Raratonga, Cook Islands (South Pacific)Sep 21, 2009
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Arrival in Cook Islands.
Coo-coo for coconuts.
Please re trim the nose hairs.
Kia Orana
We have arrived in Rarotonga. Native singers and musicians, flowered leas and immigration all at a very early hour and in the dark. 6 am is very early, but thanks to our travel agent we reserved early check in so we were able to go straight to our beach paradise bungalow and have a nap.
The bungalow is absolutely perfect. Sitting right on the beach with a private deck. The accommodations include a king sized bed, kitchenette and bathroom. |The one meal included with our stay is breakfast which include choices like fresh fruit, cereals, toast….COFFEE… normal stuff (fortunately there was a store just down the road where Beth was able to buy soy milk for her “Cocoa puffs”
After our nap and stuffing our bellies we took a leisurely stroll down the endless white sand beach. The beach is on the south side of the island and is protected by a large reef so the water is relatively calm. Unfortunately it is a little chilly due to the wind so snorkelling will have to wait for the sun to come out and play.
The remainder of the day was spent relaxing in the room and eating at the lodge restaurant.
Sept 22
We decided today would be an explore the island day. It was warm and sunny so we rented a scooter to tour the island. The whole island is only 34km in circumference and only has one main road. Driving the scooter on the left did not prove to be near as difficult as dodging the other scooters, trucks, chickens, dogs, goats, cocoa nuts and pedestrians. There is a “back-road” that circles the island just in land a bit from the coastal road. We explored this as much as possible to get a view of the non-tourist areas. We managed to find the only water falls that are on the island. They advertise that you can take a dip there but the water level was low.
Lunch was spent in Avarua, the main town on the north side of the island. We ate at “Kool Kabobs” which we had seen afew “locals” eating at. Lots of chicken, rice and salad cooked on a barbeque inside a shack. Awesome.
We scooted back to our resort and spent the afternoon snorkelling in clear, clean ocean. We were never more than 50 meters from shore and yet there were large numbers of beautiful coloured fish swimming with us among the coral.
It started to rain a bit so we ate supper at the resort. For such a small place it has really great food.
Sept 23
It looked like it might be a rain day, but, we decided to take a chance and take the scooter back in to town before the rain started to do some last minute shopping. Bad decision. 15 minutes from the bungalow the skies opened up. The locals are still talking about how much it rained in those few hours. Anyways, as you can imagine we were soaked. I don’t mean wet, I mean fully clothed jump in the pool wet, and 20 kms from anywhere! We had no choice but to finish our shopping and then drive back to our lodging. We spent the rest of the day drying our clothes and shoes with a hair dryer.
As we ate our supper, the skies cleared and gave us the most beautiful sun set you could imagine. It was a great site to have on our last night in paradise.
Sept 24
Our ride to the airport was not scheduled to pick us up until 2:30pm, so we took the local bus back to town. The island only has 2 buses, one runs clock wise and the other runs counter clock wise around the island. The people here on Rarotonga have been wonderful. Everyone has been friendly, accommodating, patient and helpful. There was no point in time, or any point in our explorations here that we felt unsafe or threatened.
We were sad to leave, but excited to move on to New Zealand. Our flight left Rarotonga at 5:00pm on Sept 24, and after 4 hours in the air, we arrived in Auckland at 8:00pm on the 25th. “Space and time making love….”(for Snork)
Sorry Lesley, your birthday seems to have been swallowed by a tear in the space/time continuum.
