It turns out that the Ford Focus is not to be rented out for more than 1 hour at a time, so yesterday afternoon I had no choice but to drive the Land Rover up the twisty (paved) road to the Belvédère. It was terrifying, but I made it and was able to do a couple hours of fieldwork on the Col des Trois Cocotiers trail. I've never driven anything as big as a Land Rover before, and the huge thing rattling away in the back made it really hard to tell if I was in the right gear. I was so excited when I got back to the Gump that I exclaimed to the other entomologists how happy I was that I hadn't killed myself, or totaled the truck. They humored me.

This morning I watched France beat Portugal in the World Cup with three French people up at the director's residence. Their enthusiasm, screaming "Putain!" (literally, "whore") every time something bad happened, was half the fun. It'll be interesting to see how Tahitians respond if France wins--during halftime, there was footage of a reporter asking Tahitians on Moorea and Huahine how they thought the game would turn out. All but one (who seemed contrarian) predicted France would win easily.

This afternoon I drove over to Afareaitu, on the west side of Moorea, but when I arrived at the trailhead, it was dumping rain. I waited for half an hour, went up the trail for 5 minutes, got soaked, and sadly made my way back to the station. Hopefully it won't be raining tomorrow. On Friday I will probably go into Papeete to try to buy maps from a government office, and on Saturday I am going up Mt. Rotui, one of the most challenging trails on Moorea, but where there is said to be plenty of Glochidion.