THE MARQUESAS
Calling Code: +689
For years the wild beauty of the little-visited Marquesas Islands - the most remote inhabited islands on earth, located
1,000 miles from anywhere - has drawn literary personality and artists.
One of the most scenic places in all French Polynesia, this is the untainted tropics, where
forest-cloaked cliffs plunge into the rocky sea and eerie volcanic spires that Robert Louis Stevenson once liked to "the
pinnacles of
some ornate and monstrous church" are often lost in the clouds. Of the six inhabited islands, out of 10 total,
Fatu Hiva is said to be the most beautiful,
due in large part to the beautiful Bay of Virgins, whose steep sides are ringed with lush groves of mangoes, oranges and guavas.
Paul Gauguin intended to live out his days here, but instead disembarked on the neighboring island of
Hiva Oa.
Herman Melville and Captain James Cook were just as captivated by the Marquesas's
allure, believing them to be even more beautiful than the
Tahitian islands. The largest town, with 1500 handsome, tattooed brightly smiling inhabitants and a bay that rivals the Bay of Virgins, moved Jack London
to write "One caught one's breath and felt the pang that is almost hurt, so exquisite
was the beauty of it."
The 343-foot freighter/passenger ship Aranui is the lifeline that links the far-flung Marquesas with the outside world, delivering
everything from cement to medicine to sugar. Entire towns - sometimes entire islands-
turn out to greet the ship's monthly arrival, bartering
copra (pressed and dried coconut meat) for basic supplies. Aranui passengers make lad fall in the
same whaleboats that
transport cargo, and once ashore can make excursions to see lush valleys populated by wild horses and the
volcanic basalt peaks that inspired Melville,
London and Stevenson. There are few roads, but follow the trails through steamy jungles to abandoned stone-carved tikis or visit on of the
world's most movingly beautiful cemeteries where you'll find the frangipani shaded graces of Gauguin and the Belgian singer Jaques Brel.
A cruise ship could replicate the Aranui's route, but not the experience.
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