Uniquely Theo

Monday, September 21 was departure day from Barefoot Manta, the start of two travel days that would take us from Fiji through Tahiti to Moorea. So far, every step of the trip had gone smoothly, but little did I know that some anxiety-provoking challenges were waiting for us. Checkout from our private bures was at 10 AM. Bernadette and Tasia went snorkeling after breakfast but I opted out as I was a bit weary and still had a lingering cough from a bug that bloomed inside me on the second day of the trip. Nor did I want a bag of sopping wet swimming gear adding pounds to my luggage. We packed up our gear and left it for the staff to carry to the main bure (though up until now I have been calling it the gathering room). I paid my running “bar tab” – i.e. a tab for lots of diet cokes. Then, with our bags taken care of we developed a plan on how to spend the day without our bure to retreat to. The returning ferry would not arrive until about 3:30 PM so we had a 5 and a half hour wait.

We opted for one last cultural activity to learn about the medicinal plants. Afterwards we spend the next few hours soaking up the meticulously groomed grounds. Every bit of visible sand in the guest area seemed to be raked daily. We watched the birds and life along the rocks on the sea shore and spent time in the main bure which had internet access, and which we purposefully had limited our use of. Lunch wasn’t included on the departure day so we made sandwiches from the breakfast bar which had plenty of breads, meat and cheese to choose from.

On an isolated island like this, there’s almost no shopping for food or sundries, so you bring what you need. One nice exception: on several afternoons, local Fijian women set up under the palms to sell handmade crafts including jewelry and colorful sarongs in bold patterns inspired by traditionally Fijian designs. I couldn’t leave without a souvenir so I bought a map cloth of “the Fiji Islands” printed on mulberry bark and a cream, navy and maroon cloth in the style of the Fiji masi. Both will remind me of the days at Barefoot Manta Island Resort. Before long it was time to say vinaka and move on.

We retraced our journey from Barefoot Manta in reverse. We took the launch out to meet up with ferry and I worried that the transfer would be tricky with the chop on the water but I managed it without a hitch. The ferry ride was smooth and before we knew it we were back in Nadi. I had booked us a room at the Nadi Downtown Hotel (yes that is really its name) and this was one of those moments when I wondered what I had been thinking. None of the shuttle buses listed the hotel as a stop. I suspected that was my doing since we had been picked up at the airport on the way out the ferry company assumed we would be returning to the airport. With no bus available we hailed a taxi and arrived at the hotel at 6:30 PM. It was getting dark out.

No Credit, No Refund, No Elevator

Walking into the hotel was an experience. The desk attendant looked at us with confusion then disappeared to fetch one of the owners or manager I assumed. I did not take this as a reassuring sign. Our reservation was in order and fully paid but they wanted a cash deposit for the room key and they wanted it is Fijian currency which we didn’t have. We only had, at that point, US dollars, which set off a hubbub whether they could, and would accept our $30.00 US for the key. After what felt like a top level government negotiation they agreed.

The lobby, meanwhile, was sending mixed messages. One sign proudly announced “A Bulanaire lives here,” celebrating Fiji’s famous Bula Spirit of warmth and welcome. Another, in enormous capitals, read No credit. No refund. Bula Spirit versus the demanded cash deposit for a key?

Finally, key in hand and towels presented like a ceremonial gift, we headed for our room. It was on the third floor. There was no elevator. This was one of those old hotels that had the potential to be charming but you will need to enjoy cardio workouts during your stay if you want to stay here. Then came the climb. The staircase was a gleaming, polished-maroon monument to my poor choice, flanked by a cheerful guard of potted plants that would hopefully cheer us up on the way. Up we went. Tasia had my bag in tow along with hers with the grim determination of a sherpa. Now for the view. The website had shown a bright, sunny room with floor-to-ceiling windows, a golden headboard, and a towel swan presiding over the bed. Our room, arriving after dark, was a slightly different story: two beds, a wall-mounted AC unit, a very tiny TV screen high up in a corner, a well-worn utilitarian bathroom, and a sliding door onto a balcony that overlooked the city I assume. There was no towel swan though we had a few squares of that white tile.

Then there was the floor. Just inside the door, a vintage sheet of linoleum unrolled before us in a bold geometric pattern of diamonds and squares, a design that seemed to have last been fashionable around the time my parents were having children. I am currently 82. It had clearly been cut to fit with optimism rather than precision or had been cut to fit a different room, because it simply stopped, mid-room. Beyond that point, the big white tiles took over, perhaps a different era of renovation. Then there was a third flooring type in the wardrobe area. Walking across the room became a tour through the different eras of flooring.

We settled in with minimal unpacking since we were getting our shuttle to the airport at 5: 30 AM. Once settled in, we made the executive decision to stay put. One of the reasons I’d chosen a downtown hotel was to get a real feel for the city of Nadi, but it was late, we were tired, and the city would have to wait. In fairness, the room was clean, the beds were okay, and it was a serviceable place to land after a long day of travel. It would be a decent location if we had had the time and inclination to explore the city.

Instead, I picked up the phone and called the front desk for the Wi-Fi password, a simple request, I thought. I was told I’d have to come downstairs and collect it in person. That is right! In person! As if it were a parcel, or a dowry. I stood there, phone in hand, mentally tallying the three flights of stairs I had just negotiated and quickly concluded that I didn’t need the internet that badly. The password could keep. So I did what travelers did before the invention of the router: I picked up a book and read it, like a person from the past, in a room that was frozen there with me in it. Would I book again? NO!

Paperwork, Panic and a Very Long Driveway.

We arrived at the Nadi airport with plenty of time to spare, and thank goodness we did. Bernadette and Tasia breezed through the self-service kiosk with their passports. My passport refused to cooperate. Once we finally flagged down an agent, it took a long while to discover the problem. To reach Papeete we had to change planes in Auckland, and even though we’d never leave the airport, New Zealand requires a pass-through visa. Somewhere in the machinery, New Zealand visa services had mistakenly filed mine as an NZeTA, an electronic travel authority, which meant I was missing paperwork I never knew I needed and thus assumed I had intended a bit more of a stay than a 3 hour layover. Stress level: level 5 and climbing. After what felt like several ice ages, they admitted the mistake was theirs, fixed it, and sent us off to our Fiji Airways gate. The short 3 hour flight was uneventful, unless you count breakfast, a cold egg panini that gave “atrocious” a new meaning.

In Auckland we had a three-hour layover, with no chance of leaving the airport, so we found the international departures area and waited for our gate to be posted. When an agent finally appeared, Tasia and I got our boarding passes with no trouble. Bernadette could not. The name on her ticket didn’t match her passport, and this one was entirely my fault. This flight, on Air Tahiti Nui, was a separate reservation from the Fiji one, and I had booked her under her maiden name instead of her married one. Bernadette has been married for sixteen years. Sixteen. I had, in a single keystroke, erased a decade and a half of marriage, and the airline took the news about as well as her husband might have. Initially, nobody at the gate knew how to fix it. The answer finally was that reservations would have to change it, and they couldn’t do it from there. Tasia took the phone and was put on hold for an interminable stretch, while Bernadette called her husband and had him dig up her birth certificate and marriage certificate and send photocopies she could show the agents. At one point the call dropped after all that waiting, and Bernadette, understandably despondent, started to believe she’d be left behind in Auckland. I assured her that if she couldn’t board, none of us would. Fortunately the phone reconnection went smoothly. Then, just as our group was called to board, the name change came through. This was a ten on the stress scale. I barely remember the flight itself, which I’ll take as proof that it was uneventful, though at about five and a half hours it ran longer than I’d expected.

We landed in Papeete around 8:30 p.m hauling our bags which we had carried on the plane. We usually check bags but here we would have had to leave security to collect any checked bags during the plane and airline change. Then re-enter. Grateful yo have our bags in tow already, Tasia had officially had enough of traveling and just wanted to reach the hotel. Our hotel, the Tahiti Airport Hotel, was right across the street, and I suggested a cab. Tasia’s economy mindset kicked in and she chose to walk with the bags. “Right across the street” turned out to be a generous description. It meant across the street, up a hill, and then up a long driveway that seemed to lengthen with every step, like a treadmill designed by someone with anger problems. It was also pitch dark, and we had no real way of telling what kind of neighborhood we were trudging through. For all we knew it was a charming residential street or the opening scene of a true-crime podcast, and the darkness wasn’t offering any hints. Tasia again gallantly hauled my luggage, so I fared fine, and I’ll admit I strolled with the breezy confidence of a woman who has checked her baggage. Well, sort of. Bernadette, with her significant back problems and a heavy bag, was in real distress by the time we arrived, and I suspect she was composing a strongly worded review of “within walking distance” notation somewhere in her head for the website. The saving grace of that “economy mindset” is that it was free. The hotel, though, was lovely, the rooms were beautiful, and we settled in without any further drama. After the day we’d had, a room with no key deposit and a bed with no paperwork attached felt like a miracle.

Morning in Tahiti: Sunshine, Aquariums, and a Fresh Start

We woke to a bright blue sky and sunshine pouring through the floor-to-ceiling glass walls, which was a dramatic improvement over the previous night, when the only thing pouring down on us was our own sweat as we hauled ourselves and bags up a hill in the dark. Today was the final leg of our transition journey: the ferry to Moorea. But first, we took some time to enjoy the hotel, which, it turns out, looked completely different in daylight. In stark contrast to our dark, dank Nadi room and its grand maroon staircase, this was a sunny, shiny hotel that seemed like an apology for Nadi’s dark, dank room and its grand mahogany staircase. Last night’s mystery neighborhood had been replaced by postcard views.

Then there was the elevator. An actual elevator, with an actual button, in an actual hotel. Its walls were covered in a coral reef, complete with schools of yellow tropical fish, so riding it felt like being gently lowered into an aquarium. After the Nadi staircase, I was ready to give it a standing ovation.

Breakfast was served in a glass-walled dining area where the windows provided views of the bay beyond, and nobody had asked us for cash up front for a room key or a password in person. From there we wandered out to the balconies where the views stretched over the airport runway, the parked planes, and the sparkling water. And there, across the bay, rising dramatically out of the ocean was the mountain range on the island of Moorea. After all the stairs and snafus, it was good to see our destination was within reach. As I stood on the balcony I was almost ready to declare that the string of errors was officially broken and from here on out, everything would run like clockwork.

The hotel called us a taxi, and we were soon on our way to the ferry terminal in Papeete. Buying tickets and boarding went so smoothly that I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. We claimed a spot on the top deck of the Aremiti 5, 10:30am ferry and soaked up the breezy tropical air as Tahiti shrank behind us and Moorea grew ahead. The crossing took barely half an hour, and stepping off the boat onto the island felt magical.

Then came the question of how to reach the Hilton Moorea Lagoon Resort, which I understood to be about halfway around the island. Tasia headed to the rental car office to see if they had a car available, but no luck. That left a taxi, which turned out to be the right call. “Halfway around the island” took only about 20 minutes, because Moorea’s entire perimeter is just 37 miles. That’s one road, one loop, and no chance of getting seriously lost, though given my track record, I wouldn’t rule it out.

Words nearly failed me as we pulled up to the Hilton Moorea Lagoon Resort. I could feel myself shedding the last of my travel stress. The lagoon was so clear and impossibly turquoise and lush greenery spilled down all over the resort property. This was a place that I am sure never once asked a guest for a cash deposit for their key. That stress scale? It was a 10 in the other direction.