Nuku Hiva, my favourite island in Polynesia

“The first experience can never be repeated. The first love, the first sunrise, the first South Sea island, are memories apart and touched a virginity of sense”. Robert Louis Stevenson about Nuku Hiva

We visited fifteen islands in French Polynesia. Every new island was more beautiful than the previous one, but only one of them made me cry upon departure.

Unlike Stevenson, Nuku Hiva was not my first Pacific Island, it did not “touch a virginity of sense”. In fact, I don’t even remember if mine was love at first glance: the first impressions of the island, in my memory, got somehow overlapped with the couple dozen others I had visited until that point. The first sight of the acuminate, unusually-shaped mountains fades into the skyline of Hiva Oa or Bora Bora; the funny-looking church in Taiohae resembles many of the ones we had seen in Wallis, or Nanumea, or Vaitupu; and the smell, the flowers, the atmosphere, are the same I recalled from probably most non-atolls in Polynesia.

So, it took a while for me to get accustomed to the uniqueness of Nuku Hiva, but as soon as I did, it became my favourite Pacific Island. The more the time passes, the more perfect it seems in my memory.

Nuku Hiva is outstandingly beautiful; it offers experiences of original culture and cuisine, hikes around unexpectedly ancient archaeological monuments, it has a rich history, it provides comfortable accommodations for modern tourists, but at the same time it has that rare feeling of being almost untouched. It gave us such a rich experience, that it is hard to believe it all happened in only five days.

The landscape

Being close to the Equator, a lot of land in the Marquesas islands is covered by lush mountains, but you can still find dry areas, especially around the high plateaux: the climate also heavily depends on the direction of the winds and of the currents. Nuku Hiva is peculiar in being divided exactly in two halves, one wet (the valleys facing Sout-East), and one dry (the large plateaux facing North-West).

There are a few sandy beaches at the bottom of the valleys, but the coast consists mostly of steep rocky cliffs. The islands are too “new” to be surrounded by a coral reef, which means that, except for a few narrow bays, most of the sea in proximity of land is deep, with strong currents, waves and inhabited by big fish. In October, people even can see whales sometimes.

We did not go for scuba diving, but scuba aficionados say it’s very well worth to try it in the Marquesas. As I said, there are many large fish around: one day, we saw ourselves about thirty manta-rays, while travelling by boat along the coast.

At the sea level, the temperature is steady around 30° and the weather is humid, like in Samoa. But, as you go up the mountains, everything changes dramatically: up on the highest peaks of Nuku Hiva, at more than 1200 metres, the weather can become quite cold (and when reaching the airport on the other side of the island you’ll experience such heights yourself). The only intruders, to my otherwise perfect place, were mosquitos in the evenings: millions of them. And not a single shop on the island had any mosquito spray.

Things to do in Nuku Hiva

We tried our best, according to our budget, to see as many as possible of archaeological sites that are basically everywhere around the island. Personally, I liked the best the hike up to Hakaui valley, in the west of Taiohae: you need to arrange a boat to take you at the bottom of the valley, then there is a 6-8km hike in the jungle, until reaching a narrow, high waterfall sprouting from impressively steep mountains. The whole excursion, including travelling back to Taiohae, takes about 6-7 hours.

You can find information about the Hakaui hike in several travel blogs (mostly French ones). What you do not read in those travel blogs is that the whole valley is literally paved by ancient monoliths. Literally, you cannot stare at any point in the jungle without finding a  human-carved stone: as you go uphill, you’ll even realise that the hike path is following an ancient road made of smooth monoliths (it reminded us of Appia Antica in Rome). A lot of the structures are remains of ancient “pae-pae”, the stone platforms where ancient houses were built, but really, if you have time to spend and look around you’ll find a lot of interesting things, I am sure there are even still undiscovered tikis buried somewhere in the jungle. Overall, we found Hakaui (as well as most of the other Marquesas valleys) to be a sort of archeology park, which has not been discovered yet, or, at least, not appreciated or protected to the level to which we are used in Europe.

As for the waterfall itself, it didn’t impress us much (but the steep rocky spikes surrounding it are really beautiful): we didn’t see much beyond a little water falling through a narrow deep crack in the rocks. Maybe it was because we visited it in October, and during our stay it wasn’t raining at all. Usually, the rainy season starts in January.

As for the other important sights of the island (archaeological but not only), you can visit all of them in a busy day, if you rent a car and drive to the east of Taiohae: there is an important archaeological site in Taipi valley (the valley where Herman Melville lived among indigenous people, which experience he described in his first truly artistic novel “Typee”); then two additional sites going down towards Hatiheu valley; then a hike to Anaho bay and beyond (Anaho bay was deemed by Robert Louis Stevenson to be the most beautiful bay he had seen); finally, you can visit some additional prehistoric looking landscapes in Aakapa bay in the north of Hatiheu. From Aakapa, though, we don’t suggest doing the whole loop of the island, because after Aakapa the road becomes gravelled and there is no much to see. If you want to see the center of the island, including the Grand Canyon (yes! there is even a grand canyon in Nuku Hiva!) better doing it back from Taiohae; or even better, on the way to the airport you can ask the driver to stop a couple of times to take pictures.

So, to summarise, with two full days you can cover all the important sights that aren’t reachable by walk from Taiohae. You can organise everything by yourself, even though most hotel owners will do their best to convince you that you’ll need a super expensive tour (100 EUR per person minimum). Really, there is no reason at all to take a tour: all paths are clear and easy, you can find the way yourself. One might object that guides will tell you the story behind the archaeological sites: but, personally, I don’t think that such stories would add a lot of value to the visit, because in our experience they are mainly folklore without historical / archaeological bases. Folklore is definitely important in the Marquesas, as it is a way for the locals to retain ancient traditions, but I don’t think it’s worth paying 100 EUR a person for it: you’ll get all the folklore and local experiences you need, by just keeping an open mind and become friend with local people in Taiohae. So, just my personal opinion, but I would simply print information online about the archaeological site, and save the money for something else.

There is one more to-do thing. We have not personally attended it, but it’s been listed in my biggest dream wish list since – to visit the Marquesas Art & Dance Festival. It is held every two years, and, from what I heard in Marquesas, it seems to be an amazing experience. The Marquesans are very proud of these festivals, because they are part of a movement to regain a cultural identity  and reject the lifestyle imposed by being a French colony.

The last festival was held in 2019 in Tahuata (the island in front of Hiva Oa), so the next ones should happen in 2021, 2023 and so on. Tahiti has a famous festival too (I think every year), which is also great, but just knowing that Marquesas are less touristic, more remote, less globalised and their festival is much more for locals themselves than for a handful of tourists visiting these islands each year, I would definitely try to get around the right date.

Culture

Nuku Hiva feels very Polynesian, with a light French make-up and a good spoon of colony spices.

The population is still Marquesan for the majority (but keep in mind that there is no such thing anymore as a pure Marquesan: already in the times of Robert Louis Stevenson, towards the end of XIX century, original Marquesans were mixing themselves with Tahitians brought over by the French). Local people have their own language, but everybody speaks French as well.

Before visiting these islands, I didn’t know much about the Marquesas Islands: funny enough, the only thing I knew (I read it in Robert Louis Stevenson’s book) was that this island group was renown to be one of the Polynesian archipelagoes where cannibalism was most common. Before contacts with Europeans, the Marquesas had a huge population, and food was often an issue: famine was not uncommon, depending on the season of the year; some tribes lived far from the coast with no access to the sea and less food; plus, it is not easy to catch fish in deep waters. So tribes ended fighting between each other and grilled the victims.

The most common euphemism for cannibalism was “to eat the large pig”. One comment from Robert Louis Stevenson’s book really impressed me: when interviewed by the author, an old guy, who had practiced cannibalism in his youth, said: “So you have wars in Europe, killing thousands of people, but then you bury all bodies underground and at the same time your soldiers suffer from hunger?!” There is some logic, isn’t it? By the way, we are talking at least hundred of years ago. You are safe to visit Marquesas now.

Did you know that tattoos were originated in Polynesia? (actually, the word “tattoo” is a Polynesian word, as well as the equally famous “taboo”). Out of all the places we visited in Polynesia, we found the Marquesas to be the archipelago where tattoos are still very common and alive: we saw people with tattoos all over their body, including neck and face.

Drum parties, ancient local costumes and dances are still often practised for bigger cultural meetings, but also personal celebrations. During our trip around the island, we happened to arrive at a recommended restaurant exactly at the time of a big birthday celebration. The restaurant was the “world famous” Chez Yvonne, in Hatiheu bay, and the birthday happened to be the one of Yvonne herself: it was the 20th of October, write down the date, because, if you happen to be in Nuku Hiva at that time, you really cannot miss the amazing food and Polynesian shows!

Food

Polynesians like to eat, and food has a high value in their culture. Polynesian food is already delicious, but the mélange with French food culture really brought it up to a high level! Without a doubt, one of the greatest cuisines during all our travels was in French Polynesia.

The absolute top is the Polynesian salad and all dish versions with raw fish. Polynesians marinate fresh fish meat for a few hours in lemon or lime juice, in coconut milk and probably there are some other versions. It might not sound so very special while reading it but, trust me, it is amazing. People buy tuna or some other fish early in the morning and most often throw it out if not consumed the same day. It cannot be fresher.

Traditional breakfast is huge, and includes at least one hot fish dish (they call it “fried fish”, it’s actually tuna steaks cooked into onions and tomato sauce), and always a raw fish salad. You can see both dishes in the picture below (and incidentally you’ll realise HOW MUCH food we were having for breakfast daily).

We learnt how to open coconuts and prepare fresh coconut milk:

One day, our Airbnb hosts showed us how to cook meat in a traditional Polynesian underground oven.

 

The best Bed & Breakfast in town

Probably, I wouldn’t have fallen in love with Nuku Hiva so strongly if we had chosen to stay somewhere else. Mana is an original Marquesan (with a bit of American blood from his father’s family) and Raina is Tuamotuan from Hao (for a coincidence the only island in the Tuamotu where Adriano had stepped a few years before). They gave us home, recharged us with good energy at their loving, always positive and chilled household. The other family member was Shannon the dog. And a couple of other tourists.

You often have a dilemma, between staying in a hotel, or renting a room at a local family. The first option gives you more comfort and privacy, but it costs more and, as a tourist, isolates you from local lifestyle experience. Talking about Nuku Hiva, I will be forever thankful to Mana and Reina for hosting us. We had such a great time, saw home cooking, got a glance at daily Marquesan life. I remember our long dinners in the terrace discussing all the adventures of the day. With my beginner level of French, I often had to ask Adriano to translate me longer discussions. It became our personal Nuku Hiva joke, that quite often to my “What did they say?” he responded “Now they are discussing about what part they are going to eat first from you: they are undecided between your ears and your fingers”. We still use this joke back in Europe when feel lost in translation.

How to get to Nuku Hiva

There are flights from Tahiti to Nuku Hiva. There are some cargo boats taking passengers too but they are not very frequent. There are some American cruises passing by, but besides some other benefits I don’t think that cruises are a good way to explore what is on the land. And then, of course, you can come with a personal yacht, which would definitely be the most special and unique experience.

Marquesas island group is around 1500 km distant from Tahiti and it takes about 3 hours flight to get there from Tahiti.

Visited in October, 2018.

 

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Photo & video album

Traditional Polynesian underground cooking: