A Long and Fruitless Walk to Atuona
Well, we walked, and we walked, and we walked. After an hour of walking, we were finally back adjacent to the boat but on the town side instead of the dinghy dock side. So we continued to walk and walk and walk. We passed a restaurant that looked completely abandoned. We ran into a street sign that said Atuona with a diagonal line through it, and in France, that means the end of Atuona. So we turned right expecting the town to be up the hill at this street sign. After slogging up a steep hill in the blazing midday heat, two guys in a truck stopped and looked at us quite puzzled. It became clear that we were totally going the wrong direction. With some gesticulating and broken French, we went back down to the main road, ignored the crossed out Atuona sign, and continued on.
And still, we walked, and we walked, and we walked. Finally, we started to see the signs of civilization. We stopped in the Snack Make Make which is the lunch café in town. Unfortunately, we still lacked French Polynesian Francs, but at least Hiva Oa has a bank. I grabbed a table while Andy set off to buy some local currency. I asked for a menu when the Chinese proprietor informed me that they were already closed for the day. Denied a proper lunch, we continued on and found the tourist office, which was closed. Denied tourist information, we continued through town looking for an open grocery store to get a snack.
After finding a store and buying some prepared egg rolls and a couple of ice cream bars, we set off to find the Gendarmerie since we had yet to officially check in to French Polynesia. Of course, the Gendarmerie was already closed for the entire weekend. Having struck out yet again, we sat down to rest on the bench outside the office to consult the guide books and make a plan. And then we got kicked off the bench by the cops locking up the office and courtyard. Wow. Not exactly what you’d call a productive day. In several sources, we read that Atuona and Taiohae in Nuku Hiva have a competitive rivalry in administrative and governmental importance. In our view, Atuona is losing the rivalry, and we haven’t even been to Taiohae yet.
By this time, it was late afternoon, so we decided to just call it a day and go back to the boat. As we passed the Pension Moehau, we noticed some signs of life so we went in to check it out. As it turns out, Moehau has a happening pizza restaurant and we haven’t had pizza in quite some time … one night in the Galapagos, and before that, maybe January in Los Angeles. The restaurant didn’t start to serve dinner for ninety minutes, so we sat on the porch and enjoyed the lovely view and ordered our very first round of Hinanos … THE beer of French Polynesia. We ate dinner, ordered two more pizzas to go, and the lovely owners insisted on giving us a ride back to the dock … a nice ending to quite the frustrating day.