""Castaway" this aint!" a Cook Islands Travel Page by piwowarRTW

<b>28 February 2001 -- Wednesday</b>
We land at 6:30AM, after about 14 hours in the air and very little sleep. At first, there didn't seem to be anyone there to meet us as were told to expect, but eventually sommeone saw us looking lost, and asked us who we were looking for. Happy coincidence! She was Lily, the owner of the cottage were renting. The cottage was on a plot of land on one of the least-developed parts of the island's coast: the eastern side, right between the villages of Matavera and Ngatangiia. It was cute, clean, "self-service," (had a kitchen and whatnot) perfectly sized for two people, and literally right on the beach -- less than 100 feet from the water.

We fell asleep to the sound of the waves for a short nap, then awoke to wander toward lunch. This is how we discovered that we were on a little-developed part of the island...we had to walk quite a way to find a place to eat. :-) We ate at "Sails" on the Muri Lagoon in Ngatangiia, walked a bit more, then took a bus into town (Avarua). We learned to our dismay that the ATMs on the island (all two of them) weren't on the Plus system and therefore wouldn't work with our bank cards, so we were stuck w/ cash advances. Ah well.

While in town, we lucked into a bike rental, even though it was way after normal closing time (everything except restaurants, a few grocery stores, and gas stations in Rarotonga closes up at around 4PM); we figure the guy was at the shop for some other purpose, saw out exhausted faces, and took pity on us. ;-)

The bike ride back was the first illustration of our informal "Rarotonga rule": If John and Heather are on a bicycle, they will be throughly drenched by rain before they reach home or any other shelter. Not such a terrible thing, since the rain was warm, but it took a toll on our clothes. :) After we got back to the cottage, the rain had abated enough for us to walk (again!) to a restaurant we'd seen earlier in our travels: The Flame Tree. We ate outdoors on their patio, had <i>great</i> food, and counted little lizards that were having a field day w/ the bugs flitting around the lights. We dragged our utterly exhausted selves back to the cottage, to fall asleep with the sound of crashing waves of the Pacific as a lullabye.

<b>01 March 2001 -- Thursday</b>
A "recharge" day after knocking ourselves out the previous day. We mostly just lazed about, read, and waded in the surf a bit. The water is quite shallow on the reef, which extends outward quite a bit, but we were told that beyond the reef it's a straight drop of a about a kilometer, and there are sharks and all manner of other big fish paddling about. We discovered that <b>nothing</b> air dries very well in the humidity here; the occasional showers don't help much if you're trying to dry things outside, either. We found a place for dinner called the Marama Lounge Bar and Grill that offered to pick us up at our cottage and return us when we were done eating; this was quite a bonus for us since it had started raining again. :) From the driver, we discovered that the reason it was raining so much was that (a) it was hurricane season -- whoops! and (b) there was a cyclone near Fiji that was playing havoc with the local weather. Had a great talk w/ the Marama's bartender, a tasty dinner, and resolved to listen to the radio more often for weather developments. :-)

<b>02 March 2001 -- Friday</b>
Rarotonga's the biggest, most developed, and most populous island in the Cooks, but the main road around the island is only 20 miles long. Before we arrived, we'd decided to bike it. Today we did that, though fortunately (since we didn't have the world''s most comfortable bikes) in segments.

Our first stop was the Rarotonga Cultural Village, about halfway around the island from our cottage. It was sort of a live-action history/cultural heritage museum -- we were led around a little collection of huts by native Rarotongans (Maori). Each hut was set up to teach visitors about an aspect of Maori culture prior to arrival of Europeans: medicine, weaving, fishing, cooking, carving, coconuts (yes, an entire hut devoted to coconuts). The tour ended with a demonstration of native dance, complete with audience participation (alas, Heather got pictures :-P), and a lunch of fruit, vegetables and chicken prepared in the traditional style -- served in a bowl of woven leaves, with no utensils.

After this, we decided to bike into town in Avarua, about 5-6 miles away, to do some grocery shopping. This is where we got our second demonstration of our "Rarotonga Rule": About 5 minutes into our ride, it began to rain. Hard. Hard enough to drench us in less than a minute. Already soaked, we pressed onward (since we were halfway around the island, going forward saw the same as going back). After dripping our way through the grocery store in Avarua, we headed for home.

After two and a half days, we''d finally puzzled out the evening bus schedule (after 4PM, only one bus runs instead of the usual two, and sometimes it's clockwise, sometimes counterclockwise). This enabled us to catch a ride back into town and had a yummy dinner at Portofino's, a restaurant with a mostly Italian menu, as it turns out. Good pizza and pasta. :)

<b>03 March 2001 -- Saturday</b>
<i>We've been married a month! Whoa, where does the time go?</i>

Some resting and reading today, but there were two non-lazy items. First was a late-morning jaunt into town (we took the bus this time, since we assumed it would rain on us -- we can be taught!) for the weekly open-air market, where locals from Rarotonga and possibly from nearby islands sell food, hand-crafted items, clothing, and recordings of local music. Very popular with both tourists (natch) and with locals, as it provides a place for families to get together in socialize w/ each other -- they're also instituting a Friday evening market for this purpose. We also stopped in some of the local shops that had been closed on our previous trips into town. Heather bought a book (having already devoured the ones we'd brought with us) and John bought a new t-shirt to replace one that had been wrecked by the biking in the rain -- whoops.

In the evening, we went to a resort on the other side of the island for an "Island Night" celebration -- a buffet of local foods followed by a show featuring native music and dance. The food, as you'd expect at a resort, was good, but the music and dance were <b>fantastic</b>! The music was primarily drumming and singing/chanting, pucntuated by yelling/exclamations. The dancing was quite expressive and exuberant, and augmented the drumming perfectly.

<b>04 March 2001 -- Sunday</b>
Last day in the Cooks, and a long one at that! Started off with church at 10AM. The conversion of the population to Christianity in the 1800s really took hold; there are a <i>ton</i> of churches here...even more than John's hometown of Scottdale, and that's saying a lot. The ceremony we attended was primarily in Rarotongan, but they did a good job on including off-island visitors by repeating parts in English. The hymns were all in Rarotongan, and sung in parts...the sound was out of this world. Based on the overheard conversations from other tourists sitting nearby, the singing at Rarotongan church services is sufficiently impressive to bring people to church who aren't normally "church people."

After church, we lounged around the cottage for a while, then biked (I bet you can see where this is going) into town. It was deserted -- no surprise, since <i>everything</i> is closed on Sundays. We sat outside a restaurant, reading, until it opened at 6, had dinner, and rode back to the cottage. About a mile frm the cottage -- you guessed it -- it started to rain. This rain was courtesy of a tropical depression that was sweeping over the island, and it didn't stop for over 6 hours. Yoi. I tried to appreciate the irony of this, since it was less than 8 hours till we had to leave, and we had <i>finally</i> managed to get everything dry, but mostly I just got wet. :-)

So we packed up, swept a few sand dunes out of our cottage (the beach just sort of creeps in), and waited for our ride to the airport, which showed up at 10:45PM. Our flight was at 1:45AM on Monday. You know how large airports have shops and whatnot in which you can distract yourself while waiting for your flight? Erm, well, this was very much <i>not</i> a large airport. After a long 3 hours, we were bound for less-tropical, but hopefully drier New Zealand!

Overall, we had a great time on Rarotonga...we got the sand, surf, and relaxation we were looking for, and it helped us recharge after several months of frantic racing around prior to the trip. It was a great start to the overseas part of our adventure!