The whole whale thing took a lot out of me. I paid Pongi in cash and he said he could drop me off somewhere central. Since Moorea is an island with a gigantic volcanic mountain in the middle, there really isn't a central area. But somewhere towards my hostel would be nice.

I sat myself down at a bus stop with two Tahitian teenagers. The girl sat on the guy's lap and planted kisses on his neck and he in turn tickled her. She laughed and play slapped him across the face which only invigorated him to tickle her more. She fought back and in doing so let her hair fall from behind her ear and as did the frangipani flower that twirled to the ground. I could hear her laughing like light behind her curtain of wavy brown hair.

They seemed to notice me and the guy asked me where I was going while simultaneously fighting the girl off with minimal effort. I told them where my hostel was and they stopped fighting for a second and looked at each other in mild confusion. He asked how I was going to get there. I pointed up at the roof of the bus stop and said "bus" in the most french way I could. They laughed incredulously. Non, non! They said, shaking their heads furiously to emphasise the futility of my efforts. No bus here. I looked at them, but what were they doing here? Waiting for pizza they said. No longer any busses, they pointed at the sky, too late and a storm was coming.

I wasn't sure which was more inevitable, that a motorcyclist came with a pizza still steaming from it's birthplace or that a dark blanket of rumbling thunder had overcome the sky. Naturally, the wind started gusting and throwing up leaves. They couple looked at me as a couple would look at a stray dog under a bridge and they left hand in hand as a couple would if they had some fresh pizza to eat.

I remember checking my phone before I left in the morning and I guessed from where I was it would be a six hour walk around the side of the island back to the hostel. I started walking. The thing about Moorea is that there aren't any street lamps so when it gets dark it gets pitch dark. I never saw the sun set, I believe it did so quietly behind the clouds and very quickly all I could see was the little bit of glistening tarmac in front of me.

The trees were thrashing above me and then the rain came. It came in thick tropical sheets that I had to fight through. I knew that in the absolute worst case I could make it back. I've done six hour hikes before but at that moment that was the last thing I wanted to do.

I saw some headlights approaching so I stuck out my thumb. The truck flew right by me and bathed me in street water, not that it mattered. A few more came and went and I figured that it was simply too dark.

I continued walking with my arm out for a bit until I couldn't anymore and then I walked until I couldn't do that anymore. By this time I felt that my penis itself was drowning. I was just about to sit down when I got splashed with even more water by the latest passing car. Feeling sorry for myself, I let the water run down my face but then I saw it had slowed down. It was a red citroen with wheels the width of bicycle tires and I hoped to God that it was broken or something, you know karma.

But the passenger flung open with a kick from a leg. It hung in the air for a split second and teased me with its ankle before retracting into the car. I ran for it. I limped like a soldier and I ducked my head inside to see the most beautiful frenchwoman I had seen in my life (up to that point).

She leaned back in her seat, had one hand on the steering wheel and another hanging just by her window fingering a cigarette. Her hair was long, brown and slightly frizzy and it framed her freckled face with a wild energy.

"Come in" she said

I ducked inside.

She started clearing the papers that lay on her dashboard and apologised for the state of her car. The ash of her cigarette mixed with the humid air. I said it was the best car I had seen all day. She laughed, of course.

I asked her why she wasn't wearing anything on her feet. She smiled and said that it just got a bit annoying with the water splashing up behind her legs as she walked about. It was an unexpectedly rational answer and I was fairly impressed. The way she manipulated the pedals with her toes was also something rather unexpected but equally impressive.

I decided I might as well get as comfortable as I could so I leaned back with my hands behind my head. As I did so, I looked up to see a small hole in the roof that opened so that the sky could rain directly into my eye. The entire car shook around me.

After about ten minutes she cleared her throat and in a french accent as thick as the clouds we were driving through asked where it was I was actually going to. I had almost fallen asleep at that point through sheer relief so jumped up a bit and said it was the surf lodge.

The smaller one? she asked.

Yeah I guess so, I said.

She said that she lived in Ha'apiti which was only halfway to the surf lodge. She would drop off and from there I would have to find my own way back. I said that was perfect and I couldn't really ask for more. She did save me after all.

I asked her where she was from. France, she said. Actually, Paris where she had been for a few years. She went there to study after escaping from Dijon. Like the mustard? I asked. She said, yes like ze mustard. She said she liked Paris but it got a bit too crazy after a while. Too many people, no room to breathe. She said she felt freer here especially because she didn't have to deal with her ex-boyfriend who followed her around and wouldn't leave her alone. Paris is a big place but even in big places there is nowhere to hide.

She went silent suddenly and leaned forward in concentration. The windscreen kept fogging up and she grasped forward every few minutes to wipe it with her hand whilst muttering something under her breath in french. I asked her what she did in Moorea. She perked up a bit and forgot briefly about the fog.

I am an osteopath, she said.

She pointed behind her with her thumb like a hitch-hiker. Sure enough, scribbled with a white marker and in a style I can only describe as french-cursive, stood her name.

Amelie Rochard and under that

OSTEOPATH and under that

+689 159 192 888

I'm one of the two osteopaths in Moorea.

Are there that many old people in Moorea? I asked.

She puffed her cheeks and let out a whistle.

Ah yes. Too many. I am very busy these days.

Where do they come from?

The cruise ships of course. She said gesturing with her chin in some far off direction.

They come to see the whales. Then they get excited. Then they hurt their leg, their back. She gripped those respective parts of her body with her free hand with the butt of the cigarette still dangling from it and mimed painful faces.

“They are old, you know. When you are old you think you need to do the things you want because... She made the whistling sound again, this time with a shrug of her shoulders. You know, you die so you want to do it. They do what they want.”

I thought about my fat Mormon. He really just did what he wanted.

“I saw the whales today” I said

She looked at me with eyes that demanded an excuse.

I told her about the whale. About it’s eye, unblinking, about the dolphins shepherding it away like consorts to dismayed ruler, about The Mormon, about Pongi who tried to grab The Mormon’s flipper but missed by a centimeter, about the vomiting French, about the waves that were scales of the ocean flexing in perpetuity.

She nodded, somewhat satisfied.

She looked fiercely ahead and started accelerating. I found some purchase on the handle above the door and hung on as we rounded the bend. Below were black volcanic rocks, black daggers rising from the foam.

With some trepidation, I glance to my left without moving my head. She seemed still but there was a storm in her eyes. They had welled up, red and pregnant with tears so that her eyes looked like melting olives.

”It is nature. You cannot chase nature. You must respect it”.

She banged her fist on the wheel.

The car swerved.

I prayed.

She lit another cigarette. The flame from her lighter trembled like a cold child. I studied her cheekbones and the constellations of freckles on her face.

She apologised and drove silently whilst sucking on her cigarette. I helped myself to one as well.

We had passed the point where she said she was going to drop me off a while ago. I didn't say anything and just watched the smoke get vacuumed out of the window into the raging night.

She had a firm jawline that grimaced every once in a while. It was hard to know what was going on in her head but the restless scanning of her eyes gave an indication to the currents beneath the surface. She would tell me that she had gone crazy driving around Moorea. Round and round and round. Sometimes she would take the ferry to Tahiti just to be able to drive in bigger circles.

The windshield wipers scraped back and forth noisily and unsympathetically.

"Make sure to write a review on Trip Advisor" she said

I was spacing out for a while thinking about nothing in particular.

"Yeah of course. I'll say it was the best osteopath experience I had in Moorea".

She looked at me blankly.

"No, write a review about the whales and how bad the guides were."

I didn't know what else to do but laugh at myself.

"Yes, of course I will"

She dropped me off right at the door of the hostel. She gave me her email and I said that I would write to her once I got back to Norway.

It's been a year and I still think about it. I never wrote that review and I never sent her that email. Perhaps it's too late now.