A visit to the city. A beautiful day. A little history.

Today the weather was absolutely perfect.

 

I decided to go into town today, not only to save so money on wine and do some shopping, but to check out the big city on Bora Bora. Vaitape is a city of around 5000 and was bustling this morning.

While they boast a "mall" and "shopping center", the main street consisted mostly of pearl shops. Black pearls are big business here and I have to tell you, I haven't seen a lot of shoppers in any of them. Partially, I believe, due to the price. While beautiful, they are black and rainbow and hundreds of colors in between, they are extraordinarily expensive, but they don't seem all that rare.

Downtown Viatape,.

Not much in the way of sights in Vaitape, other than the spectacular mountain that lies behind it.
Mount Otemanu is the highest point in Bora Bora at 2385 and looms over the city.

One of the two Catholic churches in Vaitape with Mt. Otemanu in the background.

Like anywhere, there are nice house and not so nice houses. This one in downtown Viatape struck me because of the beautiful and abundant gardens.

A view from the port of the ship "Paul Gauguin" which my Canadian snorkeling party was on.

Though he's know for his "Polynesian" paintings and living in Tahiti, he had a bit of a checkered past here, wedding a 14 and half year old girl who had two children by him (one of which survived) and still has a lineage in the islands. He passed away in the Marquesas Islands, where he is buried.

Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?  Sold for 200+ million in 2014.

One of the omnipresent roadside fruit tables that you see on all the islands. The bottles are of homemade mango liquor.

The last thing I wanted to show you and I apologize that it's not a great picture. Is of the road that leads up to a gun emplacement that the Americans built during WWII. I didn't get a picture of the actual bunker but the point was that the only road around Bora Bora was built by the American Army and it's still the only major road.

I first noticed it cause it pretty much ran straight up the hill. As we pulled away from the dock, I noticed that he went up to the gun emplacement.

A view of the resort from the island.

Super Moon.

Taoto maita'i from Bora Bora.