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Rarotonga Rocks
Rarotonga, Cook Islands
October, 2004
The Cook Islands were super cool. When I arrived at the airport, I was met by the lady who runs the Hostel I was staying at, The International Backpackers. She showed me to the van and then went back to arrivals to wait for more Guests. While waiting, I struck up a conversation with a girl who was also waiting. Her name was Natalie and she was from South Africa. She was staying in Raro for one week. She ended up being my roommate at the hostel and we pretty much hung out for the entire week. We really connected, it's strange when you meet someone and they become instant friends. We even rented a scooter together and spent a few days touring around the island.
The International Backpackers is a great hostel. It's right on the beach, not far from a great snorkel spot and has a sunset view. It is also quite inexpensive at $18NZ a night. There are activities planned almost every night, most of witch include going into town for different "Theme" drinking nights. Thursday night is "Island Night". "Island Night" meant that there would be traditional dancing with a live band. This was the best Island Night that I attended while in the Cooks. The dancing was really great and energenic, a version of Hula, and the band usually had about 15 members who drum, play local guitars and sing. Really fun.
On the big Friday night pub-crawl I went with about 5 people from the hostel, Lucy, Kelly, James and Colin all English, and we had a blast. Nat was too tired so she stayed home. At the first bar Kelly was bragging about how she never had a hangover in her life. While we were there she drank two big Steinlagers and we instantly drunk. It was really funny. She even got the hiccups! Then we learned the true cure (a saw it work twice in one night. The affected person plugs their ears with each hand and another person holds the affected's nose and pours a mouthful of beer on the person's mouth, That it!
After the funny first bar, we walked to about 8 more bars ranging from Dive Bars filled with locals to a swanky dance club. It was really fun. At the end of the night we missed the last bus home and had to hitch. The girls had no problems; they immediately jumped on the back of local's mopeds. Lucy got on a bike with a guy that had to weigh 300 pounds and James and I were laughing pretty hard. Then a crazy guy who was just driving around aimlessly picked us up. He had a big beer in his hand, and seemed lonely for company. He was strange, but we were stranded so we had to take what we could get. About half way home we saw the girls. The guys on the mopeds had propositioned them so they decided to jump off. The guy we were with was not driving to well so we decided to jump out too. Then we all walked the remaining two hours home. It was really quite a night.
I also had a really fun Sunday hanging at the 4 star resort down the road. Went with some people I met at he Hostel, a really cool American guy named Aaron, a girl he was hanging with named Lindsey and another guy English dread locked guy named Robb. It was pouring rain so we went to the bar in the Resort and they had an "Island Day" thing going on. We all bought drinks and went in to watch. It was unbelievable. It was like being at the Polynesian Resort in Disney land. Or worse. There was no live band so they were doing something like karaoke. Horrible. The performers barely danced and half the numbers they did were gospel songs. Oh well. We decide to go out on the deck and huddle under an umbrella. Then Aaron and I stole some of the resorts Kayaks and went for a paddle. We went way out to the end of the reef and watched the surf that was really pounding, unsurfable because it was breaking in a half foot of water on the reef. Then we all got some beers and swam around in the warm waters. A really fun day, but Monday night was the most fun of the bunch. We went to the big backpackers night and dance contest at the local Veteranis Hall. It was really fun and pretty much everyone staying at the hostel went. Afterwards we partied at he beach and then went back to the hostel and I played my guitar for everyone. At on point, I played a song I wrote called iThe Fourth of Julyi which was really funny. The song really doesnit have any words besides saying iThe fourth of july over and over in a high funny voice. An English girl who hated it started kicking me and telling me to stop. It was really comical. When I finally ended the entire room was in tears of laughter. I have played some great shows but I could never remember playing and have a room full of people all laughing. It was really cool.
The next day the weather was great so Nat, Aaron, Lindsey and I drove all around the island on our Mopeds. That was really fun too. You have to get a moped to see all the inland valleys and country roads.
Rarotonga is really great. I was disappointed with the coral. Most of it was dead, but there were lots of fish to make up for the less than spectacular coral formations. I counted over 25 types of fish in one day including many types of colorful Parrot Fish, Moray Eels, Butterfly Fish and even an ominous looking octopus.
After a week in Raro I was ready for a change and I already purchased my ticket to the other main Island in the Cooks, Aitutaki. Aaron dropped me at the airport not before giving me lots of contacts for Bali. He used to live there so he has lots of friends. He even speaks indo!!
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