The Tiki Trail

Our first impression of The Marquesas has been quite good. The town of Atuona is neat and tidy and the people are friendly. The checking in process was quite efficient and the wifi seems to be ok even though we have to go to the post office to get a good connection.

The most fantastic thing so far has been the wonderful French baguettes. They do know how to make bread here. We went a little wild the first day and bought three baguettes. It was irresistible, fresh out of the oven. So you can imagine with only two of us on the boat, we have had bread with ham, cheese and tomatoes for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The island is quite lush and green with jagged peaks the tallest of which is 1,276 meters. There are plenty of fruit trees; breadfruit, pamplemousse, mango, banana, lemon and even hot peppers growing wild and lots of wild flowers.

Today we went on an excursion around the island. We visited several small communities, some where as few as two families would be living and some ancient sites to see the tikis, traveling along the coast passing through the picturesque bays of the northern shores. Hiva Oa is home to the largest tiki in French Polynesia. A tiki is a human-like sacred sculpture carved of wood or stone representing an important person from the community such as a queen, chief or medicine man. They were carved after they died and placed in a religious ceremonial area. The body of the person was mummified, wrapped in tapa cloth (a cloth made from the bark of a tree) and put in a small wooden canoe which was then hidden in a cove. They believed the tiki would keep the spirit of the person in the community, protecting them. The smiling Tiki you see in the picture below is 800 years old. But she still looks good for her age, don't you think? And the one next to Jens is the largest of them and is named after the warrior chief Takai.

The main source of income on the island is from copra. Copra is dried coconut which is rich in vegetable fat and is crushed and pressed and the oil refined for food and cosmetics. Ships come by to collect the dried coconuts and bring them to Papeete for processing. We came across several copra drying sheds along the way. It seems a long, slow process, but then the pace of life on the island is quite slow and calm.