Box for What?

                                               A Bread Mailbox?

    One year I ventured off to Tahiti, meaning many islands.  Part of French Polynesia, Tahiti is both a country and an island.  Tahiti is the largest of the 118 islands and atolls that make up the Society Islands. The island is 35-miles long and shaped like an hourglass with two distinct volcanoes, one at each end,  that are connected by an isthmus. The islands are 2790 miles from Honolulu and 4000 miles from Los Angles so it is a long plane ride.

    Papeete’s streets are crowded with sport cars, motor bikes, and the island’s cheap public picturesque transport, les truck. The city is the country’s capitol, and seemed crowded, smelly and dingy  with little resemblance of the common P.R. of swaying palm trees and pristine beaches. Outside of major ‘down town’ there are some nice resort hotels. Bora Bora, Moorea and Tahiti are the major islands of the country. Each island has one road around its perimeter. There are no roads over the mountains.

    Houses were small and almost always on the mountain side of the road; they sat side by side rather than clustered.  The road follows the coastline and there is little room between the road and the water. Riding the road, small waterfalls seemed to appear around every bend in the road. Surrounded by greenery and lush vegetation, they were quite picturesque.

    The thing that fascinated me most in Papeete was the long narrow mailboxes along the side of the road. They were not mailboxes at all, but were for the delivery of freshly baked French bread which was delivered daily. They were built like little houses with slanted roofs. A stranger would never know the express purposes of the cute little bread boxes.

    Bora Bora is an incredibly beautiful island and it is a photo stop around every bend and curve of the road.