Day 53: Rarotonga, Cook Islands

Eastern Roratonga

The 2 Cook Islands stops both involved an anchorage and ride over to the islands by riding the lifeboats, or “Tenders”. The process to get off involves waiting in a line, and is first-come-first-served, and are issued a ticket with a number, which is a group called in order to exit. People can get pretty heated and it seems to bring out yet more rude behaviors. It seems like every other day, we hear or observe some new low. The latest is a family that boarded in Valparaiso, with 2 kids who are basically neglected. Mom is in the gym while the dad is nowhere to be found, and the Mis-behaved kids are free range, and bothering the crew and other passengers and children. What to do? Most of the other kids are pretty well behaved and nice to be around. I guess we’ll figure it out.

Again, we rented scooters so we could have freedom to explore at our own pace. I didn’t take many photos because we were snorkeling and meeting people and just enjoying the beauty of the place. I should have had Jess take more, because the memories are stunning!

We stopped at this generational place that made block printed textiles. Mom was with baby and grandma took the time to explain the process. We didn’t purchase one because we don’t have room in our luggage unless we jettison everything else! I wish I had snapped a photo. We also parked at a posh hotel to get to the reef and snorkeled, but it was really rough. So as we were leaving and greeting the workers we got to talking to a couple of them, who were both transplants, one from Paupa New Guinea and the other a Māori from New Zealand. It was so interesting chatting with them about their lives and island living in general.

We got lunch at the place pictured above and the size of the fish burger was incredible! I don’t know how we finished them and avoided a food coma!

The entire island was beautiful and I could easily spend a month there.

This is our final stop before New Zealand. There is a cyclone or typhoon, Alfred, that is playing havoc with our schedule, so we’ll be arriving there a day early, and may be able to visit all of the stops on the north island, depending on what the storm does.