Polynesian Adventure - The End

March 23, Saturday - Cloudy with scattered rain today here in Portland, as I write this last blog post.

Flashing back to March 21, Thursday, Day 22, the last day of our Polynesian Adventure.  Weather was sunny and hot (i.e., the usual).

EP, ET and PT drove into Papeete to do a suggested walking tour of the city.  The others remained at the hotel, enjoying the pool.  Because of some earlier problems with the A/C in SS, BS, CP and LS's room, the resort provided a room for the day - (or extended our checkout time until late afternoon).  Thanks to SS and BS for putting up with the faulty A/C and for getting this last day perk.

Our drive to Papeete was easy but finding a place to park was more challenging.  After a little driving around near the walk's starting point, I pulled into the first available parking garage.  It seemed as if it might work like garages we have here (i.e., take a ticket, park the car, go out, come back and scan the ticket to determine the fee and then pay with a credit card).  Well, it didn't work quite like that - more later.

The walk was interesting and we saw a variety of things.  We covered about 3.6 miles.

An example of building wall art.

Ditto.

One of several churches.

City Hall, note the lack of barriers, etc.

Just of the quayside at the marina.  What we surmise is a structure for growing coral.  There were several of these underwater racks.

A monument to the first Polynesians.

A memorial to U.S. atomic bomb testing in Polynesia.

A great and rather large carving.

Papeete waterfront with ferry to Moorea

Container ship.

Nice totem.

An unusual amount of activity for local dogs - chewing on the same stick.

The Presidential House and some other Government buildings, from the street.

Portico to the President's Quarters, and inside courtyard.

The Legislature Building - closed to the public this day, but otherwise open to the public.

Commemorative wall.

We walked back to the garage, where after scanning our ticket we found that we owed 400 XPF (Polynesian Francs).  But, the machine only took coins (no bigger than 500 XPF), no bills and certainly no credit cards.  I went to a food truck (the only nearby place) to get change for the one local currency bill I had - a 10,000 XPF bill.  I returned to the food truck a second time to get coins for one of the 1,000 XPF bills I had initially obtained.  By this time, we now owed 500 XPF for the parking fee.  I had four 100 XPF coins, one 50 XPF, and several smaller coins (20 and 10 XPFs).  But wait, the machine did not take coins smaller than 50 XPF.  Luckily, ET had a 100 XPF coin, so we successfully paid and got a receipt that would allow us to exit the garage, the next trial.  We had to drive up a narrow, tightly winding ramp, twice, (i.e. up two floors) in order to then exit down a steep, but straight ramp.  Fortunately, we made it out of the garage, and back to the resort with no scratches on the van.  

We found the others in the new "day use" room, and killed time -- EP and PT went to the pool, then showered; others read; LS napped.  We also ate most of our leftover groceries and take-away foods from previous dinners.

By 3:00 pm we had checked out of the resort, loaded the van and were off to the airport.  It was an easy drive back since we knew where we were going.  The van return was quick.  We checked in, turned over our luggage to the airlines, passed through passport control and security (my entire carry-on pack was unpacked and visually searched) and retreated to the business class lounge.  There, we enjoyed drinks, snacks and the A/C before boarding the plane.  There was a mechanical issue with the cabin intercom, which required repair and paperwork (the flight attendant told me that a mistake was made on the first bit of paperwork which had to be redone a second time; she also said everything had to go back to Atlanta for approval, etc.).  About 2 hours later than scheduled we took off.  

We landed in LA only about an hour later than the scheduled time, but we all had loads of layover time.  We had to reclaim luggage, pass through customs, re-check the luggage, walk to a different terminal, go through security again, and finally go to the lounge.  SS, BS, and LS left first for SFO, CA after spending 2 hours in the lounge; CP left shortly after that bound for Boston, MA;  EP, ET, and PT's flight to Portland was delayed over an hour (late arrival of inbound plane), so we three had extra time in the lounge.  Our two-hour flight home was uneventful, and we walked into our house around 6 pm, the next day (March 22).

Everything here was fine, Sophie (our cat) was happy to see us, and we had a quick dinner and crashed.  Everyone else in our group made it home and all is well.  Our adventure has ended.  

Thanks to everyone who has followed along on our adventure and I hope you found the photos and the accompanying text of some interest.  Many thanks go to EP for her editing and additional color commentary.  She has gone to bed so all typos in this last post are mine alone.

Bye until next time.....