Pitufa.at

On the hike to the waterfall we made our first acquaintance with the famous no-nos: tiny flies that bite relentlessy despite mosquito repellent. The locals recommend monui (scented coconut oil) to keep them off, but as we had to wade through the river a dozen times on the way everything got washed off anyway and during our lunch break at the waterfall we provided lunch to the local no-nos… The bites don’t hurt much initally, but Birgit seems to be allergic to them. The next morning her 45(!) bites started itching unbearably, getting worse during the day. Despite anti-histamine tablets and cortisone cream she didn’t get much sleep last night. Today the bites have turned into purple blotches, but at least the itching gets less and less. This morning we opened a packet of the flour we had bought in Tahuata and found more local wildlife: weevils crawling happily in the bag. So we spent the morning sieving flour, fortunately we keep all our provisions in separate plastic containers to avoid epidemics of such critters. Even though it’s incredibly hot here the marine wildlife keeps us from swimming: the combination of murky water and lots of sharks keeps us out of the water. We’ve seen big manta rays in our bay, but with the low visibility we don’t dare going snorkeling (locals advised us against it as well, lots of tiger sharks and hammer heads around…). In the evening the only friendly kind of wildlife we’ve encountered so far comes out: a group of cows (4 adults and a calf) hangs out on the beach. We tried to find them during the day, but the vegetation in the bay here’s an impenetrable thicket of thorny acacias, no wonder the cows prefer the beach.