In 1983, my mom and dad took me to Bora Bora during the Christmas break
from school. It was the centerpiece of
the best three weeks of traveling in my life.
I spent a four days in Las Vegas with my friend Kevin from UC Santa Barbara.
After doing laundry and a night’s sleep, I meet my parents at LAX. We flew non-stop to Tahiti, caught a
jump-job to Bora Bora and stayed for ten days in a tropical paradise. After coming home and doing more laundry, I
drove to North Lake Tahoe to join Kevin’s family for 3 days of skiing.
There are too many wonderful moments in that three week period along
with a few scary ones such as running low on gas while driving through a ghost
town in the Mojave desert on a gravel highway.
My reason for reflecting on Bora Bora was I was going use it as the
basis for my Great Spirit reef and so
went to Google Maps to refresh my memory.
OMG! It had gone from being 3
hotels on a small island to having the entire circumference and much of the
outer reef lined with wall-to-wall hotels.
I am certainly grateful for having gone 31 years ago instead of, say,
last Christmas. It would be like going
Waikiki without the tourist sites.
The Hotel Bora Bora presumably is no more. 30-some years ago, they were the first to
build over-the-water bungalows. My best
guess is that is now the Intercontinental Bora Bora Hotel on Matira Point. There is a webstub here saying the Hotel
Bora Bora is closed for reconstruction.
I will use the Bora Bora of my memory and imagination to build a cross
between a memory palace
and my Great Spirit reef. It will be a warm
inviting safe place to store happy memories, live in the present moment and
contemplate future plans.
I am grateful for being at least moderately well-traveled and
educated. None of my friends have been
to Bora Bora and only a few of them knew about the memory palace concept. It is a god-given gift to have seen unspoiled
natural beauty like Bora Bora and to have tools to help me retain what is left
of my now dwindling memories. This was the best vacation I ever went on with both my parents. The three of us rarely traveled (well) together.
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