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Continue reading “Destination guide – French Polynesia”
The South Pacific islands are one of the most desired and challenging travel destinations. Most people believe they can’t afford to enjoy places like Bora Bora or Fiji, and it’s true… unless you plan smartly.
Picking a destination in the South Pacific
First, let’s take a look at all countries and territories (a total of over 20,000 islands) that compose the three key regions of Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia.
Polynesia:
From Arusha, where our Kenya-Tanzania safari ended, we caught a flight to Zanzibar. We had booked with Coastal Aviation and didn’t realize the tiny plane would stop 5 times before getting to the island… it was like being on a public bus hehe. Stone Town, the old downtown of the capital Zanzibar, was a nice surprise. Our expectations of African towns were low after Nairobi and Arusha (later also confirmed by Dar es Salaam), but Stone Town proved to be a charming, lively city, with an exciting history. As the center of the Zanzibar Sultanate during the 19th century, it flourished driven by trade of spices and slaves, before suffering a revolution.
For the last days of our trip, we wanted a relaxed beach place to swim, tan and eat. We chose the largest and most developed of the 3 Gili islands, Gili Trawangan, which can be reached easily from Bali (~4hrs shuttle + boat from Bali) or Lombok. We stayed at some nice bungalows on the north end of the main beach, close enough to walk to all the restaurants and bars, but very quiet. My favorite part was eating breakfast on wooden palafitos over the water.
One of the goals of our Indonesia trip was to dive in the Komodo National Park, which apart from hosting the last dragons of the same name, contains one of the richest marine reserves on the planet. We had made a reservation with a local diving company, Wicked Diving, which lived up to the expectations of its near-perfect Tripadvisor reviews. They also ended up having Spanish dive masters 🙂 and together with four other PADI divers, we went on a 2-day sailing trip with 5 dives.The plan was pretty simple: dive, eat, dive, eat, dive, sleep, repeat. It’s definitely worth bargaining with any operator, as we realized that we had been able to get a significantly better price than the rest of the group (~$250 vs. ~$350).
In the afternoon of our 3rd day in Indonesia, we landed in the small town of Maumere, in the northeast of Flores. Flores is one of the least developed islands and one of the least touristy (with the exception of Labuanbajo, on the opposite end). It is my favorite, for it has an authenticity that is lost in most places by now.
Our idea was to hire a local driver to cross the island over 3 days/2 nights, stopping at several points of interest, which we believe is the best way to explore it. It was harder than we had anticipated, and after rejecting one driver for high price and one for sketchy manners, we found ourselves negotiating with our last option, with the sun setting and no real alternative. Luckily, the driver ended up accepting our conditions and being a great guy. His name was Stefano, and after a quick stop at his home to pick up a bag and sharing some candy with his 3 kids, we were on our way.
Bona Travels 