We decided to learn to make Ei Katu (flower garlands), and the teacher sent us out to pick lots of beautiful flowers with which to make them.
J was an excellent ei katu weaver.
This was on our first day, and it made us feel very islandy. Many native Rarotongans make and wear these every day, or make/buy ones with fake flowers so that they'll last. They are quite an important part of their traditional (and current) garb.
I felt amazing in my ei katu, and would have been quite pleased to keep wearing it forever.
We had originally planned to rent scooters (little motorbikes, not the ones you push with your foot), as they are very popular and we thought it would be fun. However, it turned out to be a hassle to get them, and I am categorically opposed to spending a tropical holiday standing in lines, so we decided to get bicycles instead. You'll notice J doesn't look hugely thrilled on his bike, but that's a "Why do we need a picture of this?" look, not a "I don't like bikes" look. We actually had quite a fabulous time on our rental bikes.
How could you not have an amazing time biking here? One day, we biked the entire 32km (20 miles) around the island, taking our time and stopping often to see beautiful places, to go snorkeling, or to get some food. 32km is quite a long way, but unlike my daily 13km bike ride, which is all up and down serious hills, this was all just above sea level, and therefore completely flat. It's amazing how much less work that is! We were very tired at the end, but it was a great day!
This is one of the places we snorkeled. We saw an amazing number and variety of tropical fish, which I will talk about in a different post. I learned, however, that I am not actually skilled at snorkeling. I get the strap caught in my hair and then manage to get stinging sea water in my eye as I try to untangle it, which I have to do every few minutes because I can't figure out how to unfog my constantly foggy mask without taking it all the way off. Plus, every time we went I manage to scrape or cut my legs on rocks or coral, and my body is completely incapable of coping with even slightly cold water without shaking like a leaf, so by the end of a snorkeling session I am basically nonfunctional until the sun bakes me back to a reasonable temperature. What a mess. Meanwhile, J, who professed to not enjoying snorkeling, had no problems and peacefully bonded with the fish, who loved him. Luckily, I still managed to enjoy the experience, which says a lot about how amazing it was, that it could balance out all that.
I somewhat redeemed myself by being, apparently, a natural paddle boarder. Don't get too excited, as I believe the crux of the issue is that I am small and don't weigh enough to tip the massive board over if I wanted to, but I'm still taking credit. More importantly, we discovered that paddle boarding in a lagoon is very fun! It was so serene, and almost like walking on water. We admired coral as we paddled over it, and went out to the tiny island in this picture, as well as to a slightly bigger one in the same lagoon. Unfortunately, J hit a rock in the shallows and fell onto another rock, cutting and bruising his foot. But other than that, it was a gorgeous experience.
On Saturday, we went to the Punanga Nui Market in Avarua, the capital city of the Cook Islands. It is a huge, beautiful, interesting market with lots of locally made items and some delicious food. J got a beautiful shirt and a new sarong, and I got some amazing pearl shell earrings.
That afternoon, we went on the Raro Reef Sub, which is a boat that has a lower level with windows you can look out under the water. These fish are giant trevally, which come whenever they see the reef sub going by, as they know they'll get some food. They can get up to 80kg (176lbs), although the ones we were seeing were closer to 40-50kg (88-110lbs), which is still enormous!
I watched them from underneath on the way out, but on the way back, I looked from the top, where you got a clearer idea of their frenzy to get the chunks of meat the tour guide threw out to them.
Unfortunately, visibility under the water wasn't great the day we went out, but I still got some nice glimpses of the reef. We also went around a shipwreck, which was quite cool, although my pictures didn't turn out.
It was also lovely just to be out on the water, admiring the beautiful ocean and views back towards the island. I love being on a boat, and they even let me sit up in the prow for a while to have some quiet time admiring the waves. (J gets seasick, so he was mostly focusing on not being unwell, which he mostly accomplished. And see how nice he looks in his new shirt?)
On our last day, we went on a Jungle Quad Adventure, which was fantastic. I've never driven a quad before, although I remember loving riding on the back of them in Canada when I was a kid. J also enjoyed them when he was little, but this was his first adult quad experience. It was so fun to zoom along the trails through the lush jungle.
We even got to zoom through some pretty fantastic muddy puddles. I love that you can't even see my bike!
J was a bit hesitant about this level of mud at the beginning, but then he got into it. Amazingly, though, the mud flew all over the place, but not much of it actually landed on us. Must be the shape of the front of the quad or something, because it seems like we should have been soaked, but we weren't.
We stopped and looked around in several different jungle locations, all of which were beautiful. I particularly loved the plants with the huge leaves, which you can see in the bottom left. It's hard to understand how incredibly huge they are, as I never did find a good opportunity to have something for scale next to them. They were amazing! This picture is up by a reservoir that catches and filters rain water through rocks. This water then continues down the mountain (and we think through further filtration) and eventually ends up in a little town where people can fill up containers to use it for drinking water. This is important, as tap water in Rarotonga is not safe for drinking.
I feel like I have not truly done justice to the delight we took in our adventures, but hopefully you can get a bit of a sense of it through the pictures. More next week on stunning Rarotonga.
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