Diadem

Tuesday morning of this week Yves and Mirella took me up to one of the highest places in Tahiti. We took a dirt road that just kept ascending. At one point we saw an elderly Chinese couple working in a garden. Yves stopped to talk for a bit and asked them how old they were. The woman was 75 and the man was 81. Then he beamed and said, "I'm young!" There is such a mixture of cultures here and for some reason it's just fascinating to me to hear a Chinese couple speaking French.
Onward and upward we went with some amazing glimpses of the ocean far below us. But what really took my breath away was when we turned inland and then saw one of the most beautiful mountain ranges I've ever seen. They are a tropical green color and one of them looks like a crown -which they refer to as "Diadem". At that spot there was a little ramp that just stretched into space. It's where you can take a parachute- or actually something that looks like a parasail -and jump off -gliding down through one of the most beautiful valleys I've ever seen. However, I was quite happy just to stand there.
We went further on up until you could go no higher. We walked the last part of the way picking raspberries as we went. We passed an Air Traffic Control Tower -and then at the very top was a huge antenna servicing phones, I believe. By this time it seemed that we had actually walked into a cloud. We weren't able to see the 360° view but I sure hope to go back one day. If I worked for Disney, I would definitely suggest a Soaring Over Tahiti ride.