Family and friends,
After almost back-to-back boat trips on two different islands in French Polynesia last month, it was a fun break going for a bike ride to Bora Bora’s only public beach for the day! As you’ll read in the post, Steven and I were both surprised that the standard of living wasn’t higher on the island as it certainly had the greatest name recognition and far more high-end resorts than the other islands we’d just visited.
Click here to read on our main blog https://bergersadventures8.blogspot.com/2022/01/121221-bora-boras-matira-beach.html or just continue below.
All the best to you and your loved ones, Annie
Photos of our bike ride from our rental on Bora Bora to Matira Beach that we’d seen the day before from the lagoon boat tour:
When you click on the next photo to make it bigger, you’ll get a better view of the tiki statue.
After about a half-hour bike ride, we reached the almost deserted Matira Beach. Was it ever worth the ride! We plopped ourselves down on the beautiful white sand and took turns snorkeling all day long in the shallow water. A broken underwater camera equals no photos, unfortunately!
For several hours, we observed several people snorkeling in and around the boat.
The waterside restaurant:
Gorgeous flowers on our ride back to town:
Bora Bora’s highest point was described as tombstone-shaped Mount Otemanu.
Before arriving on the island of Bora Bora, Steven and I had ignorantly thought that Bora Bora would be the richest of the French Polynesia islands because of its huge amount of tourism. We were therefore very surprised that almost all the homes we saw were equal to those on the less touristed islands of Huahine and Raiatea. We had mistakenly expected the standard of living would be higher than on those other islands.
The area high school had a large campus across from the water.
I need to become better adept at simultaneously riding a bike and taking photos so they’re not as crooked as this in the future!
Next post: A mostly disappointing 4×4 jeep tour of Bora Bora.
Posted on January 20th, 2022, on the last day of our getaway to Palm Springs, California to celebrate Steven’s birthday. We sure didn’t realize there would be so many great hiking opportunities nearby – so many, in fact, we’re already talking about returning for a few days next January as we never even saw downtown Palm Springs at all!
The Adventures of Annie and Steven Berger 
That’s certainly a classic Pacific Islands beach 😀 We’re watching an interesting TV series in Britain the moment with the actor Martin Clunes visiting the Pacific region. He started off in French Polynesia and I picked out some sights very reminiscent of the ones you’ve shared, like those ancient stone platforms.
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Thanks for reading this short post, Sarah. The TV series featuring Martin Clunes sounds like one I’d also enjoy watching.
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Are you two ever home? 🙂 Happy belated birthday to Steven!!
I’m so glad the high-end tourism doesn’t reflect “mainland” Bora Bora. Same goes in the Galápagos Islands, which are extremely expensive to visit/fly to and go on multiple-day boat tours, yet the cost and standard of living on the islands is similar to mainland South America…
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Liesbet,
I’m also thinking that we’re never home! Leaving a week today, too, to stay at a rental for the month of February in Phoenix to celebrate our 40th anniversary. We’ll be joined at separate times by our sons, one of whom is married, and his family do that will be great.
When I commented on the standard of living on Bora Bora, I meant to infer that the residents didn’t seem to enjoy the trickle down effects of all the money poured into the economy as a result of the massive amount of tourism. That, I thought, was sad.
Appreciate and also agree with the parallels you made with Galapagos bases on our own visit there several years ago.
Hope you are enjoying a more restful and enjoyable life down in Baja now. All the best to the three of you.
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