Kia Orana - The Cook Islands and Temporal Anomalies

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The flight from Fiji to the Cook Islands is again three hours but due to the fact we cross the international dateline we get caught in a temporal anomaly which means we travel back in time. Our flight took off from Nadi at 6:15pm on Saturday 19th August and landed on Raratonga in the Cook Islands at 11:30pm on Friday 18th August, nearly 20 hours before we took off! This means that we get to enjoy the 19th August all over again, and we can claim to be one day younger than we actually are!

So we arrived at Raratonga airport in the middle of the night -well at 11pm anyway, and got out on the tarmac. Our guide book had warned us to expect a warm welcome from a man with a ukulele but considering the time we weren’t hopeful. We needn’t have worried as we walked into the terminal building the crooning of a old man complete with George Formby ukulele filled our ears along with many “Kia Orana”s welcoming us to the country. You may be thinking “hang on - that sounds awfully like something that is too orangey for crows” and you would be right. The Cook Islands are where the New Zealand Maori originate from, getting into large canoes around 800 years ago to find new land and discovering Aotearoa - the Land of the Long White Cloud, now known as New Zealand. The culture here is therefore similar as is the language. I guess it is similar to talking to someone from Glasgow if you are English! They are however a little less warrior-like here and you are more likely to see the men wearing a crown of tropical flowers than doing the Hakka.

We cleared customs with only the slight issue of some food we had brought with us. The customs form said to declare all food we were carrying so we showed the customs lady the packet of Russian Caravan teabags we had managed to get at the airport in Fiji. She seemed to think it was quite amusing we were bothering to tell her and waved us through . As we came through the doors a large Cook Islander woman asked us where we were staying and pointed us to our pick up for Vara’s- literally it was a pick-up truck - though that was just for the luggage. We piled into a minibus that was following. We given a quick night tour of the town of the way and the driver explained that the next day was Saturday so was half day closing and Sunday nothing opened - so if we didn’t want to very hungry by Monday we better get to the supermarket in the morning.

So next morning we were up and out and ready to enjoy our Groundhog Day. We caught the bus back to town and did our shopping just before all the shops closed. We then headed for the beach and sat on the sundeck even though it was a tad windy for sun bathing. Muri Beach is gorgeous. The sand is a golden yellow and the water is that impossibly tropical blue and green in the lagoon. You can see the waves breaking on the reef, but in the lagoon there are few waves. There are also four small islands in the lagoon that we were determined to get a closer look at. But for today we were happy to chill.

Sunday and they weren’t kidding about the everything closed thing. They are enthusiastically religious here with even the hostel taking every opportunity to persuade us to attend a church service on the island. Virtually everyday there is some sort of evangelical programming of the worst American sort. Television here is quite amusing. There is only one channel which broadcasts only on an evening, and they clearly don’t have a proper TV studio here so all the local items have the homemade-in-your-brother’s-bedroom feel to them. Adverts come on in the middle of programmes that appear to be ended when the controller gets bored rather than they have finished. Quite often at the end of an ad you here the voice over man shuffling his papers or laughing with the recordist. It is very funny. We decided though it was another chilling day so spent the day reading and enjoying the sun.

Monday we made another visit to town in order to use the internet. We had been worried for a while about our next destination of Tahiti and needed to make some tough decisions. When we made our plans we knew that Tahiti was expensive - every one you mention the place to tell you as much so it’s hard not to. Unfortunately we had not reckoned on how expensive. Although we did find some accommodation that we could stretch our budget too - a quick search on the internet for reviews showed these places to be basically hell holes of the rat infested type. After hours of searching and really not finding anywhere that was both reasonable and acceptable we decided that there was no point in going and spending a fortune on a week in pace where we would be living in a slum and not being able to afford to do anything else so we decided to change our ticket reducing our time in Tahiti from a week to an hour and a half. Then we would be able to enjoy our time in the US and Canada. It is sad that we won’t see Tahiti - this time anyway! I have promised to take Lindsay to Bora Bora when we are both rich. After the decision had been made it was back to that beach.

This beach going is a bit of theme of this week. The lagoon at Muri beach is great to swim in though there isn’t much animal life beyond Sea Cucumbers near the shore so snorkelling didn’t seem worth it. I did swim out to the island and have a walk around it. I had just found a book that Lins hadn’t read in the book exchange so that was her gone from the world of the living for the day. The lagoon isn’t that deep so although it was quite a way, you are never going to get tired. One day we decided to get some Kayaks and explore the further reaches of the lagoon. We actually managed to get a double kayak though I’m not entirely sure it was a good idea. I lack all rhythm and a knowledge of my right from left so we were a bit un co-ordinated (and I had to do most of the paddling on my own because Russell was too tired, and the rest of the time he was working against me - Lins). We first paddled to the island I swam to and had a look around. It started to rain whilst we were out there and combined with the fact that the kayak was nearly always filled with water we were pretty wet. Next we wanted to circumnavigate another one of the islands but as we paddled out it became a bit noticeable that we were quite heavy in the water and this time it wasn’t me. We quickly paddled to shore and tipped the kayak up. It took about 5 minutes for all the water to come out. With a newly floating boat we set sail again for our island. We got all the way around and even stopped to admire some of the fish that live out in the outer reef. On our way back though the water was very shallow and it was difficult to paddle. The boat was getting low in the water again and eventually the water was coming over the back of the boat where I was sitting. Then the rain started to hammer it down and fill the few parts of the kayak that were not waterlogged. By the time we got back to shore I was quite clear I had had enough of kayaks for one lifetime.

Thursday night was Island Night at one of the town restaurants so we put our name down and paid for a transfer from the hostel. About an hour before we due to leave we were told that the transfer wouldn’t go ahead due to lack of interest, so we should make our own way. What they didn’t tell us was how we were supposed to do that! We caught the night bus the long way around the island and arrived at the restaurant just before we were due to eat. We were placed on a table for five so that we could enjoy the entertainment as a group. Unfortunately the other three didn’t turn up, so we eat alone. The food was excellent - being a little taste of many local and not so local dishes -like chop suey. I can’t actually remember what they were all called but hey, they were good. After we had finished our meal the staff asked us if we wanted to join a different table for the floor show which we did. We sat with two Kiwi women who were of Cook Island decent and a couple of Aussies. A few drinks and a chat later and the show was about to start. The show was a combination of traditional drumming, singing and dancing. We were welcomed by the chief and then the dancing really started going. The women, dressed in palm leaf skirts and plastic coconut bras were doing the full hip shake, whilst the men in traditional palm leaf dress were doing a more knees knocking move. It was all very fast paced but was beautiful to watch. It was even better when it came to the audience participation part and one of the Cook Island Maori men (boy - he was about 12! - Lins) picked Lins as his dance partner. I hadn’t brought my camera but the nice Aussie couple offered me there’s and assured me that their kids were IT literate enough to e-mail them to us. So as I was getting the camera ready I could here the MC saying “So your husband is the one with the camera? - He’ll be able to hold these photo’s against you for a while!” The music started and Lins started to swing her hips as fast as she could with her partner knocking his knees. Ah, really do hope those photos come out (The poor lad was mortified that I was so unco-ordinated - Lins). We were also shown traditional ways of tying your sarong - for both men and women as well as having the politics and history of the Cook Islands explained. They have an election here in a few weeks time and it is hard to get away from it at the moment. The big topics seem to be party-hopping by MPs and the fact that 24 MPs in parliament is far too many. All was done with great humour by the MC who kept the audience laughing throughout. The show was over and we had plenty of time of a drink before the last night bus home.

Soon enough it was Friday and nearly time to leave our beach paradise. We had actually ran out of cash so I had to make the journey back to town to get to an ATM machine. Lins backed me off with a list of things I needed to buy since I was going to be in town. I sat on the bus running these things through my head. I got to the ATM and queued up. I opened my wallet and it was at that point I remembered I didn’t have my bank card. It was back at the hostel and I have to say I was less than pleased. I had to get the next bus back to the hostel empty handed where I have to say that Lins was very good about things. We scraped together enough money to buy some bread and had the rest of our cheese on the beach. We then both went into town and got the money and had a coffee in a nice café. Well it was the least I could do.

On our last day we savoured our last day of summer weather before we headed for the northern hemisphere. Late afternoon we headed for the western side of the island in order to see the sun set. Unfortunately it was cloudy on the horizon so we didn't get the full effect but it was peaceful and beautiful no the less. We then headed to a little italian for our last pacific meal and a drink or two. Unfortunately somewhere between the restaurant and getting back to the hostel to pick up the bags I lost the camera so I can't share any of the lovely sunset photos with you. Fortunately we had backed up all the other photos on the chip just before we had gone to see the sunset so we have all the rest. We are now at the airport waiting for our flight out. The ukulele man is here banging out those tunes with a funky backbeat - I don't think I'm ready to go.

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Photos

Beach 3
Paradise, paradise, paradise

Beach 1
Lins laps up the sun

Beach 2
Sigh!

Lagoon 1
Paradise!

Kayaking
Just before we got very wet!

Muri Beach
From the little island

Avarua
The capital city!

Island
The one we circumnavigated

Sailing
Boats on the lagoon

Beach 4
Just can't take our eyes off it

Lagoon 3
What more can I say