City life in the South Pacific

It is interesting how quickly you adapt to your surroundings. To us, whittling the day away in the water, hunting for coconuts and thinking about which other perfect tropical island we might drop in and explore was our life. To us, that felt normal. Until we arrived in bustling busy Pape’ete, Tahiti. After spending months on small islands and atolls and defining a big city as a place that has a bakery and a store, Pape’ete was a big shock to our systems. You can buy anything and there are people and lots of cars that are going to lots of places pretty quickly. By North American standards, Pape’ete is a far cry from a big city, but compared to the islands in the South Pacific, it is New York City.

We did what most people do when they first arrive: eat! We ate everything and anything and that continued to be our main focus until we left. For the first time in months, we could walk in a store and choose from a selection of delicious cheeses, fresh vegetables and thousands of other foods that were available and stacked perfectly on shelves.

Here is Ustupu’s top 5 list of exciting buys in Pape’ete (not in any order):

Micro-brew beer (in French Polynesia you can usually only by 1 type of beer, Hinano)

Pesto

Goat Cheese(s)

Dates

Fresh Vegetables

After gorging, we were ready to go back to quiet island life. Although we did not expect to like Pape’ete, we really enjoyed our brief interlude with convenience and variety. It was also great to know that we were taking a break from quiet island life when we were in this BIG city and it wasn't the other way around.