Of course we couldn’t visit French Polynesia without spending some time at least in Tahiti itself – the main island of the archipelago. We spent two nights in Papeete and took a rental car for a day to explore the island. At first we headed East to a couple of viewpoints and blacksand beaches. People say Tahiti does not have any nice beaches – ok, they are not white, but we still found them quite pretty. Also nice for a change to see black sand instead of always white sand! There were also some nice views over the little bays and Moorea in the distance.

Unfortunately, after we started driving again, an alarm light in the car went on. We called our rental agency and were asked to stop by their location close to the airport. This was super annoying since we were already out of Papeete city traffic and we only would have passed by the airport at the end of the day otherwise (on our way back and to drop the car). But well… we have rented cars and scooters in so many different places in the world and never really had an issue up to now. I guess it was bound to happen at one point! To make things worse, we get stuck in a really bad traffic jam just 2km or so away from the rental station and were moving only meter by meter. At the rental agency, they checked things and told us that it’s only a broken alarm light and we should keep driving. Oh man, lost almost 2h for nothing…!

Anyways, we decided to continue our drive South instead of heading through Papeete another time. There was still some traffic jam, but luckily soon we were driving on rather empty roads again. Along the West coast, we stopped at multiple sights – some gardens, a waterfall, a natural spring,… all not that exciting though. We quickly (also because we didn’t have much time left) made our way to Tahete Iti, the smaller island of the two (unlike Huahine, Tahiti Nui and Iti are actually one island and not just connected by a bridge). We drove all the way down to Teahupoo, a place famous for its big waves and surfing competition. Unfortunately, you need to hire an expensive boat to get to see the wave and surfers – you cannot see them from town. Even so, it was a nice place to walk around for a bit, a cute little town.

Next, we decided to drive into the interior of Tahiti Iti up to a viewpoint, which would have been amazing, I’m sure, if the light would have been good. Unfortunately, mid afternoon was not a good time – we had the sun directly against us… Still cool to see, but we wish we would have been there at a different time of the day.

We then were left with the dilemma whether to finish the circle of Tahiti Nui (the big island) by driving up the East coast or to drive back the same way we came. On any other day, we would have opted to see what we had not seen yet – but we were a bit pressed for time and worried that Papeete city traffic would once again be really bad and we would get stuck in a traffic jam yet again. So we decided (sadly) to give that part of the island a miss… to be honest, I don’t think we missed all that much though. Tahiti overall has not been too exciting, and with our bad luck combined, we were happy to leave again next day for Moorea!