Lazy Melts

At this stage in the game, we have become extremely lazy. Given our year of ultimate excitement and doing, I have reasoned that this is acceptable behavior. We've been here for a week (possibly?) and so far we've done very, very little. The first 5 days were spent pool-side, listening to the youngsters at our hostel talk a load of boring drivel. All that 'where've you been, where you going next?' which seems to be the standard format for every interaction when you're on the road. By day five I was feeling somewhat mental, the cabin-fever at an almost intolerable level. But as the island had been shut for 4 days over New Year, there wasn't much we could do about it. The knitting reached prolific heights, even in the heat and severe humidity. It was time to get mobile. We went on a mission to find a moped. In the Cook Islands, you need to acquire a driving license before you hit the road, or at least that's the order in which you'd assume things to go. So out we went, got the bus into 'town,' hopped off to find the police station. Three police stations later, it was discovered that no, you have to hire a bike first, drive to the police station and THEN sit your test. A very hot and sweaty mission it turned out to be, especially as there weren't any drink-selling shops open. You could have bought black pearls (big business over here) all over town that day, but not a bottle of water in sight. Finally, the next day, three bike shops and another couple of bus journeys later, Andy was sitting his test. This involved going 100 meters down the road in a big group with a very grumpy policeman in pursuit. Eventually, after a bit of a wait and a prison-photo, we had a moped.

Hurray! We could now escape the confines of Rarotonga Backpackers. It's actually a very nice little place and quite cheap (not that I want cheap, but apparently the luxury boutiques are out of the question 'at this stage.') The pool is tiny but provides adequate wallowing facilities. Much more interesting and tropical though, is the beach. It's your classic stereotype of a south Pacific Island... palm trees, white sand, warm 27 degree crystal-clear sea, dotted with big mammas and the occasional snorkeler seeking out sea-cucumbers. A delicacy in Asia and Rarotonga, you bite off the head and suck the spaghetti-like innards from inside while it's still wriggling. It's not all bad though, because if you throw them back in the sea, they will regenerate new insides and become whole again. Mmmm!
Snorkeling is pretty special, with numerous large pipe fish, pufferfish, butterfly fish and boxfish.

Slightly annoying though, is the ever-menacing trigger-fish, our well-known enemy. This time it's the prevalent Picasso triggerfish which is the nasty one, it's main aim in life to take chunks out of holiday makers in the name of protecting their territory. Evil. Andy went on a couple of dives this morning, but I did my usual trick of chickening out at the last minute. There were two factors at play in the brain - 1. I'd had absolutely no sleep after we'd had to move out of our bungalow and into a tiny double room which offers no solitude from the backpacker crowd 2. There's been a massive storm during the night, and I was a bit scared that the visibility would be rubbish and it would be choppy out. Apparently I didn't miss much as we saw more snorkeling yesterday, even though Andy did his first wreck dive.

One of the most striking things about Rarotonga is the numerous colourful graves dotted about. Usually, relatives are buried in the back garden of local houses, but there are some enormous graveyards as well. Since the missionaries arrived here in 1821, Christianity has played a big role in island life. Some people even go to church as a tourist activity, but this is mainly because everybody gets a free lunch afterwards! So, zooming along on the moped (40 minutes to go round the whole island!), you see these colourful sights, churches, signs for posh resorts (mercifully hidden from my view), locals heading out wearing bright shirts and a flower tucked behind their ears. Behind the left means you're single, behind the right indicates you're taken for). Quite often, you have to swerve to miss the odd piglet or chicken, but as the speed-limit is 40 kph (20kph in the town!) this doesn't pose much of a problem.

Cook Islanders are Polynesians, closely related to the Maoris of NZ and Tahiti and first settled here around 1500 years ago. The Europeans landed a 1,000 years later and in 1773 Captain Cook spotted the islands, but didn't actually land on Rarotonga. He then went on to meet his demise in Hawaii where he was stabbed to death in 1779, and William Bligh one of his crew went onto lead the infamous Mutiny on the Bounty a decade thereafter. The missionaries brought lots of nasty diseases with them like smallpox and dysentery which wiped out a few of the locals at that time. They did a good job of stopping the practice of cannibalism though, a torturous method involving skewering the victim on a spear and then barbecuing over an open fire so as to remove the hair and cuticles. Then the body was steamed in an underground oven and shared equally amongst the tribal warriors. The most prized cuts were the thighs and the intestines and the women weren't allowed to join in. Today, there are 14,000 laid back, friendly Rarotongan inhabitants, ambling along with 16,000 pigs! It's so laid-back it's difficult to stand up sometimes and in this heat, there seems little point in exerting oneself unnecessarily. One week to go, maybe we should do something tomorrow?






Currently drinking : Vailima, a Samoan brew with a nice label.








Currently Reading : The Crow Road, by the inimitable Iain Banks.

Worst Film of the Year : Eragon. An unsurprisingly dreadful tale about a dragon written by a 17 year old (you can tell).






Best Film of the Week : Marie Antionette. A film about lovely frocks and cakes.