Cook Islands 3 (our hosts)

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For most of our time in the Cooks we stayed at a house called Rau's Guesthouse. This is a house owned by a man called Atua who (along with his wife Mata) is really nice who was really helpful to us throughout.

Firstly on one of the island nights that we went to (polynesian dancing etc.) there were no buses back home after the shopws had ended so Atua gave me, Elaine, and a guy called Christian (a German who was also staying at the house) a ride back home. We sat in the back of his open back truck and drove back home at night (this was really cool in itself).

Atua also took me to the hospital when i had the problem with my face, i did not ask him to he just offered and whats more afterwards he took Elaine and myself out for some food, specifically for pizza which he insisted on paying for (despite Elaine's protestations). He said that he felt that we had gone to his house s he could look after us (as my previous diary entry attests i did have some low moments there).

He allowed us to use his bikes and snorkelling equipment for free and it seemed as though if you had any problems you could ask him and he would endeavour to sort them, this was not only true of us but also of the other residents there. He was a really nice guy and i wish to thank him on the internet for all the help he gave us.

We stayed there seven nights in total (five in the first week and our last 2 nights in the cooks) and on that last night he told us that we could stay at his house until late that night without having to pay another nights rent and he came to pick us up at 2.15 am to take us to the airport for our c.4am flight. This was because his daughter was landinmg at the airport that night and he offered to combine this with taking us there. At the airport we got photographs of ourselves with Atua and Mata and they also got photos of us. Atua said that he would like to know how we are getting on so we exchanged email addresses.

It seems clear that Atua and Mata are just about the best hosts we have had so far on our trip.

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