Tahiti, the Cooks and HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

Kia Orana ('May you live long', NOT a brand of orange squash) from the Cook Islands!

Well I think we can safely say that we had the longest 33 hours of our lives so far when we made our journey from Costa Rica to Tahiti, via LA.

The first problem croppedup when we arrived in LA and my bag didn't turn up on the carousel. United could only tell us for sure that it reached Guatemala... so we went to check in for our Air NZ flight to Tahiti, only to be told that they couldn't find us booked onto that flight. Turned out United hadn't informed NZ of the changes we had made to our itinerary, but to cut a long story short Air NZ were wonderful and sorted it all out for us.

We still didn't know where my pack was so waited the next 7 hours to board the flight assuming we'd have to wait a day in Tahiti for it to turn up. But we arrived in Tahiti and jumped for joy when my bag was sat there, yay!
One thing though, it was raining very hard, we had been given ponchos as we stepped off the plane (along with a pretty flower to put in our hair). We made our way by ferry to Moorea, an outer island with a circumference of 60km (37 miles) and stayed at a campsite in the village of Haapiti. However due to the rain I refused to camp, so we got a room instead :-)

We were exhausted and disillusioned after the journey and the disappointing weather, but the next 6 days of sunshine (interspersed with short sharp showers) more than made up for it. We went snokelling in the lagoon right by the campsite, cycled part way round the island (too hot to go all the way), walked to a waterfall and enjoyed the sun and sea. It wasn't quite as we expected - the coast was white sand and palm trees, but inland was muggy volcanic mountains covered in luch green vegetation. Absolutely beautiful and magical.

A little overexuberance in a late-night drinking game (the one with the plastic bits that hold cans of beer together) led to Rob falling backwards off a picnic bench. The consequence - a broken rib. The fool. Full story when we get home.

Local speciality is raw tuna fish dipped in coconut milk, which we tried one evening (our splurge night). It was delicious.
Everything was expensive, so the days' food revolved around the baguette bought each morning, well it is French after all.

And now we are sat on the lovely island of Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. We were here for 3 nights before heading to Aitutaki, an outer island. It was simply heaven on earth, we'll let the pictures do the talking when we have a chance to upload them. The people are so friendly and the island and lagoon so beautiful, we didn't want to leave!


On returning from Aitutaki today we went to stock up on Xmas food supplies, and afterwards in the carpark were offered a lift home by a local family. On hearing that we hadn't yet sampled any fresh local mangoes, they promptly performed a u-turn and took us to an uncle's house to pick mangoes straight from his tree. This is just one example of the generosity and kindness of the Cook Islanders.

We now have 3 more nights here on Rarotonga before flying to Auckland on 27th. Xmas day will likely be spent on the beach, with Santa hats on of course! I am off diving tomorrow (R has cried off with his rib excuse), otherwise more sun and snorkelling.

It may be a bit late but we wish you all a very MERRY CHRISTMAS and a Happy 2006. Enjoy the festivities, I know we will!



Til next time,
Rob and Amanda

Final thoughts on Central America

As we prepare to leave Central America for the pacific islands, I thought I would note a few of our thoughts on this group of 7 countries, 5 of which we have visited.

Before we started our travels, Central America was the ´scary´place on our route, the countries where we thought we may be unsafe and it would be difficult to get around, buses would be infrequent and unreliable and we would be constantly paranoid that someone would nick our iPods. How wrong we were! Until a few days ago I was looking forward to leaving CA to start the next phase of our trip (we have mentally broken it down into bitesized chunks to make it easier to digest!). However, I recently realised that I´m not sure I want to leave after all.

Aside from a few bad habits, we have had a wonderful experience here - it is unbelieveably easy to travel around and extremely traveller-friendly. OK, we haven´t exactly made it off the beaten track, but even so, I have been pleasantly surprised by the frequency and punctuality of buses, people are generally friendly, helpful and a good source of information, and we have not had one bad experience concerning our safety. Aside from that, we have come to be used to the little things that make this place different. The chicken buses which have our packs balanced precariously on top no longer scare us, and a bumpy ride isn´t a bad thing, it´s fun! You get to see a lot more from a bus window than from the air. I even commented the other day when we got a fancy minibus to a Costa Rican reserve that it wasn´t very nice because I couldn´t see out of the windows properly (they were kind of blacked out), never mind that the seats were very comfy and it was air conditioned, I wanted a view!

There are a few things that I didn´t appreciate, e.g. in Guatemala it seemed that it was acceptable to urinate on the side of a street in public, in Honduras the people were generally a little miserable and the men insisted on spitting loudly and publicly, and in Nicaragua people threw all their rubbish right out of the bus window without a second thought. Costa Rica, although very beautiful, is also relatively expensive compared to the rest, due to too many tourists. But hey, you can´t have it all.

If anyone needs inspiration where to go for a 2-3 week holiday, I would certainly recommend going to Guatemala, Belize or Nicaragua, or indeed all three!

So, until the next time amigos - we´re flying from San Jose to LA on Friday morning and then overnight on Friday night from LA to Tahiti. It will be a shock to the system I expect, especially the price increases!

xxx