Lost in Vacation: The Cooks

We left Auckland Thursday night and arrived on Rarotonga, the Cook islands main island, Thursday morning. The different way of life on the Cook islands strikes you immediately after leaving the plane, like the wave of humid heat. You get decorated with Ei´s, the fragrant orchid-garlands and a wrinkly islander is playing a tune on his ukulele.

Rarotonga from above. As you can see, almost the whole island is surrounded by a reef, which allows for swimming or snorkeling only on the spots where lagoons are being formed. Altough outside of the ledge the sea is pretty rough and every second day Scubadiving trips are cancelled because of this, I finally managed to go diving once, including a sickening boat ride in the warm rain while being shaken by the huge waves. In the end, the reef was pretty much the same as any reef in Egypt and I didn´t get to see sharks, rays or turtles that roam the sea around Rarotonga frequently, but I got to stroke Tom, the 20 year-old Triggerfish :)

Some of our lovely house reef pets (Moray and Stonefish)

There are probably three things, which generally describe island life on Rarotonga best:
1.) There are two bus lines, one is called "clockwise", and the other "anticlockwise".
2.) The average Cook islander is made of 70% beer, 30% fish n´chips, held together by less then 1% of hawaii shirt or pareu.
3.) There are four bars in Avarua: The Staircase, The Whatever Bar, Banana Court and Rehab. To be visited every Thursday to Saturday, preferably in aforementioned order...