Hiking Cascade de Fautaua Papeete, French Polynesia

With the densest population of gnat like insects I’ve ever seen, I try my hardest to keep my mouth closed, as I’ve already inhaled an unfortunate handful of the small nuisances (unfortunate for both parties involved). But, when I round the corner after a two and a half mile hike, I can’t help but literally drop my jaw to the beauty before me.

“How did I get here?” You may ask. Let’s walk through the journey together.

With some heavy researching, we decided we wanted to get out of the city of Papeete, and enjoy more of the natural wonders that Tahiti has to offer. Nestled within one of the valleys of the island is Cascade de Fautaua, the islands tallest permanent waterfall at 443 ft.

Boasted with immense fresh fruit along the way, scurrying lizards, and lush rainforest as you follow along the clean, windy river, the hike to this waterfall helps you feel connected with nature.

Before I get ahead of myself, let’s look at the preparation needed for this moderate day hike.

Permit

To start, it should be noted that you MUST have a permit in order to access the trail. To obtain a permit, you can go to the City Hall in downtown Papeete (Mairie de Papeete). The maze of different offices, all labeled in French, made it a little difficult for us to find our way. But, with a little help of a woman in the HR department who spoke English, she led us to the right direction. When we got to the office, it was closed. Even though we were within the office hours that was posted on the front door (needless to say, you need to be really flexible with your time if you want to do this hike). Luckily for us, we were figuring out the logistics the day before we wanted to go on the hike. So, the day of, we knew exactly where to go, and went early in the morning.

The permit is 600 CFP Franc per person- approximately $6 USD. They DO take card payment.

The woman at the desk had us fill out a short application essentially with our name and date of hike, and we were on our way.

Bus

You know when you hear about island time? Papeete’s bus system REALLY takes this saying to heart. NO WHERE, and I’m telling you no where could we find the bus schedule. Not online, not at the bus stop…

So, we waited about 45 minutes for the bus we needed. The bus only accepts their local currency, CFP franc. We were able to exchange USD for CFP at the local market from one of the vendors. The bus cost 200 CFP per person, one way, which is about $2USD per person. Luckily, the bus was air conditioned, and took us directly the to trailhead in about 20 minutes.

We had talked about not getting the permit, due to the short office hours. We told ourselves, “if we get to the office, and no one’s there, we’ll do the hike anyway. Besides, there’s not going to be someone just standing around the middle of nowhere waiting to see permits for some hike.”

Luckily, we had gotten the permit. Because there was in fact, a security guard, waiting at the GATED entrance of the hike, wanting to see our permit. To my understanding, this is where the city gets their drinking water, which is why we need the permit in the first place.

Now, onto the actual hike.

The first hour of the hike was walking on dirt road, a very easy path. Then, there was a fork in the road. To the left, was the more strenuous path to the top of the falls. To the right, was the moderate path to the base of the falls. The latter was meant to take 2 hours, and the former 3, so we chose the moderate trail due to time constraints.

It was beautiful! Lush, green scenery, the path following along the clean river. We passed by avocado plants, coconut trees, and even a pineapple! There was also a lot of little lizards scurrying about.

About 30 minutes in, we see a river crossing. NO WHERE in our reading did we see river crossing in the hike. We took off our shoes and socks, held them above the water, as we got above thigh deep into the refreshing river to the other side of the trail.

About ten minutes later was another river crossing… At this point I’m thinking to myself, “I’m going to have to cross back over these on the way out anyway,” so I left my shoes on and trudged through the water.

And about 10 minutes later ANOTHER river crossing. Although these river crossings is what personally classified the “moderate” rated hike, it was refreshing to feel the cool water on the humid day.

But then there was climbing. Climbing! Nobody told me there would be climbing. Using ropes, full body weight to hoist myself up, like finding the lost city of Z.

I'm totally just being dramatic for the effect of the reading and setting the scene. It was fine!

In reality, there was a concrete slab of steps, but we had to use a rope to hoist ourselves up about 5 feet in order to reach it.

We finished out the last ten minutes of our hike by coming around a corner, jaw dropping. This waterfall was incredible. It wasn’t just the waterfall, it was the totality of being immersed in nature that felt so striking. Having to tilt our heads up to see the top of the falls, so strong that mist is striking us in the face and cooling our whole body. We maneuver over some final rocks to get to the base of the falls, where there’s a crystal clear pool. We look back to see the green valley we just made our way through, sun hitting the tops of the trees.

In addition to the incredible views, were our buggy friends also interested, as mentioned above. If you combined all of the gnats you’ve ever seen in your life, you’d probably be about halfway to the total amount in this one concentrated area.

We took in the scenery for about 20 minutes before we started heading back. We would’ve loved to have stayed and enjoyed the area all day, but the bugs were relentless, and we were on a time constraint anyway. It made me laugh to myself that we hiked 2 hours one way to enjoy the view for 20 minutes. Just a testament that it’s not just about the destination, but the journey it took to get there.

When we got back to the “bus stop” we only waited about 20 minutes before an empty bus showed up.

Why the quotations?

Well, there was NO markings anywhere indicating it to be a bus stop. The only reason we knew where to go, is because it was the same location they dropped us off.

Now, picture this. We’re sitting on a concrete slab, sweaty, shoes and socks off, sprawled out trying to dry our feet off that have been soaked for hours from crossing the river so many times (talk about pruned toes). We must’ve been a sight for sore eyes. When a smiley local on a bike comes by and tells us in very broken English the bus was coming.

We fumble, getting our stuff together quickly. Sure enough, about 3 minutes later there was the bus. This stranger didn’t HAVE to tell us anything. He could’ve just kept along his way, minding his own business. But he didn’t, he took the time to help the tourists that stood out.

I thought about this on the bus ride back and noticed this friendliness within everyone. Not only was everyone being friendly, talking and greeting each other as if these strangers were best friends that they’d known for years, but the bus driver would stop literally anywhere along the road. If it was to drop someone off, or pick someone up, even if every 45 seconds, she did it, with a smile on her face. It was a humbling sense of culture shock.

This experience in Tahiti is one I hope to take with me going forward. Being flexible with time, doing things the right way even if it takes a little longer because it could save me time and hassle in the future, not feeling so constrained to time crunches, and the modern corporate world of America. But mostly, not judging people based on, “the hat they wear” if you will.

Cheers,

Tay