Ahh…so it’s back to reality…or a part of the real world. I must say, Rarotonga is quite a magical place. Hard to believe that you can travel around the entire island (the biggest of all the cooks) in less than an hour or so. I will tell you all that it is absolute paradise. That is for sure. Once again, my travels have led me to meet some of the most amazing people. I couldn’t have asked for a better stay in Raro.
Before I dive into the wonderful story of my stay in Raro…I’m going to take this time to make a quick side note. For those of you who are my friends reading this, and for those of you who are parents of kids my age (or not)….this message is for all of you. I can honestly say that I think every person in their young adult life needs to take a backpacking trip. Stay in hostels. Meet people. Yes, parents….I realize this is very scary for you, but let me just tell you this…it is one of the most life changing, educational experiences I have ever had. I have meet great people from all around the world: UK, Germany, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Sweden…the list goes on. I have been in contact and will continue to be with the majority of these people. Do you know what that means for me? More travels to these wonderful places and staying with these other amazing world travelers. Backpacking is a very eye opening experience. I cannot even put into words how strongly I feel that everyone needs to do this. I will say that it is very surprising to me…I have met only 2 Americans in my two weeks of traveling that are traveling and staying in hostels. According to the people I have met, they haven’t met too many Americans traveling either. It seems to be a trend…Americans never leave their own country, yet there is a wealth of knowledge and diversity of people from all over the world out there traveling. I don’t know if it’s because we (Americans) are too afraid or what. I hope that this will be a change in our culture. Parents should encourage their children to travel and see the world. Now is the time to do it.
So I could go on for days about this subject, but you all get the point. No more need be said.
Now on to my say in Raro. The first night there were 5 of us picked up from the airport. A German guy (and for the life of me I can’t remember his name), a Polish woman named Jolanda (she now lives in Melbourne), a Swiss girl named Yvonne, and an English lady (hehe) by the name of Charmaine or Char (I hope you are reading this you old mangy cat!). The first night Char and I were thrown into a room together. We were so tired…it was 12 am when we landed and probably 130 when we went to bed. The next day Char and I grabbed some food from a general store just a few minutes’ walk from the backpackers. We then walked the beach and found a spot to sun bathe for a bit. Here is where we had wonderful conversations including things about politics! Haha! She loves American politics…funny really.
Later in the day Jens (you’ll learn below) and I went on a snorkeling trip down the beach. It is a much better spot than right in front of our hostel. The only problem in front of our hostel is that the water is too shallow. For those of you who don’t know, the island of Rarotonga is surrounded by a lagoon/coral reef. The waves break anywhere between 200 and 300 yards or more off of shore. Inside of this area the water is literally around 2 maybe 3 feet. There are some areas a little deeper than that, but for the most part this is how deep it is within the lagoon. Another major problem right in front of the hostel is that it is very rocky. There is a lot of rock and coral…to the point that it is almost impossible to get in very far. Jens and I walked down the beach a little ways to a sandy area that we were told about by others at the hostel. Here a small stream drains into the lagoon. The water here is much deeper…in some place I can’t even touch! There were plenty of fish and sea life to see. Fish were everywhere…we found a couple of eels, and even an octopus! I was so pleased with myself for finding him in his little hole! Hah! Anyway..then it was time to head back to the hostel.
That night the hostel offered dinner for $15 dollars. You all will never believe this, but I ATE FISH!!!! And it was semi-tasty. I cannot believe I ate fish. It was Marlin…very good on the grill. Anyway, this was a time for bonding for all of us in the hostel.
I should probably go ahead and give you some background on all of the other people I met before I get too much further. There was Francesco from Italy. He lives in Spain and owns a bar in Mallorca. From what he tells me it’s a beautiful place…perhaps on my next adventure! There was a German by the name of Jens, whose English was quite good. He was trying to learn Spanish as well. Then there were the 4 British men…I’m sorry boys (yes…all males are boys at heart!). One of them in particular is of interest. A tall, dark, and quite cute Englishman by the name of Mark. Char found it very funny to point out to me how ironic his nickname is…or what everyone calls him…are you ready for this? Sharky….yes his nickname is Sharky. Perhaps because he has a tattoo of a shark on his left shoulder blade. I’m not sure which came first, the tattoo or the nickname. Anyway…I’m sure you can all figure out why Char found this quite entertaining. For the life of me I cannot remember the other English boys’ names.
The second day Char and I went into the city so that she could get a scooter license. It ended up taking half of the day due to rain. One our way back to the hostel, we stopped by the supermarket and picked up some groceries. We made it back to the hostel where we grabbed our books and just sunned ourselves on the beach.
Alright…so after dinner I had a chat with the English guys who are on their way to America after the Cook Islands (I can’t remember if they are doing New Zealand as well or if they have already been). We spoke about all of the things they needed to do and places they needed to see. It was quite fun. Then it was time for bed as I had diving to do the next morning at 8 am.
Diving was great! I went with Dive Rarotonga, and the crew was just so cheeky (my newly learned English word)!! Haha. It was quite funny actually, I was the only person diving that morning. There were several people from my hostel that went the day before and were going in the afternoon. Apparently getting up early is not an option for most when you are on island time! I quite enjoyed it though. There were three of them making sure my diving experience went well. Two Englishman by the names of Luke and James (very cheeky character this one!) and a local guy whose name I do not recall. He didn’t talk too much, whereas the other two talked my ear off! Not a bad thing…very good! It was kind of nice being the only one…I was pampered and given all of the attention…who doesn’t like that?! The first dive was a place called the Boneyard. I’m sure you are all wondering what is up with the name. According to Luke it is called the Boneyard because it is located directly offshore of a graveyard. The water visibility was absolutely amazing. You could see about 120 ft (40 m for those of you weirdos!! I know there are a few). It was brilliant. I saw lots of fish, a moray eel, coral of all kinds, etc. It was very nice. After the 1st dive we came back into shore and had some hot chocolate and cookies. Yes, I know you are all wondering what in the hell I was doing drinking hot chocolate in the Cook Islands, but I tell you…when you have been in the water and then are wet speeding over the water with wind rushing over you…a nice cup of hot chocolate is just right! After finishing our surface interval, we went back out on the boat to Paradise for a very nice dive. On this dive, the visibility wasn’t as great, but it was still good. I saw similar things…lots of fish and that sort of thing. Unfortunately for me, no sharks and no turtles. Perhaps on the next dive…
The guys at Dive Rarotonga were great. They offered to keep my gear overnight to try, which was very convenient for me considering there wasn’t really any place to dry it at the hostel. They dropped it off to me the next day. Talk about service! =D
When I got back to the hostel Francesco and a few of the English boys (one of their girlfriends as well) decided to go snorkeling down at the Rarotonga Resort Bar and Grill. I tagged along riding on the back of Francesco’s scooter. The snorkeling was fabulous. I can honestly say the snorkeling at that the Rarotonga resort is almost as good as the diving. There’s just so much life! Corals of all color, fish of all color. I’m sorry to say I didn’t have my camera with me this time. It was really nice snorkeling because in shallow water all of the colors are still in the coral. When you dive, the deeper you go, some of the rich colors come out and everything looks blue. One of the English boys stepped on a sea urchin and got 4 spines in the bottom of his foot…whoopsy. Everything turned out alright though.
Francesco and I decided to go on down to Muri beach which is on the southeast side of the island. My hostel was located on the west side of the island. Muri beach is one of the famous beaches in Rarotonga. There is a nice lagoon there that has 4 islands which you can walk out to from the shore. The beach here is much sandier, which makes it a good place to swim. Francesco and I walked across to one of the islands where we took some pictures of Rarotonga. We attempted to walk all the way around the island, but the shore was just too rocky. I can’t believe I did this, but we decided to cut through the ‘jungle’ to get back to the other side where we started. It was quite funny really…we laughed about it. Our bare feet just couldn’t take the rocks anymore. I’m not sure why we decided going barefoot through the ‘jungle’ was a better idea! But everything turned out fine and we made it back out safely. We walked back across to the main island and went for a swim.
On the way back to the hostel, Francesco stopped at the waterfall so that I was sure to see it before I left. It is situated back a ways from the main road (which runs around the whole island). The waterfall was beautiful. The swimming area surrounding it was quite small, but very beautiful. We didn’t say here too long because of the mozzies (mosquitoes). We headed back to the hostel after that. I met up with Char to eat some dinner.
At 830 pm, we were picked up for island night. About 15 of us crammed into the big van the hostel has and went down to island night. Everyone was drinking (only a little bit!). The show was really great. There was a band that played South Pacific Islander music while the girls and guys danced in traditional attire. The host of the show was quite funny. Char has the pictures of him, so I will post them as soon as I can. The show was very good. It is impressive the way the girls move their hips without moving a millimeter of their upper body! After the show, a DJ came out and played music. People were requesting various songs, so I decided to do the same. I asked the DJ to play some hip-hop (what the rest of the world calls rap music). He became very excited and said, “Yeah sure! Do you want new or old stuff?” Of course I said new…so needless to say, for the next hour and a half I attempted to show people how to dance American style! Hah! We all had a great time. Jolanda the Polish woman was quite funny on the dance floor. She was having the time of her life! Especially when we were all dancing to “Dancing Queen!!”
About midnight the backpacker bus (or so we’ll call it) came to take us back to the hostel. Everyone sat around talking. I ended up having some interesting conversation with a certain individual by the name of Sharky. Quite funny!
That night Char and I had promised each other that no matter what happened, we were going to wake up at 715 am to do the island trek (climbing across the mountain). Needless to say, 715 rolled around and Char and I neither one were going to make it across that mountain. We went back to sleep until about 10 (after going to bed at 4 am?? I hope?!) I then caught a ride into town with David, the Spaniard. There I bought a few of those Cook Islands famous black pearls. David and I then went back to the backpackers where I met up with Char and we just relaxed the rest of the day. About 8 pm Char and I barely managed to get back on the scooter and head down to Tumunu Bar where we met up with Luke and James (my dive masters). We stayed there about 2 hours and headed back to the hostel. I finished packing up, ate some dinner, and off Yvonne and I went to the airport.
My flight left at 135 am on Saturday February 16th and 3 ½ hours later landed in Auckland at 5 am SUNDAY February 17th. Quite strange…Saturday the 16th was only about 2 hours for me! Again…as I’m sure I’ve said before…an interesting thing the date line…
Here I am still…hanging out at the Auckland airport waiting for my flight to Sydney! I am so excited to arrive in Australia and see Anthony, a familiar face! It has been so wonderful getting to meet so many amazing people, but I will say, I am ready to settle down somewhere a little longer than 4 nights. It’s hard to believe my travels are almost over and Uni (Uni=University=American college) is about to start! I can’t wait to share all of those exciting adventures with you all!
I hope everyone is doing well. Take care!
Love,
Krissy
No comments:
Post a Comment