After a fairly lazy day, which we had wanted, we dressed to go to the New Year’s Eve extravaganza at the Tiki or Polynesian Village. I wore a spaghetti-strapped long dress with a bone background. Swirls of gold, amber, earth brown, and black added movement to the static piece. A necklace full of gold, small pearls was the piece de resistance. Everyone thought I had gotten the necklace in Polynesia but a friend had given it to me in New Orleans for Christmas. I put a cream-colored hibiscus behind my ear and Raymond chose a red one for him.
The bus picked us up at six o’clock and the ride to the Village was a great tour for us, since we hadn’t been to any parts of the island yet. Cook’s Bay and Opunoha Bay are both so spectacular! The back of both of these bays forms half of a volcanic crater. The other half fell into the sea. The peaks of these mountains are so rugged and jagged. One mountain on Cook’s Bay has a tiny hole in it near the top. I couldn’t wait to go sightseeing in the area the next day. We stopped at several other hotels along the way to pick up people so we got to see other accommodations as well.
A man, attired in native dress, blew a conch shell to welcome us. There were others in the gift shop area playing drums and ukuleles and singing Polynesian songs. It was very festive! What a colorful pageant of pareos, flower crowns, musical instruments, and people enjoying life.
We were escorted back to the theater area located beside the ocean. Pineapple rum punches were our welcome drink. While we were satisfying our taste buds with the fruit and rum, we sat in the stands and were given demonstrations on how to open a coconut and how to climb a palm tree to obtain the coconut. Some volunteers from the audience tried to do the same thing and they did a good job.
There were gorgeous Tahitian men wearing practically nothing but their interesting tattoos. One passed out the fresh coconut for us to taste. Two words came into the English language from Tahitian. These are “tattoo” and “taboo.”
