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Published: December 6th 2006
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So it's the Saturday 11th November, exactly one year on from when I was sat in Heathrow about to start this huge adventure. Today I'm sat in Nadi airport to catch a flight to Rorotonga a small little Island, part of the Idilic Cook Islands in the middle of the South Pacific.
I arrived in Rarotonga on Friday 10th November. Extremely confusing for you as it is for me. By travelling this way around the world we have managed to gain a day in our trip by crossing the Dateline, therefore we celebrate being away for a year not once but twice.
I am now writing in past tense as it was a very long time ago since I was actually in Raro'.
What did we do in Raro??
To be honest not very much.
When we arrived it was dark and we had no idea where we were going to stay. Luckily a guy we knew from Beachcomber had booked into a hostel called Vara's beach-house wehere we'd heard was quite good. So when we got there Dave asked Vara if we could stay and before we even knew what was going on there was a Raro lady
shouting "hey curly boys!" at us. We felt famous, they must have heard we were coming?! We were also with Nick one of the guys we met in Fiji at Kuata. (the guy I think I mentioned in my last blog).
We were taken around to a load of different accomodation all owned by this lady; Vara and were finally dropped off at a house, which seemed to be in the middle of no-where not near any civilisation. I was desperate for bed after my 20 minutes sleep the night before and staright away crashed out.
In the morning I was able to see that the house was indeed in the middle of no where and not near any civilisation, i.e. shops etc. But we did have a beautiful view over out to sea past a very rocky beach. The house itself was as I say; a house. Apparently Vara had moved out of it and was now renting it out.
Rarotonga ia very closely linked with New Zealand, even using the same currency, so the people are very much a-likened to Maori's in terms of appearance and the way they speak. There were some very big people there,
people that looked like they'd pull your arms off with no problem what-so-ever, but most of whom were very friendly, dispite their intimidating appearance. Sadly not quite as nice as Fijians though.
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For the P&P crew, imagine Ricky and then double him in size!!! ...I know I never thought it possible!
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We had 3 days of very nice weather playing Haki-Sak on the beach and catching some rays.
We were warned that the weather was going to change, which sadly it did. Although it was still warm, it was grey and rainy, solidly for 7 days. This was pretty awful because when your on a paradise Island there really is nothing to do; no fascinating buildings to look at, no cinema, no museums..... nothing. So We began to feel very isolated at the house.
Everyone one in Raro travelled around on Mopeds, usually helmet-less and driving in a crazy manner. The funniest sights were definately really huge, wide men riding around on these tiny little mopeds, sometimes I wonder how something so small could; A: carry them and B: actually move?
Where we were transport was a must in order to see any of the
island.
We could walk to a nearby beach where the main part of Vara's hostel was but it was about 20/30mins walk which in the sun wasn't very appealing.
After a few days of being pretty much stranded at the house we eventually hired a car, which worked out cheaper for the the 3 of us over Mopeds. It was a little Suzuki jeep, which enabled us to drive around the Island and get to and from the shops easily. It was a nippy little thing named Suzzie, but in all fair-ness we didn't really take full advantage of her, as in the bad weather that came there was no call to use her.
The only thing that really saved us was a few awesome nights out with Nick and Dave, usually leading to some craziness back at the house. We normally found our way home by hitch-hiking; a very common thing to do in Raro. One night we some-how managed to fit all 5 of us in the back of a small Nissan Micra? how we did it I'll never know?! Road safety in Raro was really not an issue as there was only one road that
led around the island and some small dirt tracks that led inland. We passed through a police check point on the way back, that for some reason Matt and I had to get out for so the old woman driving didn't get done for over filling her car. We were then picked up again just down the street. Another night we got a lift into the "town" sat in the back of a Yute (pick-up, truck? I can't remember the English translation?) with the wind blowing through our large long hair. Blinding the people driving behind us, haha!
We celebrated our one year anniversary with some 58% Bounty Fijian rum (bought in Duty Free) that blew our socks off, but entitled us to a brilliant and crazy night out. My eyesight obviously did funny things to me when Chris dragged me away from a 'girl' I was talking to, shouting at me that it was a man, which on the photo's I saw the next day it clearly was?! Thanks for the encouragement at the time though Matt, who also thought it was a girl! EEK!!!
The days went by reading and sleeping until we were eventually told that
we could maove to the main Vara's building, which was by the beach and was more of a hostel. We were told it was full so we thought it would be good to meet some new people after Nick and Dave had departed.
We stayed there for four nights and with Dave and Nick gone the party atmosphere was hard to get going. The weather cleard up a bit towards the end of our stay so we could do some sun-bathing and swimming.
I think we completely over estimated how long we'd need in Raro and with the dateline issue we clearly planned it wrong and had far too long there. It was all fun and games in the end, but it was time to move on.... Tahiti here we come!
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