The Cook Islands Part 1

---

Well the Cook Islands were GREAT!!! We had an excellent time, besides our little flight delay problem...but that was easily fixed by beautiful beaches and warm weather.
As per the previous blog entry, we were delayed in LA for about 6 hours, and then had to be re-routed to Hawaii to pick up a new captain (not sure how we flew to Hawaii without a captain..hmm...)
We arrived on the main island of Rarotonga at about 3pm, where they rushed us through customs and we got on the next flight to Aitutaki. Aitutaki is such a great place. We much prefer it to Rarotongs. Both the people and weather were extremely warm!

We stayed in a great place called Rino's Bungalows, which were the cheapest rooms on the island. They had kitchens and were very clean, so nothing to complain about there. Well, except for the beds that felt like concrete. Needless to say, we were up at 7am every morning! We had gone to buy fresh fruit, and so every morning we would have amazing papaya and passionfruit with our cereal and toast. We met a lot of wonderful people, and had a few beers with some locals the very first night we were there.

We went on 2 snorkeling trips around the lagoon, and they were amazing! We went with a small boat called Aitutaki Adventures, and the owners, Puna and Tutu, were great hosts! They cooked us up an excellent lunch both days with fresh fish, papaya salad, and everything inbetween. We seen so many amazing fish, and even an octopus! Snorkeling was definetely a highlight of our trip. We also went to an island night, where we had a buffet dinner and watched fire dancers. That was great as well. We got sat with a couple that had been married 60 years!!!!! They were very interesting people to say the least...

Every other day we just did a lot of swimming at this great deserted beach we found. We also went for some amazing meals!! The fish and chips are the best! In the evenings we played A LOT of crib. It was good though, nice to not have to worry and just be able to relax. On our second day that we were there, our scooter got a flat tire, so we ended up getting a really fast newer scooter which was great! I've attached pictures of our scooter mishap.

All in all it was a great trip to the Cooks! We can't wait to go back! On our last day we flew back to Rarotonga early and rented a car, and just drove around and went to check out some shops. We left for Australia at 3am. Part 2 of this blog with more pictures will also be posted soon! Stay tuned for our upcoming Aussie adventures!!!!

Love,
A & T

---

Comments

[Neil]

Tans
So I can see a definite tan starting to show up in these pictures! What a great adventure you guys are on!