At Home in Bora Bora

View from our living room: Bora Bora lagoon is fantasy beautiful any time of day or night .

Bora Bora, Mix Hart /17

I held off blogging about the time we spent at our unique vacation home in Bora Bora (in May, 2017) until today. A snowy, January, Canadian landscape has inspired this French Polynesian post.

I’ve made time to get this long-hidden post out because the cold winter winds have stranded me inside my mountain top home and as I glance out the window at the tree branches, heavy with snow, I long to return to this place of tropical wild.

*Above: evening views of the lagoon from our living room, Bora Bora

Bora Bora is so beautiful it might reside in a place that exists only my dreams and yet I Know it to be real as its wild beauty is raw and a bit unnerving. I was fully alive in Bora Bora, all my senses wide awake. In the South Pacific, our wild adventures occurred both in the confines of our elegant rental home as well as in the turquoise waters that surround the tiny island of Bora Bora.

*Above: Peter, Mist and Pip in the driveway of our Mediterranean style vacation home in Bora Bora.

*Above: Mist and Pip with one of the house dachshunds.

*Below: views from the master bedroom

Above: our front lawn with the resident chickens and roosters.

*Above: the house courtyard.

*Above: courtyard sculpture by Garrick Yrondi.

*Above: Pippi walking up our driveway with view of the front yard and lagoon.

*Above: me in our front yard, Bora Bora.

Our vacation home belongs to a French Sculptor and painter who was renting it while he was away in Europe.

The home is filled with stunning art and lovely pets: three dachshunds, an old cat and three budgies, resident chickens and roosters, and hundreds of geckos in various sizes.

The Open Air Living Room

*Above: Pippi with the loveable dashounds.

*above: Pippi in our living room with our “rental”kitty. He was a darling, older gentleman–18 years old.

Bora Bora has little to no crime and thus, our home was open to the elements. One night, I walked into the kitchen, turned off the lights before bed and then, standing in the dark, I was suddenly startled by an Italian man speaking to me (in French) from the dark living room. Terror struck my heart as I fumbled in the dark for the lights to see who the stranger was in my living room! He ended up being a traveller looking for a place to crash (there’s something to be said for houses with doors).

*Above Peter doing yoga.

*Above:the flowering vine dropped fresh pink flower petals on the floor daily–so beautiful!

*Above: the open air living room is our favourite spot to relax.

*Above: sculpture in our dining room by Garrick Yrondi.

Above:Mistaya in the open living room.

Above: our guard dachshunds.

The Kitchen

We adored all of the pets and they were honestly the most wonderful reasons we enjoyed our stay at the house.

Above:Pip having breakfast with her new best buddy by her side.

Above: Mist and Pip in the kitchen with a few of the pets.

Above: Pete and Pip with the dashounds.

Above: Mist taking a technology break.

The housekeepers always provided us with fresh flowers, which was a lovely touch.

We met Hilde, a generous, kind, German woman (she speaks 5 languages) who was once a technician on the set of Hurricane (starring Mia Farrow, filmed in Bora Bora). She lives in a cottage on the property.

Above: with the fascinating Hilde.

Bedrooms

Paradise comes with a price. Our home had air-conditoning in only one room (the girls’ bedroom).

Our home was also was home to many insects: thousands of free-roaming millipedes, giant cockroaches and a few (highly poisonous) giant centipedes made our home stay an adventure!