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Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas
We walked to a very interesting museum and art gallery in Taiohae village, run by an American lady, Rose Corser, who arrived as a cruiser and settled on the island. The museum has many ancient Polynesian artifacts and gives a history of the island culture, including cannibalism.
We rented a car on Thursday and toured Nuku Hiva. It turned out to be a 4 wheel drive pick up truck, which was just as well since most of the roads on the island are more like dirt tracks. Narrow, winding, subsiding and hugging cliffs faces with steep drops. You really don't want to meet anyone coming the other way. Not my favorite terrain but the views are magnificent, each side of the island has different types of scenery. The west is barren, known as Terre deserte. There are jagged pinnacles along the northern coast, with deeply indented bays resembling fiords. Vegetation ranges from tropical rain forest, banana and coconut trees to pine forests. William drove and throughly enjoyed it, he likes challenging roads. We visited Kamuihei, a huge site, with numerous tikis and totem poles, where Polynesian culture and rituals were enacted in ancient times.
There was an excellent display of traditional Polynesian dancing by a group of young men, the local basketball team, on Saturday night. We are leaving today, Sunday for Ahe in the Tuamotu islands.
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