Unfortunately
my captain's mother passed away so he had to fly home and leave me
'Home Alone' on the boat for a month.....in Tahiti. Right the middle of
Polynesia's only city; Papeete.
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| What to do?? |
First up Mount Auori 2022m which I set about researching a possible route for. I'm potentially a bit of a purist (or a twat) but in order to properly enjoy summiting a mountain one must be accompanied by a large scale topographical map. Like the good old Ordnance Survey series I miss so much from back in the UK.
Tourist information office,
useless. Outdoor store, non-existent. Internet - nothing so I thought
I'd go and try the head office of the Tahitian police force. It's a
relaxed culture here, maybe they have a control room or something with a
big map on the wall that I could photograph?
Que Tahitian
police station - willing to waste all manor of public time on some
tourist who has wondered in asking for a map. First guy, second guy, a
small conference and then finally I'm ushered into an office where in
the adjacent room there is the deafening clatter of what sounds like
basketball? The Polynesian cop digests my request (third regurgitation)
then in what can only be described as a gross waste of public money she
calls about five different people and talks a lot in her adopted French
tongue. She's even got the phone book out. During this time there is a
knock at the door (seriously) it's a sweating cop with a basketball
under his arm.
After a good ten minutes of twiddling my
thumbs and giving her little 'keep up the good work' smiles she opens
back up in English with;
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| A Polynesian version |
"there are two American
journalists making a map at the moment but they are back in the states".
I'm starting to cringe. She gets back on the phone, gets their number
and starts making the international call, only to find out that the map
isn't finished yet? Incredible.
Doesn't she have anything else better to do?
Maybe she doesn't like basketball?
The
door goes again and in the middle of this surreal caricature of
socialist job creation, in comes another cop this time carrying a brand
new coffee machine complete with purchase order still stapled to the
box!
Caricature complete.
Actually not quite, remember that these cops are Polynesian, descended from peoples who populated the Pacific in their canoes.
The whole thing ends with an apology from the lady who completely changes tack, hunches over the desk towards me and says;
"We are Polynesian, as a police force we do not actually use maps"
And
she's said it in a way that was trying not to be condescending towards
the fact that we westerners somehow feel we need them. Priceless.
And
if all of that wasn't the most crazy thing that's happened to me in
months she then closed with the offer of going to another government
office where I would be welcome to review their large size photo
collection of the mountains on the island. Trying not to be too
culturally naive I could only guess that was for the purpose of
remembering some landmarks? Still in shock from the culture car crash I
declined and left giving her my warmest hand shake and words of
gratitude.
The
climb: the reality was actually that a topographical map would have
been useless due to the clear signage and well maintained path that led
directly to the summit. Doh! But I was spotting a theme developing when I
heard that it was the army that maintained the path.
I wondered if they play basketball too?
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| Lost only for words |
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