Hiking Up Tapioi Mountain

Next to Juliette's home is the start of a trail that leads up to a beautiful landmark you see when you first land in Raiatea...Tapioi. Tapioi is a mountain that is actually owned by Juliette's son-in-law's family. Steve and Titaua (Juliette's daughter) live on the mountain and hike to the top almost everyday. Steve is a world-champion pirogue racer and Titaua works in a sporting-goods store that also sells merchandise for babies. (I looked for some baby-sized boxing gloves, to no avail.)
Tama and Herehia know that I love to hike and took me to the mountain. Whenever I see these beautiful green mountains on these islands, I always want to hike to the top. But they say a real danger here can be warthogs. They refered to it as Puumba -but they can actually kill a person. So I was a little paranoid as we started up the trail and told them that I'd be watching for "Le couchon de mort." (The pig of death.) (That was my term for it. They just looked confused.)
Sure enough, in no time, a huge pig seemed to come out of nowhere. But it was just a pig and ran away from us pretty quickly. On we went and I looked up at one point and gasped. For a second, all I saw was a horses head -but then the rest of it came around the bend along with about 10 other horses. They weren't being ridden, they just hang out there.
Tama and Herehia were laughing at my jumpy state. At one point, you could hear tree branches rubbing against each other and it sounded like a creaky door in a haunted house. Then Herehia told me this story about the mountain...

Steve's grandfather owned the mountain and decided to make a road going up to the top. In fact, it's the road we were walking on. But a woman heard his machine and asked someone what it was. When she was told that he was making a road, she told the person to go tell him to stop because he was going to upset the mountain. A legend says that "Tapi" is a name and "oi" means "to stir" and the woman thought that because of the name of the mountain, it wasn't a good idea for him to be doing that. Steve's grandfather ended up accidentally going over the side of a cliff in the machine to his death. Near where this happened is his grave. This story became well-known on the island. We wondered how the people felt who picked up the work and continued the road to the top.
Well, as creepy or jumpy as I was starting to feel, it all disappeared when we got to the top. It is a spectacular view. We could see the islands surrounding Raiatea -which were Huahine, Tahaa and Bora Bora. I was in awe all over again at the difficulty of the pirogue race, Hawaiki Nui, which included all of these islands. A huge cruise ship was docked at one spot. Then I looked to my left and saw the runway at the airport from another angle. Tama said that as soon as you land you've got to put on the brakes. But there's another runway that's even shorter on another island. I think I'll go there by boat.