Moorea Monday

Quelle jour!

Another blue sky start to the day, but didn't roll myself out of bed until at least 5:30 today :)  Coffee and croissant on the deck watching the shadows of the mountains behind me move across the mountains in front of me as the sun made her journey up.  Ah bliss.

Today was ATV day!  I'll post up some pictures on Picasa either now or later - there's an updated link, which I'll try to put here before I post this.

https://picasaweb.google.com/109051659105102698012/Moorea201102?authkey=Gv1sRgCO3gyomQkIPrQQ

Too much fun!  I may not be able to move my thumb tomorrow or my entire upper body, but totally worth it.

We were picked up at 8:10 a.m. and met our guide Manuel and there were 3 couples - 1 couple from Canada and the other 2 from USA.  J and I were the only ones going solo - on the ATV's and in life :D

After a quick lesson - here's how you start, stop. brake, and turn... we were off!  We started into a valley, where I promptly turned left instead of right and ended up stuck on a hillside.  Ah well...  after that though it was through the pineapple and fruit fields - across rivers (FUN) - up the side of a mountain until we came to a jam/juice place where we stopped to sample some local fare.  YUM.  Had freshly squeezed pineapple juice - soooooo good.  Then bought some pineapple vanilla jam and off we went... up up up up to Belvedre Lookout - amazing view of the two bays and the mountain in the middle.

Manuel told us the story of how Moorea was once completely round and was like a donut - the outer edges the reef, the inner part the valleys and mountains, but then half the island disappeared into the sea, flooding 2 of the valleys and leaving the shape Moorea is in today.  Apparently Moorea is sinking 1 cm per year and in about 500,000 years, there will be nothing but a half moon shape and a little island in the curve of the half moon.  You can tell older islands from newer as the newer ones have the magnificent mountains and high ridges - the older ones have disappeared so much under the ocean there is not much left of them - like Bora Bora.

Manuel came to Moorea seven years ago on vacation and never left.  I can understand why.

So at the point of him telling us this story, we were sitting at the centre of the volcano.  Cool.

We continued along and back down the mountain - let me tell you, going up on an ATV is way easier than going down.  But zooming through rivers is the BEST!

We then headed for Magic Mountain - omg.  Up, up, up, up, up, up (and I'll I could think about was - holy crap we have to go down this??).  We crossed a very narrow peak and did our final ascent.  From there we walked about to the very very top of the peak.  We could look across the bay and see our villa!  But WOW, what an amazing view!!!!!  I can't even remember taking pictures as I was so in awe.  Hopefully I did!

But we all made it down safely (and slowly!).  Amazing.  And did I mention FREAKIN HOT.  Holy - as soon as we got back to Villa Cook, I was in my bathing suit and snorkeling!  More about that later as it appears I have a good connection now and want to post up before I pass out :D  Little tired tonight!