Nuku Hiva Road Trip!

MFT: Driving around the whole island — gorgeous vista
LFP: Dry valleys

Hallo, so yesterday I got to go on a road trip around Nuku Hiva. It is truly a gorgeous island. Very steep valleys filled with lush vegetation and peaked ridges. We got to go over the highest peaks (about 1200 m!). Luckily I hired a car with a DRIVER. This is vital because while some of the roads are in excellent condition all of them have very tight hairpin turns and steep cliffs on one end. Also some of the roads are not paved and experience quite a lot of rain leading to muddy terrain with deeply incised streams.

Anyways, yesterday Nanuk joined me for the car tour. We got in an old land rover (best CAR EVER) and started driving towards the airport (nicely paved road). As soon as we climbed up onto the plateau the weather and landscape changed dramatically. It suddenly became lots of grass with pine trees (planted) and livestock (cows and horses mainly). It was very misty and cold. Sadly because of all the rain/clouds we couldn’t see too much from the peaks (too bad because it would have been a fantastic view). It took us just over an hour to go about 12 miles! When we got to the northern coast we started going to the different valleys Taylor and I had identified as possible sample locations. So the North Western side of the island is the “desert land”. Moreover there has been a drought for the last seven years. However, this years rainy season is in full swing. All of these things combined to make my sample collection rather impossible. For one thing there was no flowing river  in four of the sites I visited. You could barely find the river bed because 6-10 foot tall trees were obscuring the entire area! Moreover all the river beds were filled with soil instead of sand. It was rather trying to keep visiting these valleys and then have no samples. However by the end of the day, thanks to our guide, we found 2 sample locations out of 6. It was a fun day nevertheless as we got to see more of Nuku Hiva than most other people ever get to.


I ended the day by going back to the boat (instead of taking shore leave) and cleaning my equipment, drying my samples, re-packing my field bag, and just doing general chores (like laundry!). Most people were pretty excited for shore-leave but I decided to pass it for the free vegetarian lasagna we had for dinner on board (I’ve been waiting for the lasagna to be made for the last two weeks!). It was well worth the wait. I also got a quick tour of the local tattoo artist. The Marquesas are famous for their interesting tattoos. There are some pretty amazing designs out here. Every symbol has a different meaning. It’s really interesting to look at his designs because he also had a book detailing the varied meanings of symbols. 

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