Hapatoni Village

10 October 2017

Hanatefau bay, is the far side of a larger bay which has the village of Hapatoni in it. We dingyed over to the quay to check it out. Only about 100 people live here on the SW side of the island of Tahuata.

At the village quay we are greeted by the Catholic Virgin Mary monument.

And this welcome sign.

We were surprised to find this old ferry boat high and dry and looking in a serious state of decay. Notice that people here don't have aluminum skiffs, they mostly still use old dug out canoes with outriggers.

Several ladies were weaving palm fronds soaked in saltwater. Cool paint job on this outrigger canoe, and notice how he uses aluminum roofing to keep the rain out of it!

This is the main road through Hapatoni, later told it is called the Queen's highway, from a time in the 1800's when the Queen of the Marquesas visited the village.

The trees here look like they may have been planted in the 1800s too!

These are big old trees which I had to have my photo with!

In a distance we can see the anchorage over at Hanatefau.

The Queen's highway is lined with flowers and breadfruit trees.

These friendly ladies waved to us as we walked by, just hanging out.

The road runs close to the water in some places.

But it seemed to turn into a very old overgrown road after a while. At the village, we had met another couple from the catamaran “Tao” also in the anchorage.  Mike and Philippe are hiking ahead of Nathalie and I.

The view down to the blue water. I guess that palm tree wanted a better view too, look how it grew out over the cliff.

Now we are starting to have to rock climb and we begin to think we missed the turn in the road.

Philippe shows Nathalie which way to go to get through the ravine we came upon.

Don't slip, or it is strait down to the rocks and sea!

We arrived below this home we can see from the anchorage and realized Philippe had led us on just another adventure through the jungle.

As we climbed up toward the house with the red roof, we could see they had a lovely view!

And lots of flowering trees in their yard.

A part of their view over the red ginger flowers.

Finally we found the road on the other side of the house. It is still dirt and mostly one lane. So when this big truck came, we gave him plenty of room.

He was carrying barrels. Of what, we don't know. Could be either water or diesel.

There is a big lighted cross on this section the hill where we can see both sides of the bay.

From here we can see the red roofed house we had climbed up to below us.

And all the way to the South point of the bay where the village and quay are with our dinghies.

On the North side of the cross we can see all three boats at anchor in Hanatefau. 

We got Philippe to take our photo with Avatar behind us.

Back on the road, the jungle is getting thicker.

We spotted these strange looking trees.

It has virtually no leaves just little pods hanging from it.

We found some pods on the ground and it looked like cotton on the inside. These are called Kapok trees, the soft stuff in the pods can be used to stuff pillows, and at one time, long ago, the USCG used this material to stuff life-jackets! (who knew this trivia? Miguel did!)

Great view through the trees of our boats as we walk along the road.

The road starts going back up hill again, so we let Philippe and Nathalie go on and we decide to head back to the village, since we had not realized it would be such a hike and did not wear the proper shoes.

We saw another view of Avatar through the trees in that lovely blue water.

Here banana trees line the road.

Avatar in the distance.

Road less traveled for sure!

Carved through the cliffs, the road offers great views.

Two different types of flowers we had not seen before. Love the way the petals turn from blood red to orange to yellow. The stamen pistil has orange on the end and yellow on the side buds.

And this white petaled one with yellow and brilliant red buds on the stamen.

We caught these little birds bathing in a puddle in the road.

I loved the heart shapes on the railing around this yellow house.

Then we come across this big cement open cistern full of water.

On a round stone mounted at one end,

I caught a photo of this adorable little bird with bright red on his head and butt.

This horse was tied to the tree, but no sign of his rider.

He was quite friendly though, with his white spot on his forehead.

This is a Noni plant. You can buy juice from this plant in your local grocery store. It is a natural immune system booster.

I had seen the fruit before and thought it looked like an alien, but now I find each of those little spots is where a small flower grew. This bee is taking advantage of the pollen.

Walking down the road, we were spotted by this artist, Marc Barsisnas, and he invited into his workshop to watch him work.

He has some amazing carvings and is a very talented man.

What is this piece carved from bone??

It is a nose flute and Marc demonstrates how to play it for us. We had been given a bamboo carved nose flute as a wedding present and we never have been able to play it!!

Marc's son feeds their calf with a huge baby bottle of milk.

This papaya tree is loaded with fruit!!

Mike stands by another one of the ancient giants.

This is a very old small stone church, where the Hapatonians love to sing.

We are almost back to the quay and get another view of the anchorage.

This huge old tree was in front of the church.

A view through the cemetery looking back at the church.

Surprisingly, there is an ancient mare temple next to the cemetery. We found out that in the 1700s before white man arrived with his diseases, this valley used to be home to 6000 Marquesans!

A bright red and yellow type of bird of paradise flower.

Back on the queen's highway, heading back into the village.

A copra shed on the hill.

We found another man carving this piece of wood in the village center. So many talented people on these islands.

These spectacular purple orchids,

Are part of this yard decoration.

Back at the quay, the women are still weaving palm fronds. We learned that each village must provide 300 of these for the village of Viatahu for the festival in December.

We were given so much fruit by the kind people we met. Here in my fruit basket we have star fruit, oranges, avocados, mangoes bananas and the flower from a squash plant which is eaten in an omelet.

Plus we got a big bunch of green bananas, now hanging on the bimini while we wait for them to ripen.