Jan 2 - 3 - Travel & Papeete, Tahiti

Our first day in Tahiti was hot, sunny and eye-appealing!  Once we retrieved our luggage after passing through immigration we took a cab for the 4 mile ride to our hotel and checked in. Our room faces the cruise ship port, so we'll see all the ships arriving and enjoy watching the water smaller boats.  The first thing we did after getting comfortable was to crash for 4 hours - talk about falling asleep quickly!

Receptionist at our hotel - what a lovely greeting!

Around 11-ish we headed out to explore with our first stop being the famous Papeete market. Since we knew it would be closing around noon we made it a priority to get there.  It's a colorful and fun place where one can purchase everything from beautiful locally grown fruits and veggies to fresh-cut fish to hand made items of all kinds,  pearls, wooden and woven handicrafts -- the list goes on! 

The market provides a riot of color and choices

We poked around a bit before heading to the second floor for lunch.   I had salmon and hericot verts, and Denny had a $24 burger!  We also tried a small local beer.  Although we didn't purchase anything at the actual market, it was fun to see it.

We spent the next two hours wandering the streets (in the heat - whew!), window shopping, following Denny's map,  enjoying a very cool park that is obviously a place locals go for cool breezes and an afternoon nap.  We visited a pearl museum and drooled over some pearls -- well, I did,  Denny humored me then headed back to our room to rest and cool down.

Beautiful and cooling park -- three people are sleeping on the picnic bench to the right

Lazy stream through Bougainville Park

Tonight we met up with another couple (who are from Florida, too) and walked over to the docks for dinner from the food trucks. A tradition here is for a number of food trucks to set up at the dock nightly.   Each has its own type of food, and it's all supposed to be very good.   Of course they also set up tables, so people have a place to sit.  We wandered through the rows of trucks and finally selected Asian food (there were several to choose from) instead of BBQ meat, crepes, burgers and almost anything else you could imagine.  It was quite like a big fair with children playing and adults eating and enjoying the night.

Food trucks setting up

Seating area at one food truck

Tomorrow morning we'll be having lunch on our cruise ship them going on a 4-hour island tour before dinner.  I can hardly wait to see our room!