Travels in Rarotonga

By Doug Smith

The Air New Zealand Flight from Auckland to Rarotonga left around 10:30 PM, and a few hours later we touched down in the steamy tropics approximately halfway between Auckland and Honolulu. I had been to Hawaii before, but now we were south of the equator, in what as a child I had idealized: The South Pacific Ocean. Somehow I had imagined it to be more exotic than what it actually was.

As usual in small airports, we walked down the rollaway stairway and across the tarmac to the terminal. Once in the terminal, we could hear an old man strumming his ukulele singing in a clear Polynesian voice.

We stood in line with the group of young backpacker types, while the natives went through another line. Most of the natives were bringing in huge boxes loaded with goods purchased at a discount in New Zealand. For once, the line for tourists was shorter than the line for residents. The customs inspectors were more interested in getting everyone through quickly than in finding smuggled goods. Becca made me throw out some apples in a container provided for that purpose, so as to not arouse suspicion. There was some sort of a fine for smuggling in food items but I think they were more interested in smuggled cases of corned beef than my apple.

Once through the passport stamping and custom ritual, we were greeted by a civilized system of taxi drivers and hotel-accommodations: A podium was set up with a sign reading “Welcome to the Cook Islands: A woman greeted us and asked us is she could see our return plane ticket (they don’t want permanent tourists). Then she asked us what kind of arrangements for hotel or other accommodations we had made. The Cook Islands requires you to have made prior hotel reservations. I suspect the reason is they were tired of cheap Ausie backpackers showing up with their tents and camping on the public beaches. We told her we had a reservation at the Backpackers International Hostel, a place that was listed in the Lonely Planet. It qualified as lodging and it was one of the cheapest ‘backpackers’ places in the book. There were a few other places that were smaller and more expensive, but we wanted one that seemed to have its act together. The fact that they did reservations via email was the deciding factor.

In general, the Cook Islanders don’t want to become another Fiji or Bali, overrun with tourists, suffering the effects of the rising and falling tides of international travellers. And over the years, underemployed backpackers from New Zealand and Australia created some social problems (mostly drinking and marijuana) which were rubbing off on the local youth. Possibly a stronger reason for the 'hotel reservations required in advance' restriction was money. Rarotonga’s economy, while tiny depends largely on tourism. While the tourism there is still in its infancy, it is getting increasingly dependent on it. And high end tourists, after all, are the kind of tourist that bring money into the island. The problem is that the high end tourists have so many other great places to go, that the Cook Islands are one island too far away. She then directed us to a man who was standing near a red van.

I walked up to him and asked “Backpackers International?”, he flashed a big smile with a missing front tooth and said “You want to stay at my place?”. At this point we weren’t really sure that we were going to the right “backpackers”. After travelling through Southeast Asia and especially India where we were used to the “hotel name game”, where sometimes up to ten hotels rename themselves after one found in the Lonely Planet (count the number of Shanti Guest Houses in Varanassi). In some countries the guesthouse have the guts to name themselves after the Lonely Planet - or some derivation such as "Lovely Planet". So, we figured there might be more than one place doing business as the "International Backpackers".

I asked, “Are you Bill Bates?” He offered a handshake, smiled and said “Yes, I’m Bill, and this is my red van over here”. I replied “Hi, I’m Doug and this is Rebecca. We reserved by email a while back.” I wondered if he remembered and whether we had a real reservation at all, after all it was 3 AM and everyone including us and Bill were zombies. He started to help us load our backpacks into the red van. Although he didn’t look at all the way I pictured him, it turned out that we had gone to the right guy. He’d been greeting backpackers at 4:30 in the morning for a long time. Bill was a sturdy Rarotongan guy with an infectious broad smile despite his missing front tooth. Right away I felt at oddly at home, though in other countries my guard would have been up. We had chosen the Backpacker's International Hostel because they were the only backpackers that had an email account. We had made our reservation over the Internet when we were in Wellington.

We had learned from experience in Bali that it’s always better to have a reservation when arriving at 4:30 in the morning in a new country. Even if you have a reservation, there’s no way guarantee of a room. In fact, if it’s a busy season, making reservations is downright futile. We were a little skeptical about making the reservation over the Internet. But was a natural way to do it for us, since we were staying in touch via email anyway. It saved us an expensive long distance phone call, and guaranteed that if nothing else, the message would be delivered, and possibly answered within a few days. The owners of the hostel, Bill and Anna Bates find that making room reservations via e-mail works much better than via telephone, and it actually saved them money with the local telecom company, since they have a lower rate for an occasionally connected data line than for a voice phone. As we waited, several other backpackers without reservations also found their way to Bill’s van.

Soon we were driving off into the night, completely disoriented, driving fast down a dark two-lane road. Becca and I took turns calling out the names we could read on the signs, instinctively trying to memorize the way back to the airport: the number of left and right turns, landmarks, etc. We bounced past the “Cook Islands Parliament” building, which although impressive sounding looks like a run-down roadside motel built in the 1940’s, past a series of turns, and down a long road lined with a canopy of Coconut Palm and Ironwood trees. Bill turned up a gravel road to the hostel. While we waited for our room keys, we could hear the roar of the ocean in the distance. We learned later that we were just south of Arorangi, on the west (sunset) side of the island.

The Backpackers International, the mainstay of budget lodgings in Rarotonga had the look of a building under construction. The rooms turned out to be quite new, and nice compared to rooms we had been seeing in the bigger cities in New Zealand. But it was clear that the place was being built a little at a time over a number of years like the hotels in Greece. Whenever times were good, a new wing would take shape. When times were hard, all construction stops. The end result is a place that looks like a permanent construction site. It wasn’t much to look at from the outside, but it had a certain tropical style.

The owners, who I thought were Cook Island Maori, were delightful. We found out later that Ana was born in Samoa, but Bill was 100% Maori. Their adult daughters and pre-teen grandsons made us feel more like we were staying with a long-lost family friends. Our small but clean and Spartan room was on the second floor near the bathrooms. The whole wing of the hostel we were staying in was still under construction. This didn’t bother us in the least having spent the last 11 months crawling out of bed in vermin infested hotels. We had survived rats, bugs and spiders as big as my hand, leaky bamboo beach huts with a rooster living under it. So sleeping in a concrete building on a real bed with a dresser and screened windows met all our requirements: our bed was comfortable, the room was clean and we had hot water (or at least the promise of it).

While we checked in, two very sleepy and slightly grumpy little Maori boys, about 8 and 10 years old, functioned as bell hops, helping to carry heavy backpacks to the rooms. As we waited to sign in, we kept wondering if we were going to get a room at all, or if we'd have to stay in a dorm for a few nights. It seemed that although we were always first in line, and made our reservations months in advance, that pushier people always got their rooms first. We were too tired to be pushy, but were prepared to go into battle mode to get our private room. Some of the more penny-wise travelers tried to evaluate whether to stay shared dormitory room, or private double, which is the cheapest, best etc. All we cared about was that our private double was still reserved. Bill assured us that we had our private room.

Our first day in Rarotonga was sunny, tropical and beautiful. We woke up, with the same disoriented, dreamlike “Where am I?” feeling we had for most of the last year. At first takes about three days before your body adjusts to this kind of disorientation. After traveling for a year, the adjustment is easier to take. Perhaps the human mind wasn’t made to be thrust thousands of miles from a cold, wintery climate to a hot tropical one in just a few hours. Or perhaps it’s just the effects of traveling longitudinally rather than the usual jet-lag of latitudinal travel. As usual, that first morning we made our Nescafe coffee (Number one in Australia!) in our room and went down the hall to take a shower. Although we had been reassured that the hostel had hot showers, they were solar heated, and therefore cold as usual. So we rinsed off quickly and woke up the hard way.

Since we had eaten or jettisoned most of our food the night before at the airports, we had no breakfast. We went down to the main building and inspected the kitchen. A few travelers were sitting around the kitchen making their breakfasts: things like canned baked beans, noodles (Top Ramen), toast, or some combination thereof. We asked a few people where to get groceries. A friendly Danish guy said there was a fruit bowl on a table with the toaster, which occasionally had some bananas or mangos for free. For now, however, we’d have to either walk down to a “store” about 500 meters down the lane, or take the bus into the “town” where there was a supermarket with a cheaper and better selection of foods. So we decided to check out the store down the lane.

We walked out the driveway, and noticed a trashed out bus across the street that looked as if it were left over from a war 30 years earlier. Some of the houses on the lane were neat and tidy white concrete block houses, and others were sheds made from recycled corrugated steel. Near the main road there was an old Christian Church with some crumbling above-ground crypts in the graveyard. The graves were possibly the most interesting parts of the churches, which otherwise looked like large white stucco barns. The moist tropical climate caused the graves to a decay in a way that made them look older than the ruins in Greece, though they were barely a century old.

My Image of a tropical island is a bright green island with volcanic peaks, white sandy beaches and graceful palm trees bending over the beach to provide just enough shade. I picture myself sitting under the palm tree listening to the roar of the surf and feeling a gentle breeze, contemplating the wonders of nature and the mysteries of the ocean. This is exactly how the first day on started out, and a pretty accurate description of Rarotonga. Indeed the island seemed to have missed the tourist development blight that has affected so many of the tropical paradises. Arriving at the main road, which circles the island, we were awed by the size and sound of the waves breaking on the reef, another 200 meters away. The waves were visible, and audible from quite a way off. As we got closer to the beach, the waves seemed to move farther away and grow in size. The fact that the coral reef is further out is what protects the beaches and provides a natural solar heater for the water and fish in the lagoon formed by its boundaries. In the case of Rarotonga, the entire island is surrounded by a coral reef and lagoon, and there is no real natural harbor. There is small opening , perhaps man-made, in the main town Avarua which allows ships and boats to enter the harbor.

On the corner across from the beach there was a small shed-like building, possibly a former petrol station, with a roof extending 20 feet or so in front of the building. Some native people were sitting on a bench there selling art works, carvings, mangos, and bananas. The women working at the stand all said hello and smiled, but never once tried to sell us anything. It all seemed very tranquil and perfect, like something out of a Gaugin painting. A shirtless young man who was talking to the women, turned out to be an artist, and the store was actually an art gallery. The complete lack of sales pressure by the artist and the warm smiles of women at the store were a pleasant surprise. We were still a bit evasive at the sight of anyone selling anything, having developed a completely paranoid view while traveling in places like Indonesia. Since we weren’t really interested in acquiring any more art work, we politely looked as some paintings praised their beauty and got out as quickly as possible. We still hadn’t come close to accomplishing our mission: find breakfast. The store was actually another 100 feet up the road, but we didn't know that yet.

The refreshing lack of vendors and touts on Rarotonga was quite the opposite of Thailand, Vietnam or Indonesia where it is almost impossible to walk on a beach, let alone sit down without being swarmed by a pack of vendors selling souvenirs. Perhaps the total lack of touts and beach vendors is a reflection of the relative affluence of the South Pacific Islands. Or perhaps it is an influence of the prudish Christian missionaries whose influence is still powerfully felt.

We decided to try taking the bus to town. Looking at our schedule we determined that we had missed the bus 15 minutes earlier. Facing north, knew from the we had to go to the right get to the town. In either case the island was round and the road was a circle. On a round island with a flat plain along the shore, all roads lead to Rome - in either direction. As we stood there on the right hand side of the road trying to read the bus schedule one roared by on the left hand side. Once again, we were standing on the wrong side of the road. The bus was apparently 15 minutes late, and the next bus was supposed to come in another 15 minutes. Would it come on time, or would it too be 15 minutes late? Rather than guess, we crossed the road to the beach side, sat on a wooden bench reading our Lonely Planet, and waited.

The occasional Cook Islander would whiz by on a motor scooter, or in a pickup truck giving us a look as if to say “Need a lift?” , or in retrospect maybe they were just some local just checking out Becca. After all, who can blame them. Tall thin blonde women really stand out in a place where the average person has brown skin, dark hair, and is short muscular and often obese. Besides, as we discovered everywhere else on the world traveler circuit, the tourists are the entertainment. We were still too green to try hitch-hiking at this point, though we had successfully hitchhiked near Omapare on the North Island of New Zealand. Moreover, we really didn’t have a good mental map of the island yet, and were conditioned to be cautious. And so we stubbornly waited for the bus. As we waited we grew hungrier and grouchier and starting to have arguments over what to do next. Once again we were suffering from travelers fatigue. It seemed that the bus wasn’t going to come, and a dark rain cloud had formed overhead.

Watching the Gaugin ladies across the street with their mangos and bananas, we decided to cave in to our hunger and buy some fruit and head back to the backpackers to eat them. When we arrived back in the backpackers we saw some of the other travelers who had arrived on the same plane with us were eating bananas and mangos. Apparently Anna had filled the fruit bowl with fresh fruit, which was abundant and falling off the trees in the yard outside. Two attractive college-aged English girls were cheerfully chatting about how they “adored bananas” but weren’t quite sure about the mango and how to eat it properly. The way they pronounced banana was “bah-nah-nah”, with the last two syllables identical, which sounds so much more sophisticated than the American pronunciation “bah-Nyeh-nah”.

The rain shower was brief. It came and went while we sat in the shelter of the open-air kitchen eating our fruit. The Danish guy I had talked to earlier and his girlfriend sat glumly eating muselli. What people eat for breakfast is usually a give-away of where they are from. Muselli eaters were generally from Northern Europe. I asked him if he thought it was going to rain. “We’ve been here for two weeks and that day was the first sun they had” he grimly stated. This was not a good omen. We had three weeks left there. On a South Pacific island, you expect the sun to shine on the beautiful white sandy beaches. You also must accept a little rain. After all, the lush foliage isn’t watered by sprinklers like it is in California’s desert suburbs. It’s normal to see some rain practically every day. Usually it’s the type of rain that arrives suddenly with a big dark bottomed cloud. It drops some moisture and moves on, leaving you to dry out in the intense sun that follows. At this point we were still optimistic about the weather.

Eventually we did make it back to the road, and waited for another bus into town. We paid NZ$4 for round trip tickets and quickly deduced that its much cheaper to buy bus tickets in bulk. We hopped of the bus at the first large store past the airport on the south side of the town. The store was the Cook Island Trading Company (CITC) grocery store. It resembled a large steel warehouse style building. It was almost brand new. Inside, it was like a wholesale grocery store. There seemed to Be an endless array of canned goods: Corn, Peas, heaps of good old Waties Baked Beans, and lots of good old Australian and New Zealand Beer. Almost everything came from New Zealand or Australia. Even the fresh vegetables, which were so expensive, that frozen vegies from New Zealand seemed to be the best deal going.

One of the bizzare things about the Cook Islanders is their love for Corned Beef. They do things with corned beef and coconuts that make it taste appetizing. In fact this corned beef with coconut is one of the favorite dishes in the Cooks. They have local television commercials (and I do mean local) for the various brands of corned beef. People love it. Consequently there is a large aise of corned beef. We bought some just to try it out.

Cook Islands History in a Corned Beef Tin

First a disclaimer: This is by no means a scholarly history. I've pulled bits and pieces from guidebooks and enhanced it a bit. To be really fair, only a Cook Islander should really be telling their history. So for the official history go to http://www.ck/history.htm

For those of you that want the travelers version, read on:

The Original Invaders of the Cook Islands

90% of the history of the Cook Islands happened before they were called the Cook Islands. And of course, they weren't even "discovered" by Captain Cook, they were discovered by the Spanish earlier. Cook apparently did visit one of the islands, Pukapuka and called them the Hervey Islands. Later the Russians, of all people named them the Cook Islands on one of their charts and the name stuck.

The Cook Islands, are geographically dispersed over a huge area of ocean rather than in an archipeligo like Hawaii. They are located between the Society Islands (French Polynesia) to the east and Samoa Tonga and Fiji to the West. They were populated by Polynesian people who came either from Samora and Tonga or from the Society Islands. Usually what would happen was an Island would get crowded and resources were limited. At some point in time, ocean going canoes or Wakas stocked with food were sent off to explore and settle new islands to live on. No doubt there was a little fighting for space which led up to the migrations as well as fighting should a new canoe arrive on your own shores.

Before Rarotonga was populated, there is evidence that Pukapuka in the northern part of the Cooks was populated as early as 2000 years ago. Again those people had to come from somewhere, and that was probably Samoa or Tonga to the west. The first Polynesian to land in the lower Cook Islands was by a fellow named Ru, who came from Tupua'i in French Polynesia, from the East around 800 AD.

Ratotongans, and New Zealand Maori alike, believe that the Maori voyages to the "land of the long white cloud" (New Zealand) began from Rarotonga. Most experts agree that the settlement of New Zealand did begin in the Cook Islands.

I couldn't find much about the succession of the Kings and Queens of Rarotonga in the literature. Much of the history was lost due to the cultural purges conducted by later missionaries, though many of the beautiful legends did survive.

One legend is that of Ina and the Shark, who appear on the back of the (rare) Cook Islands three dollar bill. Here is the legend, which I plagiarized from another site:

"Ina and the Shark: Do you know why sharks have a dent on top of their head. Well, long time ago there was a beautiful maiden called Ina who asked a shark to take her to another island to see her boyfriend. Anyway, during the journey she was hungry and decided to open one of the coconuts she had brought along. But she didn't have anything to open it with. Then she suddenly got an idea. She got one of the coconuts and cracked it open on the sharks head. The shark then shook her off his back and ate her. Anyway, thats how sharks got a dent on their heads. "

Canibalism was indeed practiced by the people of the Cook Islands prior to the arrival of the Missionaries. Today this custom is understood as a means in which the victors of a battle would eat their enemy as a way to gain the power of their enemy. No doubt this custom was practiced throughout Polynesia, and was not unique to the Cook Islands. The missionaries of course frowned on this activity, when they weren't stewing in their own juices.

The first official European sighting of Rarotonga was from the Endeavour in September/October 1813. The first known landing was by the crew of the Cumberland in 1814. This was a commercial expedition from Australia and New Zealand and its objective was to find sandalwood. There was none on Rarotonga. Instead, trouble broke out between the sailors and the islanders and many were killed on both sides including the captain's girlfriend, Ann Butchers. She was eaten and her bones are buried in Muri, close to the site of the sailing club. She has the distinction of being the only white woman ever to have been killed and eaten by Pacific islanders!

The question of why the Cook Islands were named after Captain James Cook is one of those frequently asked questions, at least by visitors to the Cooks. (Having once taught Seventh Grade Geography, I have to say it reminds me of the time one of my 13 year old pupils asked sarcasticly- "How come we call it America if Columbus Discovered it? Was Columbia already taken?")

I bet that less than 10% of the people who visit the Cook Islands, and 0.09% of all 7th Grade Social Studies Students in the US realize they were named the "Cook Islands" by a Russian Cartographer who never visited them himself. Even Captain Cook himself never set foot there. Captain Cook may have sailed past them a few times, and he's known to have named them the "Hervey Islands", after the governor of Australia at the time. (Note: there is a Hervey Beach in Australia, but that's another story. Remember it was Cook who named the Hawaiian Islands the "Sandwich Islands" after the Duke of Sandwich! But he certainly never expected that these islands would bear his name.)

Maybe it's time to change the name again to something more Polynesian. Anyway, with all these Cook's and Sandwiches, I'm really working up an appetite here! No wonder they ate the missionaries. Sorry for this lame attempt at humor, but I figured you needed it at this point in the story. Well ... let's get back to the dusty, boring, historical geography lesson:

Arrival of the Missionaries:

The Missionaries were next to arrive. You have to say one thing about the life of a Missionary in those days: For narrow minded people they sure got to see the world. The missionaries that came to the South Pacific arrived, horrified at the nakedness, canibalisim and "sinfulness" of the islanders. These days, we'd say the missionaries were "ethnocentric", to say the least. Their impact was severe, and for better or worse, the era of traditional Polynesian society was ending.

John Williams of the London Missionary Society landed on Aitutaki in 1821. Williams used Tahitian converts to carry his message to the Cook Islanders and they took to this task with great enthusiasm and were extremely successful. Williams was later killed and eaten on Erromango in the New Hebrides, now known as Vanuatu, but by then his work had been followed up and the gospels were well and truly embedded in the people's psyche. The missionaries were responsible for the discontinuation of cannibalism. They also tried hard to fence their island converts off from the influences of European and American ships' crews (who were no angels) and introduced schools and written language so their converts could read the scriptures. However, they also supported Nazi-like police supervision over the people's morals and activities considered by them to be dubious. There are reports, for example, that in 1900 islands such as Mangaia had more than 150 "police" spying on and questioning a population of fewer than 2000 in the name of "morality".

In addition to spying, the missionaries also managed to destroy many of the Tikis and temples, and forced the native populations to wear European clothing. Unwittingly the Missionaries also introduced western diseases which spread through the population like wildfire. The Missionaries figured that God was taking his vengence on the heathens, and the only thing that could save them was good old fashioned religion.

To this day, the Cook Islands are full of church-going Christians. One of the things to do there on a Sunday morning is to go to a Cook Island church service and enjoy all the singing. The people are serious about their Christianity, so beware all ye of little faith!

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How the Cooks became British (and not vice versa!)

Almost every island nation is a territory of another country, or receives direct aid from the outside. The Cook Islands are no different. The Cook Islands were once part of the British Empire: named after Captain Cook, who as I previously mentioned, passed through (without landing!) after having discovering the Society Islands (Tahiti) on his way to New Zealand and Australia. Incidently, Rarotonga was also supposedly visited by the Bounty mutineers before they found the then uncharted Pitcairn island. Ironically it was also visited by Captain Bligh on his amazing voyage after the mutiny.

Although the Cook Islands were independent and not really claimed by any one colonial power, they voluntarily sought protection from England against the French who had underhandedly re-claimed nearby Tahiti from under the British noses whilst the English were too busy charting and exploring the rest of the South Pacific to notice. During the 19th Century, many of the Kingdoms of the Pacific looked to the technologically superior Europeans for protection. A Maori war canoe couldn’t match the firepower and sheer force of the British and French frigates.

During the 1800's, relations between England and France were still fairly sour. Napolean had recently been marching around Europe with his toy soldiers, and Imperial ambitions to carve up the globe into red and blue territories were still in place. The French had a acquired a bad reputation in Tahiti which must have spread via word of mouth back to Rarotonga. To the Maori, the English were starting to look good by comparison to the French. Englishmen at that time, and possibly still, regarded France as an uncivilized and volatile country. Maybe it had something to do with the British reserve. Captain James Cook was after all a man of God and destiny. As the French took over Tahiti, the English suddenly took notice and plotted to grab the Cooks while they still could.

The official history says that the Cook Islands sought the British for protection. However, in this day and age, these sort of histories are suspect. It is unlikely that a 2000 year old civilization voluntarily decided to call it quits and adopt a completely foreign culture, religion, language, and way of life. Long before the Cook Islands reluctantly decided to become a British protectorate, the English had long since conquered the Cook Islands culturally through trade and religion. The English missionaries had destroyed any vestiges of native religion and customs by burning native holy shrines and tikkis, replacing the native religion with protestant churches, thereby forcing natives to give up semi-nudity and cannibalism in favor of the Victorian English attire and Corned Beef. As the Cooks became a British colony, they also adopted English institutions as well. The Cook Islands’ history paralleled New Zealand’s in many ways, including the common genetic and cultural heritage of their people. After all, the twelve canoes, which brought the twelve original Maori clans to New Zealand, came from Rarotonga!

Although the Cook Islands have their own Parliament, and are recognized as an independent nation, they are still a territory of New Zealand, which itself is part of the British Commonwealth. Cook Islanders still celebrate “Queens Day” - Queen Elizabeth II’s birthday - with celebrations, foot races, and rugby matches. The current Prime Minister, Sir Geoffrey Howard is a Cook Islander, though his name sounds more like a character from a Jane Austin novel. At the time we were there, he was losing popularity, having bet heavily on high-end tourism to save the economy. Although there is a local television station with local television ads for the local liquor store, brands of corned beef, and even pickup trucks, there’s not enough news to make up a half hour news program. Not only that, but coming up with 30 minutes of news a day takes money and more more time and energy than anyone there will admit to. They did however have their own local TV commercials.

The local television commercials were full of humor, inside jokes, and some great tunes. I still can’t get the “Bond Shop” liquor store jingle out of my head. It’s the same tune as “Down in the Boondocks” done with a Caribbean steel drum kind of sound. It was pretty catchy. And informative too: which store has the cheapest beer can be a determining factor in your plans. This is especially true on Saturdays, because Sundays were dry. The nightly news in Rarotonga is a delayed broadcast of the Channel One News from Auckland (one of the three or so stations for the entire country of New Zealand!) The New Zealand news in Auckland is more interesting than the local news, which travels by means of the daily newpaper (newsletter really), “The Cook Island News”. Still every night the entire hostel gathered around the television out of boredom to watch the news in New Zealand, halfway across the Pacific. I found it odd to be sitting in a room with Cook Islanders watching a delayed broadcast of the weather report for Dunedin NZ, which is closer to Antarctica than to the Cook Islands.

Everyone, it appeared, was mesmerized by the computer graphic view of the weather in New Zealand as would appear from outer space. Yet noone, not even the locals could tell you much about the weather forecast for Rarotonga. Locals would walk outside, look up at the mountain or out at the ocean and get the immediate forecast for the next 10 minutes before deciding what to do.

"When the Rain Comes, They run and hide their heads." - The Beatles

Sometimes in the tropics, the sun doesn’t show up to dry you out. Sometimes the rain is a steady, a heavy rain that can get on your nerves. Either you get used to the rain, forget about being damp, or go slowly insane. Nothing dries out. Clotheslines are strung under roof overhangs for a reason. Still when the sun does come out, it’s worth the wait. The number of shades of green in evidence are beyond the English language to describe. Lush only begins to describe it. When its raining, it’s hard to get excited about sitting on the beach, even with the beautiful palm and iron wood trees. Rain in the tropics can be sudden, and heavy. Small streams overflow their banks, and people in general get soaked. During our stay we got used to floods, overflowing streams, and ignoring the roar of rain on a corrugated steel roof.

Rain bring forced togetherness -wherever you happen to be and wherever shelter can be found. We struck up many a friendship while waiting for a pause between torrential downpours. The breaks inevitably do come. If not people give up and accept that their fate is to be drenched with water. Neither the Cook Islanders or the tourists seemed to be “depressed”, though everyone could not wait for the sun to appear. Eventually it did, and we started to dry out. My kingdom for a hot shower and a shave. After almost three days of taking cold showers that we finally realized that the people on the first floor were getting hot showers while we were taking cold showers upstairs. After inquiring with Bill about the hot water, he looked at me, a bit puzzled and replied: “What? You didn’t get a hot shower? That’s interesting. I have over a thousand dollars wrapped up in a new solar system. You should be getting hot water.” So I asked him to come up and look at it. Before long we were both up on the roof checking a labyrinthine system of valves and plastic hoses. After showing me how it worked, I realized I had to control the intake pressure by periodically turning on one valve which would cause a big tank to fill with water. When the big tank was full, it simply overflowed and poured off the flat rooftop. Because it rained almost the whole first week, it was hard to tell if the tank overflowed. The rain also didn’t make for very hot solar showers either.

Hail Brittania

What always seems to happen when you get a group of people from various European countries is they form cliques based on nationality. Being American I found this interesting, and due to my own Anglo-Saxon roots (100% White Anglo Saxon Protestant), found myself hanging out more with the Brits Aussies and Kiwis. Among the entertaining British people we got to know were: Doug Douglas (I am not making this up), his friend and traveling companion Mark who managed to use Doug’s charm and good looks to his own advantage. And lastly, a slightly older and more reserved guy named Simon whose public school accent, sarcastic smile and occasional quips would put everyone in stitches. Just to make the little soap opera that was about to play out complete there were and equal number of English women, who seemed at first to be uptight and boring, but were quite fun while drunk. The English girls were quite the posh types. They seemed to know everything there was to know about yachting and horses, and yet were on 3 month long extended vacation staying at a budget backpacker's resort in the middle of the South Pacific. Something didn't add up. Maybe they were trying to stretch their allowances further by following the budger dictum of "sleeping cheap and eating well" at the more expensive restaurants. We never saw the girls eating Top-Ramen or having canned spaghetti on toast for breakfast. The English guys however, were Ramen and Spaghetti-O's all the way.

In addition to the English cliques, there also was a nice Danish couple who were on their last days on the Island. They had been there a week and had only one day of sun. I kind of wished they had stayed, because they would have offered a little Scandanavian humor and a non-English perspective. Another character was a strange German guy named Gunter who smoked heavily and went diving every day. Gunther kept to himself and never really hung out with anyone until we went diving with him later. There was also a Spanish group who kept to themselves and were embarrassed to speak broken English. Clearly, the British held the majority, and with that established proceeded to have about as much fun as a group of young English people can have on a tropical island in the middle of a freak monsoon, which is slightly more fun than being trapped in an elevator with strangers after a Friday night happy hour.

Friday night on Rarotonga

The English guys, who had been ogling the English girls for some time, and get very little if any interest from them decided to organize an outing to Cook's corner - the only thing resembling a downtown anywhere in Rarotonga (and quite possible anywhere in the Cook Islands as well). To do this they had to have a minimum number of people so that Bill Bates could drive them all in the Big Red Van, and then pick them up at an appointed time. There also was the option of taking the circle-the-island bus, but it was cheaper per person to get a lift from Bill. The other part of the plan was to engage everyone in a vigorous round of that peculiar English habit: English Drinking Games!

I dont know where this custom came from, but it seemed that throughout Australia, New Zealand and now the Cook Islands, there is some sort of an organized drinking game going on at almost every Backpackers. It was certainly encouraged by the budget travel bus companies such as Oz Experience and Kiwi Experience. Being bored, we started to get involved in the drinking games more and more.

Lacking a local pub and a dartboard the kitchen of the hostel was the room for socializing and drinking. Cards and booze bottles suddenly appeared and rather suprisingly, everyone gathered around including the Posh sisters. Everyone was drinking shots of something - vodka or maybe gin, I was drinking my Tui and VB's which I had picked up cheap at the Cook Island Trading Company (CITC) store on special earlier in the day. It's important to go beer shopping before Saturday Night because all stored are closed on Saturday night - and is dry on Sunday.

Noone was excluded, although the Spanish people probably wondered what the hell was going on. They spoke very little English and made themselves as scarce as possible. Everyone else was from either England, Australia, New Zealand or the US - which counts as a semi-English speaking country.

Here are two of the games I remembered, the details of which I found elsewhere on the internet - The rules are the same as the ones we played. I have to admit, they really are ice-breakers for a bunch of 20 something people who are all stuck on a tropical island in a late season monsoon.

The Truth Game: "I Have Never . . ." Now, this game is only for the very brave or the very drunk. Everyone sits in a circle and the first person stands and says, “I have never done X”. All those who HAVE done X must then stand up and drink a fixed measure of their drink. As the games progresses and people get more and more open about their exploits, the “I have never” statements get increasingly amusing (and sometimes just plain obscene!).

The Number Game: "Twenty Ones" This is a great game to play to get the evening going. Everyone sits around the table and the people count up to 21. The object of the games is to avoid being the one to say 21. To do this the following rules come into play. Saying just one number means the games continues in the same direction. Saying the next two numbers reverses the direction of the game, while saying the next three numbers continues the game in the same direction but skips the next player. You also can’t use a combination of numbers that add up to 21, like “10 11” or “6 7 8”. People should be penalised for saying numbers when it is not their turn and also for not realising it is their turn at all. The person who has to say 21 drinks their penalty and then restarts the game, but not before substituting one number with a word or phrase of their choice. Instead of that number, players must instead say the word or phrase or face a penalty!

There's also a couple of card games such as "Shithead", which is similar to a variation of Hearts in which the last person to get rid of all their cards is the loser. In this game, at the end the whole group says "There are no winners in this game - there is only one SHIT---head!". The shithead loser then must take a drink. I played this game in Nepal with my dear friends Dave and Vicky and never felt prouder to be declared a shithead.

Being an American, I was particularly unskilled at British drinking games, but caught on quickly though I paid the price the next day for being on the learners curve. We have drinking games in the US, but they are more like drinking contests than games. In the US the object is to see how much you can consume in a certain period of time without puking. The English drinking contest is a contest to stay sober. The competitions are memory and linguistic challenges, where being drunk only adds to your drunkeness. If you win at a British drinking game, you get to stay sober and keep your stiff upper lip, reserve or whatever. The only advantage of this is that you don't puke and get hung over. The losers seem to have the excuse that "Oh well, its part of the game". But once the inhibitions were removed, being drunk was a license to go past sarcastic put-downs and go for more daring romantic moves such as hand holding, kissing (necking as we used to call it), and doing the wild thing on the beach. You could always blame your colleagues and that nasty drinking game for last nights behaviors!

After getting sufficiently shit-faced at the Backpackers that first Friday, I had no further interest in getting into the back of Bill Bates Red Van and going in to Cooks Corner to drink with a bunch of staggering drunk Brits who seemed destined to be robbed, pick-pocketed or just plain arrested at some point in the evening. Much to my surprise the cute gigling British girls piled in with the guys whom they had been complaining about secretly as being boorish oafs or some such thing.

The next morning they all quite pale and had only vague recollections of the Friday night shenanigans of the day before. When the guys arrived in the main kitchen area, you knew that they had somehow decided that after putting down the girls for being posh public school bitches, that they were enamored - and had each picked one out. The shy looks and sarcastic smiles between them gave away the indescretions of the night before.

Dive Rarotonga

The Danish couple we had met on the first day had recommended a particular dive place: Dive Rarotonga. We checked out the competitions prices and found they were, as usual, identical. Padi Dive places are almost always the same price. I think we got 2 tanks of air (2 dives) with all equipment rented for about USD$50 a person. That was our big splurge.

The guy who runs Dive Rarotonga was a really happy Kiwi bloke who aparently decided, along with his lovely wife, to chuck the work-life out the window, move to Rarotonga and start a dive business. They lived in a modest house, sort of a 1960's pre-fab looking bungalow. It was decorated with lots of sea shells, bamboo curtains, and rattan furniture, and lots of placards with 1970's style "positive thinking" slogans such as "Today is the first day of the rest of your life". I thought: We've been transported back in time to the 1970's. The owner, who at times resembled a smily version of Lloyd Bridges, liked to smoke cigarettes. Something I've never really understood is how smokers end up as divers. I guess the restricted breathing that goes along with smoking lets them stay down longer - or something. It turned out this time that he wasn't even going down with us. He simply drove the boat. Another guy was acting as a dive-master.

In the boat we had the two of us (Becca and I), Gunter the German guy, a Canadian couple who's only previous dive had been in an ice cold quarry with 3 feet of visibility, and a Kiwi couple who were, relatively new to diving.

We were told that the visibility in the water where we were going was over 100 feet, and possibly 200 feet. The best I had ever seen in the Philipines was about 50 feet, so I was excited. Our Padi Open-Water Dive rating only allows us to go to about 50 meters (80 feet). But I was surprised to find out that we were going down to about 120. We followed a wall of coral and slowly, diagonally descended. On the way down, we saw Black Tipped Sharks, Giant Brain Corrals, Lettuce Corals, Lots of Big Angels, Nudibranches, and huge sea cucumbers the size of a football. We stopped in a sandy area on what was a shelf, and looked at a lazy black tipped reef shark that eventually swam off. Then we came up to the edge of the shelf. Looking down into the water off the end of the shelf was like looking into deep space: black and void. Turning to look up, I could see the bottom of our boat way up there - though it looked close. I looked at the depth meter to find we were already down to about 30 meters. At this point Gunter swam out over the black void and let all the air out of his BCD. Waving goodbye, he descended into the blackness. I was just fascinated by the bright silver bubbles floating up, with no apparent source. I figured that as long as he was still breathing air -we could always follow the bubbles. He had a second tank with him, and (I believe) was on some sort of nitrox mixture. Not regular air. He apparently was doing this almost every day, so either he was developing some kind of special ability, or severe brain damage, or both.

Being down at that depth causes you to run out of air quickly. Since I was a heavy breather to begin with, I had to go up first. I think I was out of the water for 10 minutes when the others started coming back up. Finally Becca came up. And much to my relief Gunter came up. Once in the boat the Kiwi skipper and Gunter lit up and smoked. Another "safe" dive trip, this time a little less by the book than we were used to.

Another nice thing about going out in the boat was just having a chance to see Rarotonga from a distance. Its a really pretty island, though it lacks the distinctive bays that, say, Moorea has. There are plenty of pointy volcanic peaks and lush green valleys, and beautiful white beaches. From the water, you'd never know it's the most populated island in the Cook Islands.

Snorkeling at the Fruits of Rarotonga

The best snorkeling on Rarotonga is reputed to be the beach between Titikaveka and the Muri Lagoon, opposite a cute little roadside stand known as the "Fruits of Rarotonga" where you can buy freshly made tropical fruits, or enjoy homemade tropical fruit preserves on scones or muffins with tea. They also rent snorkeling equipment: fins masks and snorkels for a nominal fee. When we arrived to rent our equipment, we couldnt find anyone there at the stand and had to go up and knock on the door of the house behind the storefront. Finally a smiling woman came out and told us to help ourselves to the equipment and we could settle up later. They were incredibly trusting people, and had their snorkels as well as the jellies and fruits sitting there for anyone who wanted them. It was just assumed that noone would steal them or use them without paying. The honor system really worked.

The snorkeling was just as good as the dive, and in some ways better. The water was a bit turbid, but on a calm day, there were lots and lots of fish on some big coral heads about 50 meters offshore. There were so many of these big corals that at low tide they formed a maze that was sort of tricky to swim through. Closer to shore, the dead corals made it tricky to walk. I was glad I had my Teva sandals to wade out into the water with. Eventually I got used to leaving the flippers behind, and just snorkeling with my Tevas firmly attached to my feet.

Movie night at Backpackers International:

Bill and Anna's living room doubled as the TV lounge for the hostel. A week earlier, sitting around in someone's living room watching TV would have seemed awkward, but we now felt at home. We were becoming part of the family, with and Ana acting as the guardians of the peace. Friendships, crushes and love affairs were blooming despite the rain, which was starting getting to us all.

One Wednesday or Thursday night, a group of us commandeered the Bate's TV set. Someone at the Backpackers got bored of playing Hearts, Shithead or whatever card game they were playing all day, and went out to the nearby 'store' to rent videos. They came back with some pretty good movies, including my now favorite "Wild Things", starring Kevin Bacon, Matt Dillon, Neve Campbell and Denise Richards. (Remember those names you 6th degree of separation fans!). The movie is is full of twists and some pretty steamy scenes. It was definitely one of the best movies I had seen in a long, long time. One of the young grandsons of Bill and Anna was really enjoying it. But when there was a sex scene he would cover his eyes, and peak through his fingers, gigling. Generally speaking we were rivited to the screen the whole time.

The missing wallet

The day after Movie night I woke up and looked around for my wallet, which usually was in my shorts front pocket, or on the bedside table. It was missing. A shock of panic went through me as I rifled through my clothing, throwing it all about. Later I traced my steps backward to the bathroom, kitchen and the TV room. The last time I saw the wallet, I had put it in my side pocket of my grey shorts, which has a wide pocket that constantly drops items from it whenever I sat down.

I tried to recall what had happened the night before, and when I last saw the wallet. I rekonned that the wallet had fallen out of my pocket and was probably under one of the couch cushions. But when I looked, I didn't find it anywhere.

While watching the movie, I was sitting on a big deep sofa that was pretty comfy. I sat next to a guy I didn't recognize, but I did notice his body odor. I never really thought much after that, since it was common for people to arrive from another place and forget to bathe.

I asked the little boys if they had found it, and they said no. They even tried to help me find it. Finally one of the boys said : "I bet that wierd guy nicked it". It never occured to me.So far, I didn't even concieve that someone in the group might have nicked my wallet. My sense of safety and security was shattered. I had left my guard down for the first time after almost a year of travel, and what happens? My wallet "went missing".

That morning other people were complaining of missing things: towels, a walkman, money and little things. The wierd smelly guy it turned out had checked out that morning due to a dispute over his previous bills. Ana told me they got a warning about the guy not paying his bills from the other backpackers resorts. I was glad he was gone, but still wanted to get my wallet back.

Needless to say, we were devastated by the loss of the wallet. Financially, it only set us back about $100NZ or so. I had some old paper New Zealand money that I was saving for my currency collection (some nice $5 with Sir Edmond Hillary) and some American money which I was saving for the airport when we got back to San Francisco. The real headache was the fact that I had one of each of our joint credit cards. By chance, it turned out that our only other credit card (the backup card) which was hidden with the passports etc., had expired the previous month. We started to live off of our American Express travelers checks and began playing telephone tag with the American credit card people. We had to cancel all the cards, and request a new card be sent to us. But we only had about a week left in Rarotonga.

I reported the loss to the Police Dept in Avarua. They made me fill out a form, but wouldn't make a copy of it unless I paid them $15. This is sort of a scam. The insurance company back home needs the police report. The police need money. The bottom line is that getting a police report made up would not help or hurt my chances of getting it found. So I didn't order it. The police guys said the thief was probably not a local person. Local people talk (alot), and have few secrets. He said most likely it was another backpacker. I agreed, and described the "smelly-guy".

Days later while riding my bike I spotted Smelly walking along the road, without a backpack. I stopped to ask him a few questions. I bordered on accusing him of stealing: I asked why he moved out the Backpackers. He didn't answer and started to walk away from me in a different direction than the one he was going in. He obviously was the guy. I went to various other backpacker places to figure out where he was staying. Apparently, he was camping somewhere, because he had been kicked out of every backpacker place on Rarotonga. I reported this to the police, who still were unable to find him. I saw him twice more that week, but both times he saw me and disappeared into jungle. So much for trusting your fellow backpacker. I learned my lesson the hard way.

The whole missing wallet incident soured what was becoming an almost enjoyable 3 weeks on Rarotonga. We were getting to know people both at the hostel, and in town and really felt at home for the first time. Perhaps that is why I let down my guard that night. Also, I was getting sloppy-forgetting little things here and there. Living in the tropics does that to you. Being stuck in the rain for three weeks makes you a little buggy too. I was ready to leave, and I knew it, but now we had only about $500 (Amex Travelers Checks) to make it through the next 3 weeks. Back home that would be easy. But Tahitti had a reputation for being expensive. We would have to really travel close to the ground in Tahitti.

Another thing being on a long-long trip like this does, is to make you blow up incidents like this to an enormous proportion. To me, losing the wallet was the worst thing that happened in almost a year of traveling. Looking back on it now, I realize that setbacks like this are inevitable. It's how you deal with setbacks that counts, not the magnitude of the loss.