The wife and I arrived safe and sound in Tahiti. We left Tahiti almost immediately and headed for Moorea. Now that we’re here, let’s talk cars! I had rented a car online through an agency, so that when we arrived in Moorea it would be a quick run to the rental counter and the rest of the day exploring the island. I didn’t know where the ship would arrive, so I guessed that it would be near the ferry terminal. I was wrong. When we stepped off the ship’s tender, we had arrived at Opunohu Bay. When I pulled out my rental reservation, I found that I had actually made the arrangements for the car to be picked up at the airport and returned at the ferry terminal--so I was really wrong. However, there were some agency people at the dock. I was getting ready to start a long spiel about what had happened when I noticed that they had a printout on the desk. Being a curious fellow, I happened to scan the list and noticed that there was a name that was circled with a question mark…and that name was mine! That made things easy! They honored the rate I had online, saving 18 bucks off the rate that the guy in front of me had just paid--not bad for a reservation where the only thing that I had gotten right was the name of the island!
I had reserved a Citroen C2 “or similar” and we got the similar Ford Fiesta. The five speed Fiesta couldn’t exactly be called sprightly and it demanded first gear for some of the steeper grades. This turned out to not be a problem, because there was usually a scooter just in front of us struggling up the same hill. The Fiesta handled well and there were no squeaks or rattles over the pockmarked roads. The interior plastics were of the hard and cheap variety, but I thought the layout and design were quite tasteful. I definitely think this car would be a fine entry level model for Ford in the US--with perhaps just a bit more power. This Fiesta is much better than the Ford Aspire that so few found aspirational. Using my very poor currency conversion skills, gas was over $5 a gallon, closer to $6 if I understand things the way think I do--that’s not really a expression of confidence--so it was good to have an economy car. Driving around Moorea is pretty much limited to a loop around the island with a few roads that go inland. We put on almost 100 miles, using my kilometers to miles conversion skills, so we put in 12 liters into the tank--I put in 15 just to be safe.
I could find no car dealers on the island, so folks must make the short ferry ride over to Tahiti. There are lots of French cars, as one would expect, so we passed quite a few Renaults, Peugeots, and Citroens. I spotted a number of Hyundai Santa Fe’s and Tuscon’s. Ford had a few models, many of them rental Fiesta’s. No real General Motors presence that I could see.
Returning the car was easy. As we were headed back to the dock we saw the folks that had rented the car driving past us, they swung around and met us back at the dock. When we walked over to their car, my wife noticed beer cans in their cup holders!
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