The rain stopped and we jumped the tender to go into the bay where “Easy Car” is supposed to be located. But where in the bay?

Being in the bay, I suddenly saw a signposts with “Easy Car” on it. We went there.

A man was working in an half open workshop and I asked him if they have rental cars. He consulted with his wife and the answer was “No, because it weekend”. We thanked him and turned back. But we got the idea to leave the tender at their their jetty and have a walk and hitch hike a bit. So I went back to him and he suddenly asked me for how long we want to have the car. “Only today” I replied. There were about 3 1/2 h left. When his wife joined the conversation we got quickly the deal and took off.

We followed the road to the south, thus drove counterclockwise around the island. At the famous Marae Tainu’u we stopped and walked around despite a bit of a drizzle. I wrote a while back already about this marae.

Then we continued. Houses were located left and right of the street. As everywhere in French Polynesia the properties are kept pretty tidy.

The view to the right was always kind of interesting in terms of the color of the sea. The weakened sunlight coming through the thin layer of clouds created always a special atmosphere with the various shades of emerald green water above sandy areas of the inner reef. There were also the deeper waters with dark grey blue color. The waves rolling from the open sea to the outer reef must be at least 2 m high was our guess when we looked at the surf in the distance.

To the left, houses interspersed with areas, where water was also on the left side of the street. Sea water intrusions creating a brackish water; mangroves grow there.

But not only house and sea water intrusions interspersed, but also rainforest. Very dense rainforest. Lush green. Beautiful to look at

After driving maybe an hour, we got a bit hungry and decided to look for an eatery or a restaurant.

We also decided to drive a loop. This, by taking the road in NW direction through the island from a point about half way along the southern coast, then turn right at the intersection at the east coast and drive clockwise around the SE corner back to the street through the island before heading N towards Uturoa and back home.

Along the road through the hilly island, there was a “belvédère”, a view point overlooking a huge and wide valley. Despite a bit of a drizzle we got out of the car. It was again an interesting view over the wide valley.

Being only about 1 – 2 kilometers on the road around the SE corner, there was a small eatery.

A makeshift, pretty open cottage with an extended roof to stay somehow dry when it is raining like yesterday. At one side there were 2 tables under a plastic sheet roof but the chairs where taken by some local folks who just had there chat.

When we arrived, about a handful of young people were hanging around. Most likely they bought some take-outs. Buying take-outs is very common in French Polynesia.

The possibly boss of the eatery pointed to a cardboard fixed on the outer wall of the cottage; it was the menu. I don’t recall all what written there but the biggest meal was barbecued chicken with French fries. The possible boss, was also the one who did a lot the talking being good for more sales. Before I could really order something he asked already “Poulet avec frits?” To me this sounded good, and Shigeo also agreed after translation. Main dish was ordered.

“Coca Cola?” was his next question and my answer was straight “No!”. I saw something, which gave the impression it could be homemade lime lemonade and coco. I asked what Coco is and he showed us real coconuts of which the outer husk has been removed. Thus I ordered two. With the corner of an old machete he open a hole on the right side of the coconut and handed one by one over to us. Shigeo expected a straw but a real Polynesian doesn’t need a straw. The delicious coconut water can just be drunk out of the opening of the coconut.

Then we watch the preparation of our food. The French fries came out of a bag where they were once frozen. Two plastic rectangular shaped containers, to be used to eat French fries from, were used as the measure for a portion. From there they were put into boiling hot oil. The lady, most likely the wife of the boss, skillfully stirred the floating French fries in the hot oil and checked their degree of readiness.

The big boss also in charge of the grill, took two pieces of already to a certain degree barbecued pieces of chicken, spiced it up with a black sauce and put them on the grill. He also adjusted the height of the grill that the meat got barbecued a bit more but did not burn.

There was a local guy standing beside me drinking also “coco”. He started talking and asking and I took all my French to reply to him as good as possible. It turned out that also the big boss jumped into this “conversation”. For me French is a challenge but French spoken in the real deep country side of Raiatea was a real challenge.

At a certain point the conversation slowed down. I got the impression that there was more than coconut water in his coconut…

Then our French fries and the chicken were ready and we got the rectangular plastic container filled with French fries and the barbequed chicken just on top. A splash of ketchup on the fries and because we are so friendly guests we also got splash of the black sauce on the fries as well. Then the meals were standing in front of us.

Cutlery is not available. No need for. We are born with 10 fingers.

The meal simply was good! I think I never had a better tasting grilled chicken before. The meat was tender, and tasty. The skin excellently crispy. The French fries were just good.

So with the tools given to us at birth we ate our “Poulet avec frits”. Great taste! Stomachs filled!

Much later we discuss the meat. I think that the birds were just caught in forest, where plentiful of wild cocks run around with their chickens until someone catches them.

When I wanted to pay to the daughter, who worked as the cashier, the big boss smelled some additional business by selling a dessert. They offered chocolate cake and a mostly likely coconuts-bread with thin slices of oranges on top and they offered us “Mappe”. Although he showed it to us, we had no clue what it is. We bought one plastic bag of Mappe.

While driving along we tried it and it looked outside the plastic bag and tasted like a chestnut.

Looking later in the web found the fruit is called Tahitian or Polynesian chestnut. Looking in the web at the pictures of the tree and the fruit from outside, I feel I saw trees and fruits already but didn’t know what fruit it is.

The rest of our drive had again nice sceneries but the “Poulet avec frits” was the special event of our drive in the special rain.

In Uturoa we stopped quickly to buy some more plastic water which we still will need until the genset engine spare parts and MaRe meet.

If Onan would have sent the parts from Australia directly to Tahiti they would be there already…. Customer dis-satisfaction, long shipment times, and high cost vs a smart, more than 30 years old different approach to spare parts stock and delivery. Every company has its choice, but customers have a choice as well.