May 25, 2007 We want to begin with a correction to a previous blog post. The statues in the park along the water were carved in 1989 for a festival celebrating the Marquesan culture. We guess the park already existed and they permanently put the statues at the park location. The 2000 year old statues are mentioned below.

On Friday, we got up early and went into shore. We went back to the gas station to take care of the fuel tax exemption paperwork and pay. Then we took a guided tour of Nuka Hiva in a 4×4 with a local tour guide, Dean Richard that speaks excellent English.

They only began putting roads on the islands in 1981. Parts of the island are still only accessible by boat. The roads that exist are mostly dirt. They are actively working on making new roads and paving the existing ones. We have seen work crews doing both. We were glad to be chauffeured because we would have not been too comfortable driving those steep, muddy mountain roads.

Dean was a wealth of knowledge. He told us about each of the towns we passed through and what they primarily did for a living. Taiohae (where we are anchored) is the administrative capital of all the Marquesan Islands and is by far the biggest city in the group. The other towns on Nuka Hiva were so itty bitty that you were afraid to blink because you might miss them.

Dean gave us lots of interesting tidbits of information about the culture and life on the island. He took us to a couple archeological sites, where he pointed out what the various ruins were used for and told us more about the ancient culture. He pointed out all the local plants and birds to us. They have a jillion fruit trees and seem to grow just about everything. He took us to scenic viewpoints along the way. We didn’t go around the whole island, but we covered quite a bit and got a good feel for the scenery, culture and lifestyle of the various parts of the island. Nuka Hiva is truly beautiful. It is one of the few unspoiled places left in the world.

Here are some pictures we took.

Controller bay is behind us. One of the two Survivor TV show teams was camped here. Our guide was hired by survivor to scout out locations for the camps and all the activities:

Small town in the valley. Primary source of income here is coconut farming:

Water fall view form the side of the road:

Another shot of scenery from the side of the road notice the waterfall in the background:

Christi is standing on a foundation, probably for several buildings, in an ancient village. We believe these particular tikis (carved statues) are replicas, but there are several tikis in the archealogical area that are ancient. The ancient ones have worn over time, so they didn’t photograph too well:

Eric is standing in the common area in the middle of the buildings:

This enormous Banyan tree was the sacrifice center. Prisoners were tied up and thrown into a hole at the base of the tree, then sacrificed at one of two alters next to the tree. Their skulls were hung on the tree as trophies. Apparently, when the missionaries arrived, the tree was full of skulls. I guess the missionaries didn’t like the choice of décor, and insisted that the villagers take the skulls down.

We captured a lot more pictures and video, but our tiny bandwidth connection here cannot quite handle much more than we have posted. It will be nice to get some more bandwidth. Maybe in Tahiti.

We got back from our tour about 13:00. Shortly after, some new friends stopped by. Then some more friends stopped by and we had something of an impromptu party going on. Everyone left about sunset and we called it an early night.