Tahiti. Lava tubes walk. Do
it. Just do it. If you happen to be in Tahiti, that is. Do not, however, attempt
it on your own.
So. I crossed another thing off
my bucket list today. I hadn’t actually known beforehand that it was on my
bucket list but, well, it was so fantastic that it made it there retroactively,
so to speak. What did I do, you might ask? I climbed up through a series of
lava tubes. Sounds somewhat tedious, you might say. Then little do you know!
My guidebook recommends
having a guide to do the lava tube walk, but, well, sure that my budget is
blown though not really wanting to know by how much, I am firmly in frugal-tourist
mode so instead of booking an expensive guide-led walk I merely took the local
bus to where the map says the walk is supposed to start and figured I’d do my
best on my own.
I didn’t get off to a
lightning start as I couldn’t for the life of me find the
path, which, oddly, was a good beginning to a fantastic day as a 4WD SUV with a
couple of teenagers, uber-rich ultra-agreeable Chinese-Haitian teenagers it
turned out, plus one French guest, stopped and asked me if I knew where the
path was, and, since I said I was looking for it too, they said I should
jump in and we’d all look together, and that, for sure, was beyond lucky.
Eventually we found the start
of the path. It was down what looked like a driveway, past a locked gate with a
phone number on it that you had to call to get a pass, and then 11 km up a very
steep very rocky lane (which we drove).
I was prepared in that I had
my keens on and that I had a water bottle with me and, even, go me, my
headlamp. The boys were a little better prepared, they had towels and
waterproof cameras and a change of clothes to keep in the car, a backpack full
of baguettes, nutella, and three choices of cold meat out of which to make
sandwiches (which, of course, we all shared at some point) and, best yet, one
of them had done the hike before.
The walk went up a steep
rocky stream bed through what looked very much like a pre-historic jungle with
gigantic ferns and vines all over the place and lots of moss covering many weird
and unidentifiable plants. You really felt that dinosaurs could poke their heads
out at any moment. It involved a lot of scrambling, countless steep slippery little
cliffs with knotted ropes attached so you could get up, some swimming across deep
pools between canyon walls, a couple of waterfalls that you had to go under and
through, and, then, of course, the lava tubes themselves. Going through the
lava tubes was pretty much like the rest of the path; steep inclines were
involved, clambering over rocks, though water, up little cliffs aided by ropes,
etc, etc, except that they were these natural rough tunnels, formed when lava
was pouring out of the volcano millions of years ago, and they were dark, as in
very very dark. It was amazing. The real Tahiti.
And, as usual, I would NOT
have been able to do it on my own. The kids I was with were, apparently, happy
to have me along with them - certainly all of us spent most of the day laughing
– and if they minded having me there they hid it well. It took hours. We were
pooped, all of us, when we got to the lookout at the top and found the trail
down and by the time we’d driven back to the bottom of the access road it was
dark.
So, in summary, if you happen
to go to Tahiti, do do the lava tube walk, but not by yourself!
 |
| Since I wasn't smart enough to take my waterproof camera and the boys, rightly so, suggested I leave my real one in the vehicle, the only photo I have is the four of us after we have returned, happy and tired, back to the trailhead. |
PS I cannot emphasize how
wonderful the hike was, nor how much fun I had with the teens, and I don’t know
what it says about my personality that I can engage so successfully with such
totally random companions for an isolated day but just cannot manage to manage
long term relationships, or even medium term ones. I am reminded of a friend who refuses to read short
stories because she doesn’t want to become emotionally involved with characters
that will be gone from her life after so little time – I am sure she would not
want to travel as I am. I get back to the hostel and have a new roommate,
another crew, a 27 year old who has been crewing continuously for many years on
a series of different sailboats. She jumped ship here, today, after 4 months
being a paid nanny on a boat, has already started looking for another to join,
and she talks about how crew are always in temporary relationships that don’t
lead anywhere…
I am more and more sure that
I don’t want to live my life on my own, taking the bus to the bottom of the
trail and just being lucky in meeting such awesome companions for the day, more
and more sure that I don’t want, even, to crew forever, sliding in and out of
working relationships with people who will, eventually, pass by like ships in
the night. I think of Sven telling me, before our relationship started to slide
of course, that he was not happy, and I realize that money, though it might
help, is obviously not all of the answer. I had wanted to have a clear plan by
my 50th birthday, an idea at any rate for how to spend the next 25
years, and, though I do not yet have one, I am more and more sure that,
although I might well end up spending them alone, it would not be my first
choice.
