Thoughts on Island Time

It's the highly anticipated end of trip reflection that all three of you will read. The flight back to LA was uneventful and quick. I slept for an unprecedented 6 hours. My adjustment to Pacific time was almost immediate, but there's certainly a difference between life in LA and life on the Cook Islands.

This trip was different in the sense that we didn't have anything planned. There were no trains to catch, no sights to see or places of historical significance. It's an island and there are beaches with blue water. The #1"sight" on the Cook Islands listed on Tripadvisor is a church.

The first thing that struck me about these islands is how isolated they are. When I think of other obscure pacific islands like Rapa Nui or Molokai, the Cook Islands are still more isolated. When offered the newspaper at breakfast, I found the top news story to be about the pros and cons of fishing with nets. Following this was a recap of a local rugby game and a single comic strip in the back so you can keep up on Hagar the Horrible. If you wanted to know what was happening in Australia or the Americas, good luck. Something has to contribute to this isolation, though, so let's try and figure this out.

There are currently only two airlines that connect the outside world to the islands - Virgin Australia and Air New Zealand. Of these, there is only one flight from the entire United States . . . per week. A quick statistics search yielded that approx. 120,000 people visit the Cook Islands annually. For some perspective, that's less than the number of people staying on the Las Vegas strip on any given night. Of that number, less than 20,000 visit Aitutaki, the second most popular island after Rarotonga. Those numbers are extremely low. That's about 55 people per day if you do the math.

It is also interesting what we observed about other tourists. There are virtually no Americans - almost all are from New Zealand or Australia. On Rarotonga, we were the only people renting a car at our bungalow. Apparently everyone else just gets an airport transfer to their bungalow and don't move for the rest of their vacation. I'm not sure how this is possible. I can't imagine not being able to explore the remainder of the island (as small as it may be). The car gave us access to spots to watch the sunset, the island's only waterfall, hikes, places to shop, and the option of going to different places to eat. I had no idea it was going to be so hard to find food. Most of the restaurants were simple tin-roofed establishments off dirt roads that wouldn't resemble an establishment worthy of visiting in the U.S. This is typical. Some speculate that it is due to the possibility of cyclones destroying buildings. If one's establishment gets destroyed and it was only made of crappy materials and corrugated tin, it's easily replaced. The same was true for store fronts. Looking for that ukulele store you saw a sign for? It's down a dirt driveway in the backyard of someone's house. Looking for that brewery? It's in that garage. Yes, the whole brewery.

Of course, all of this relative obscurity and isolation gives these islands something unique. For one, it's nice for picture taking. Beaches are empty. The waters are clear and pollution-free. But beyond that, the Cook Islands has preserved its culture and language. While almost everyone speaks english, they also speak a Cook Island Maori dialect. The same cannot be said for Hawaii. The Hawaiian language is all but dead. And the droves of tourists are reshaping what Hawaii was to what people think Hawaii should be with Mai Tais and ham & pineapple pizza being ordered instead of Loco Moco and mac salad.

The Cook Islands are still true to themselves. "There are no tomatoes on the island," and "Our store ran out of water," were things we heard during our stay. I don't imagine this would be said on Hawai'i. So to some, it may seem as an inconvenience, a departure from the comforts of home. You can go on a vacation at an all-inclusive resort and eat resort food and do resort activities and hang out with resort people or you can go on vacation and experience a place as it is, even if there are no more tomatoes. After all, I live less than a mile from the beach. If all we needed was a beach, we didn't have to go far. And in the end, Nicole just wanted to go to someplace that nobody she knew had been to before. Mission Accomplished.

Cruising around the island

We drove around the island with no map. Again, it's not a very large island, so this seemed relatively safe. I kept seeing the same people over and over again. It's strange to think that 80% of the visitors to the Cook Islands only go to Rarotonga when Aitutaki seems far more photogenic. We drove on some trails near the southern edge of the island. I noticed that there seem to be an alarming amount of churches for such a small population. I'm talking like one for every five people. There are definitely more churches than restaurants. Eating on this island has been a challenge to say the least. The options are few and most of the options are fish. I think I'm suffering from a Mercury overload. I could go for a burger, but that will have to wait for one more day. I need to eat something before the flight and that limits me to our hotel restaurant which serves either bread or fish.

In any event, we just kept driving aimlessly, eventually driving to an overlook. Nicole was probably cross that we did that hike this morning when we could have just rode the scooter up to a similar vantage point. Look, the guidebooks and maps don't mention any overlook, so I just happen to run across these things at random.

After a little bit, we filled up the tank and returned the scooter unscathed. Then we killed a couple hours back at the bungalow and put on pants (the worst) in preparation for our flight back to Rarotonga and ultimately Los Angeles.

Our last day

This morning we hiked to the highest point on the island. The mosquitoes found me. Then we decided to rent a scooter and cruise around the island. It's not a very big island and within about 30 minutes, we had seen everyone who was on our lagoon tour yesterday at completely different spots of the island.

We went to a market so Nicole could buy a new toothbrush. She was very excited. I also browsed the very large jugs of mayo and got excited.

We had lunch at a cafe near the beach and then I set up a time lapse with my new radian in an attempt to pan with the clouds. Its another beautiful, hot day in paradise, but the mosquitoes keep finding me.

Starry Night

A windy day gave way to clear skies at night. Nicole took this picture from our lanai. 

Today is our last day, and the island is not large. We depart here to Rarotonga at 7:15pm or so, and then leave Rarotonga at midnight. Wish us a mosquito-less last few hours.

Lagoon Tour

Today we did a boat tour around the lagoon. Fortunately, the weather cooperated and it was sunny all day. Intense sun.

First we made two stops to go snorkeling. We saw some fish and giant clams. Then we went to some islands where only our small boat was docking. We had some time to walk along the beach while our guide (who calls himself Mr. fantastic) prepped a meal of fish, potato salad, and varieties of breads and fruit.

The water looked a ridiculous color of blue, something I never fully got used to. I kept pointing out the color of the water to Nicole five hours into the tour as if it was the first time we had seen it. After our lunch served on giant leaves, we planted a coconut in the beach in honor of everyone's favorite celebrity couple.

After this very important occasion, we headed to a few more isolated islands, and ultimately one called "one foot island." This was the first time we encountered other tourists. After all, this island does passport stamps. Big doings. Evidently, they have a "post office" but Mr. Fantastic said if you mail them from there they might arrive at their destination in 10 years. I think I'll mail mine from Rarotonga tomorrow at the airport. The other tourists had arrived on much larger boats and it seemed like they didn't get to see as many things as we did. 

We arrived back on the main island around 330, enough time for us to analyze how much we burned, and prep ourselves for happy hour. I'll leave you with this image of this cute pair of seafaring explorers.

I on Aitutaki

What was raining and stormy on Rarotonga turned into sun and clearer skies over Aitutaki. We go on a lagoon tour tomorrow, and if the weather is as good as it was upon our arrival, I will be happy. Apparently it has not been ideal weather lately on this island either. But I was excited to see a glimpse of the clear blue water we hope to explore tomorrow.

Within a few minutes of arriving, it became clear that Aitutaki is on island time. The driver said she would take care of our bags and to leave everything in the car while we checked in. Well, when I got to the room, I noticed my camera bag was not there...or my precious uke! I ran to the front desk immediately and explained that she probably didn't check the backseat. The island isn't very big...maybe a 5 min drive from one end to the other? 30 mins later, I have my items back. No urgency. I guess she decided to go shopping with my valuable items as passengers. Our room also smelled like smoke, which we voiced concern over, but the same lady that temporarily stole my camera insisted she didn't smell it. I think I gave a, "what is she smoking" look to Nicole. We eventually got a room that didn't smell like it was burning to the ground. And on that note, people don't have garbage cans here. They just burn everything. That could explain the smell, but Nicole and I have sensitive lungs. *cough*

We went to a thing called Island Night at a nearby hotel. It's basically just a buffet with traditional dancers and some old guys playing drums and ukuleles (8 string I might add). It seemed that perhaps some knew the dance better than others and it was a situation reminiscent of the left shark at Katy Perry's half-time show where nobody was really in sync. After that, we walked down a pitch dark road since there are no street lights here. As the sky was somewhat clear, I did a panning time lapse test of the stars. Here's a frame from it...

I'm not sure how that looks on your end. On my camera lcd, it looked stunning, but on my iPad, all I see is black.

Purchases

Today, we had to check out by 10, so we spent the rest of the day in the car making some souvenir purchases. But before we did that, we attempted to stroll out to another island.

The problem with this idea was that the current was very strong and impeded our forward movement. We decided not to go all the way and save our leg muscles . . . this time.

After drying off and checking out, we headed out and Nicole got a black pearl for a necklace and I eventually ended up getting that eight string ukulele. I went to another place that made custom ukuleles, but it didn't have the same atmosphere as driving down a dirt road to a guy's house, where he makes them in his backyard, so I went back to the guy from yesterday. I ended up choosing one with a sort of tribal design engraved in it. He said that was the first one he sold of that design.

Now we wait in the Rarotonga airport for our flight to Aitutaki. Here's a look at the new uke (in bubble wrap) behind my extra fancy boarding pass. We didn't even have to go through security!

I wore buttons this evening...photographic proof below

Here you see Nicole verbally reprimanding Blackie for trying to join our beach blanket bingo party without an invitation. He knows what he's done. 

We did eventually get to the western side of the island, but we didn't actually see the sun go down below the horizon. It was ok, though, because it was nice to have our own beach again and watch the sky colors change.

After that, we decided to go to one of the few resorts for dinner. I had a fish burger. Nicole had some sort of ham and cheese and pineapple sandwich. You would think that after what happened in Europe, she would be distancing herself from ham, but she can't get enough of it.

Meanwhile in the kosher world, I had another matutu. Each one tastes a little bit different. A gecko joined us for dinner, and also stated that the matutu had a bit more floral taste than her last. I didn't mind our gecko visitor because it was not Rufus or Buttons or Blackie. Tomorrow we will get on a plane to Aitutaki, but not until later in the afternoon. We have to check out by ten, so I guess we will be living out of the car for a while. Who knows what we will do....

Last full day on Rarotonga . . . And the dogs know it

Our plans of the day were flexible based on the weather. Since it was fairly cloudy this morning, we decided to drive around and check out some unique things to bring home from the Cook Islands. I saw a sign for ukuleles and veered down a gravel road where I saw another sign that said, "Ukuleles, last house on the right." We arrived at some guy's house where he and a fellow worker were simply making ukuleles by hand in their backyard. I inquired about them, as Cook Islands ukuleles have eight strings instead of the usual four to generate a different kind of sound. He let me play one for a little bit. I only have about three songs memorized, so it went from a traditional Hawaiian tune to the star spangled banner to Weezer. It was pretty neat to play, but kind of expensive. I will have to decide if it's worth it. Obviously one can't really order online from a guy making ukes in his backyard. Nicole checked out some black pearls at a marketplace in Avarua. I then decided to randomly drive up a road titled "Happy Valley Road." It offered pretty decent views of the green mountains with the sun finally showing up to illuminate them.

All of this shopping had made me hungry, so we had fruit and waffles at a place called the waffle shack, which was located in the middle of a farmers market. It is what it sounds like. If it wasn't yet clear, places in Rarotonga are not labeled well, difficult to find, and the parking situation is always a make-up-your-own-spot kind of deal. Thusfar, I have parked in the middle of fields, in the middle of a marketplace, and at times what appears to be the middle of the road. While this might seem odd, I have gotten used to it. Imagine thinking, I'd like to go to that McDonalds, but upon arrival, there is no parking lot. You really want some chicken selects, so you must simply park on the grass. 

Because the sun finally decided to show up, we headed back to our bungalows and the Muri Beach area. This is the first time we had a real steady sun and we could finally see how clear and blue the water really is. Here, Nicole is skyping on the phone while enjoying the view. We walked down the road to Muri beach, but upon arrival, the sun went away. :( We also noticed that there were others attempting to venture to one of the offshore islands. This is not acceptable. That was our island. We must now venture to a different island of greater strategic value. We do not like others encroaching on our islands. Don't they know who we are?

We sat at Muri Beach for a little bit despite the lack of sun. For a brief period of about 30 seconds, the sun did pop out. This made us very excited and I yelled out for my cameras. Shortly thereafter, dogs tried to be our friends, but we did not want to be theirs, so we headed back to our bungalow. It's now close to sunset, so we are going to drive to the other side of the island to see if it's sunny at all for a sunset to happen.

Woof

Despite his best efforts, Rufus could not convince Brian and Nicole to let him up to their bungalow.

The adventuring continues

This afternoon, we decided to walk over to a nearby motu. We put on our fancy keen sandals and dodged the rocks and sea cucumbers in our stroll to the nearby island. An audience gathered nearby. Clearly this is not something done often here on the Cooks. On that note, there aren't really a lot of tourists here. I think most of the people from our plane continued to Auckland. And those that stayed are exploring the island in a much different way. Almost no one rented a car like us. I can't imagine not having one. Yes, the island is small, but not having a car would limit us to eat at the same two cafes every day.

Meanwhile on our own island . . .

It was a strange feeling to be on a beach by ourselves. The main beaches at Muri near our bungalows are not very crowded to begin with, but they also have stray dogs that follow you around, so it was nice to get away from the pooches. We did have to make some room for the crabs, though.

After walking to the far side of the island, we stepped around the sea cucumbers on our way back to the Aroko Bungalows, where we had to stop and relax for a bit. We were very active today. I could use a drink.

I would continue to relax out here on our lanai, but there's a stray dog giving us the hairy eye. Where's the dog catcher?

Overzealous

I imagine most people don't know much about the Cook Islands. I'm not saying that to sound smarter or anything, because the fact of the matter is there is very little information available in guidebooks or the Internet about them. We knew vague information about a hike that went into the lush hills and afforded overlooks of the island, but simple information like where the trail even starts was difficult to find.

We first ventured inland on the south side of the island beyond an abandoned Sheraton hotel with cows munching on the grass to the island's only waterfall. Apparently, if there is no rain, there is no waterfall, so that was one bonus to the heavy rains last night. Next, we drive to the complete opposite side of the island (15-20 mins away). There we drove to the end of a road in our attempt to reach an overlook. 

We found the trailhead, and there was even a sign! The trail began nice enough with views of the valley that you see here. However, within a matter of minutes, it narrowed and entered thick underbrush and devolved into a slippery mess of boulders, tree roots, and mud. We continued through this for about 45 minutes, and when we looked behind us and realized that we would have to return through all of this nonsense, we elected to simply start back down. We came, we almost saw, we were conquered. Molested by mosquitoes and legs covered in a mud, we walked past two couples on our way back to the car. There is no way the people we saw made it to the top.

We returned, defeated, to our bungalow, where I discovered that there seems to be an issue with uploading RAW pictures from my SLR camera. The last post made them look very poor quality. So I spent some time fixing that, and I'll leave you with this...

The first day draws to a close...

We are all checked in to our bungalow. The place is a little old and smells kind of musty, but this is no doubt due to the extreme humidity of this island. As my mom in Florida always warns, "Wipe the shower, and turn on the fan. You don't want to get mold!" The view from our lanai is pretty excellent. We are maybe 15 ft from the water. The picture of Nicole was taken during a very brief moment of sun. It was overcast and rained the rest of the day, but we found it cozy in a way.

Due to the bad beach weather, we visited the island's only brewery, Matutu, and the picture here shows the entire brewery. It is literally in a shack. We went on a "tour" if you can call it that, but this just involved the owner getting into technical aspects of how he makes the two main company beers. And by technical, I mean, he aims for more or less 5% alcohol, but he admitted that some batches turn out different and they all get packaged the same. 

The beers themselves were ok. This picture shows me at dinner, embarrassed to be caught wearing the same outfit as my beverage. This particular beer tasted slightly like bananas at the brewery, but more like a Sam Adams at the restaurant we ate at. I guess the inconsistency is part of the island charm. For the first day, I think we made good use of our time considering the rain and grey skies. We are hoping to do a little bit of hiking tomorrow and maybe swim to our own motu (offshore island)!

We've Arrived!

It was an interesting past 24 hours-most of it spent on our Air New Zealand 767. We departed from LAX's new international terminal which is nice and open with high ceilings, numerous shops, and lots of places to eat. That being said, our actual gate was at the extreme end of the terminal in what resembled the back warehouse of an office depot. From there we got on a bus. From the bus we walked up a long concrete ramp, which then took us to the Jetway. Why have a Jetway when you walked outside and got on a bus? Look, I don't know.

Anyway, after departing close to 1am, dinner was served at 230am and we then attempted to sleep. Although both of us managed to nod off here and there, we woke up with neck pain and stiffness every few minutes.

Exiting the airplane was like a punch in the face with humidity. We decided to rent a car to have a bit more freedom. It should be noted, however, that the Cook Islands are more or less part of New Zealand, where they drive on the left. This took some getting used to since the car is layed out in a complete mirror image. Every time I tried to put on my signal, the wipers went on.

As it was still morning and our room was not ready, we had to kill some time and went to a small cafe. I ordered a BLT except it had pan fried chicken instead of bacon and mushrooms and cucumbers instead of tomatoes. I was informed there are currently no tomatoes on the island. We hope to check in soon and do some actual exploring.

Ready to go!

I don't know if the flippers will fit in my carry-on ...