandon Parker, guarding a fl eet of bright orange kayaks for hire in front of his house. With views of the beach break peeping from between coconut palms, beach almond and sea grape trees, I’m struck by an irresistible urge to get out on the ocean. And I’m by no means the fi rst. “We had so
many people stop to ask us where they could rent a boat, we decided to do it ourselves,” he says, laughing as he digs around to fi nd me a paddle. Since it was announced that France would host the Olympic surfi ng competitions in Teahupo’o, Brandon says more travellers have been detouring off Tahiti’s main road to visit the village and catch a glimpse of the infamous waves that put it on the map. I push my kayak out from the black sand
beach over a little wave. After a dozen paddle strokes, I’m rewarded with views of the same mountains I saw from the surfi ng break earlier that day. Children’s laughter and the swooshing sound of waves hitting the beach fi ll my ears as the fading light bathes the landscape yellow. Yet another rainbow illuminates the sky, this time closer and brighter. A mist in the air tells me it might rain soon. Surf may be the big draw in Teahupo’o, but it’s the soul-cleansing natural beauty of the Fenua Aihere that makes it feel like a land apart. If the villagers have their say, it will stay that way.
WHEN TO GO Teahupo’o has its own micro-climate, with the calmest winds and daytime highs of 30C from December to April. June to October is big wave season, with lots of rain. In this period, daytime temperatures can drop to 20C.
WHERE TO STAY Vanira Lodge, Teahupo’o. From €136 (£120), room only.
vaniralodge.com Pension Reva, Fenua Aihere. From €141 (£125), room only.
pensionrevateahupoo.com
MORE INFO
tahititourisme.uk facebook.com/heeuriexplorer
tahitisurfari.com Lonely Planet Tahiti & French Polynesia. £16.99 Breadfruit, Célestine Hitiura Vaite. £20.51
HOW TO DO IT A 14-day tailormade trip with Audley Travel costs from £9,900 per person, based on two travelling, with three nights in Tahiti, three nights in Moorea and four nights in Bora Bora. The price includes all flights, ferry travel, B&B accommodation and transfers.
audleytravel.com
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ILLUSTRATION: JOHN PLUMER
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