Day 5 Friday

Next morning, Justin went directly to the car rental office to get our car back, and I walked over to the AirNZ office.  I got us all arranged and paid for, an additional $400.  They usually forfeit but let us make a change.  Also, the lady at the rental office told Justin we could return the car tonight because we missed our flight.  

We went into Avarua to check our email and to call our motor home rental agency.  Another email from Jon, our realtor.  The buyers countered our offer and there was another showing the same day from people who were coming for their second time.  Jon talked with their realtor and he seemed to think they'd be putting in an offer.  Cool.  

We paid $5 for an international calling card (about five minutes worth), and called the RV place.  They had wondered what happened to us, but no worries.  Yeah!  (There is 20 foot wild bamboo out my door right now.)  We bought two meat pies and raspberry Vaiora for our brunch and bought Ammon a tshirt.  

We tried to do a hike, but it looked to be grown over. 

 Happened with another one around the island too.  

 
 
So we went to snorkel again at Fruits of Rarotonga.  It's a long way out there to the reef but fantastic things to behold.  Justin picked up a broken open clam shell and dozens of colorful tropical fish came to nibble on it.  My mask leaks just a tiny bit around the nose so I had to empty it out about every three minutes.  Annoying to say the least.  
We drove to a beach that had fresh water to rinse off.  

Ate another ice cream at Wigmore's then drove to town to check our email again because Jon requested us to.  Yep.  There was an offer put in by another buyer.  Wahoo!  This time yielding double what the first buyers counter offered.  Nice to have two interested parties.  And the second buyers have a later closing date and didn't ask for all these extras.  Justin and I did little kiss.  

We were tired so looked for a quiet road to take a nap on and parked by the Raemaru trek.  Justin wanted to check it out.  He has now been gone about 20 minutes when he said he was going to look around the corner to see if the brush was more cut back.  I'm starting to freak out.  I keep hearing something and I think it's a coconut falling.  And my girlie mind immediately goes to horrible things that could have happened to him.  He probably couldn't stop seeing what was around the next corner and then the next, but it's very hot in here and I'm imagining it getting dark, going to look for him in a thick jungle, then having to get help, police, search party.  
Here he is all sweaty and I mean sweaty and breathing hard.  
He took me to see just what was so inspiring for him to keep going. 

 
 Indeed it was a track worthy.  After a 10 minute steady slight incline through thick jungle and slippery mud and roots, he showed me a vista overlooking a section of the island.  Breathtaking.  On the way down I slipped on the mud and landed on the same knee I fell on the other day in the ocean.  Ouch.  
We stopped to watch the sunset on the beach and I was able to talk with a lady that had been out in the low tide with a bucket, to see what she had.   Lots of squishy things and shells.

 
  She seemed pleased with her finds and nice to share what they were and how they are eaten.  She was too shy for a photo, but got one of her boys.  

Sunset beginning.

  
This has to be the most breathtaking sunset I've seen in my LIFE.  It just kept getting better and better.  

Day 5 Thursday

Feb 23
Slept great.  Getting around 10 hours of sleep, waking to a cocks crow.  Justin went out to check out some beaches, while I woke up.  I went out to enjoy the sunrise with my journal.  Justin got back right when the next door neighbor, the, branch president walked out on the beach.  

We chatted with him for a little while.  He works at the airport as their security...wears combat boots and all.  He has a drug dog.  He said they prefer to eat the small fish; they taste better.  

Grapefruit for breakfast.  It did have a different texture, more tough? but still good.

 Mango tree.  They use a long stick to get the high ones.

 
Random yard.

Petrol Station.  It seemed often they were out of either petrol, or diesel.

 How they paint lines in the Cook Islands, with a rope to get it straight.

 Typical school.

Most people do not own lawn mowers and weed whack.  This lady was at it for at least two hours.

We returned the (awesome) scooter, then checked our email at an Internet cafe.  Immediately we saw an email with the grandest importance:

  an offer had been put in on our house. 

Uh.  I couldn't think straight.  There was booming music and a strange keyboard so I kept making typos, not to mention a worker who's sex is still a question.  Justin typed a response to our realtor.  Mind numbing.
We had been trying to figure this last day out.  We needed to get our bags to the airport lockers so we wouldn't have to drag them around.  Looooong story short, we rented a car for $40. 

The lockers were broken and would have cost $20, and a scooter $20, so this turned out perfectly.   We did a little store shopping.  It is so easy to find fun girl things, but boy stuff, forget it.  

We ate at a little roadside restaurant, fish n chips and their yummy lime soda made on the island, Vaima.

  I noticed I forgot to give Charlie, not the chicken, the key back at Tiana's, so we drove allll the way back there.  Visited a beautiful garden.  Got more ice cream at Wigmore's.  Justin got a double scoop: boysenberry and his favorite, lime.  So creamy. 

 Stopped to see the Air New Zealand plane come in.  This is a big thing to do here.  The plane lands, it feels like it's going to hit you and I've been told it's quite a rush.  Due to winds, the plane rerouted so we missed it. 

 Plane already landed.

 Where you stand to wait for the Jet Blast.

Me waiting.  I look sad, but I'm not.  I'm happy.  

 Coral that looked like a skull.

Fisherman.

 We drove up Happy Valley road and hiked on the trail at the end of it.  Rough road at the end.  Lo and behold, this was the trail I remembered as a kid.  Hiking through taro fields.  It felt like the Garden of Eden.  Grass had been mown.  Impeccable.   Stunning.  We kept saying "wow".  Highlight of my day for sure. 

 Back in town, we sat on the rocks of the harbor watching the giant turquoise waves roll then crash onto the reef. 

 
 Getting hungry, we set off to see what all the hub bub was down the street.  Looked like the locals, after Rugby, come downtown for a swim in the wharf.  A couple dozen kids splashing about. 

 We almost ate at RFC/ Raro Fried Chicken, but seeing a rat on the premises was souring.  

I love their "also available" items on their menu.

There were scooters EVERYWHERE.
We ate at Trader Jack's.  We shared a Hawaiian piazza.  It was great!  We got to sit right over the water.  Romantic.

 
   Now we're sitting in our Suzuki rental with random rain drops on the roof, I'm  typing, and Justin reading a Stephen King book on his phone.  We're waiting until our 1:30am flight.  Nap time.

I heard they loved corned beef and it looked to be true.  This is the selection in a gas station.

We often saw prepared food by registers.  This was egg salad sandwich.  Salmonella anyone?  

Table of prepared foods in Wigmore store.  I think the three bottles of white liquid must be coconut milk.  Yellow is taro root.  Usually there was rice with beef and veggies. 

Everyone wears jandals:  flip flops, or no shoes at all.  
You will never guess what I did.  Our flight was yesterday at 1:30am, so here we sit at the airport trying to figure out what to do.  Too bad we already turned in our rental car.  I am over the moon with madness at myself.  To my mind, Thursday 1:30 am, was in reality Friday.  
Phew.  We didn't sleep in the airport,  next to the haunted lockers that would make clicking sounds randomly, or on the metal benches.   Another couple had their flight changed and didn't know.  Their driver let us borrow his cell phone (after we had to ask), to call Air NZ.  Justin got most of the details worked out before his cell ran out of minutes.  Crap.  He told us about a cheap hotel across the street, and said no to us paying to use his phone.  So we walked across the street and asked for their cheapest room.  We asked if we could use their phone, and she said that they don't sell calling cards right now.  We offered to pay to make a local call and I also noticed a post it on their phone that said local calls $1, but she totally ignored me and started humming.  Weird.  She took us to our room.  It was dark, but I saw a set of bunk beds.  Then another set of bunk beds.  Crap.  We were in a backpackers hostel!  Justin and I looked at each other with huge eyes but told her thanks.  We were standing there in shock when a three inch cockroach ran for our feet.  

I opted for the top bunk.  

$60, but we didn't sleep on a bench. 
***

My owie is not much to look at, a small scratch.  But the story, to me, was much more grand.  This happened last night.  We decided to go out snorkeling at dusk.  When it started to get darkish, and it was getting harder to see where you were going, I started to freak just a little, especially because it was in the same place where we had seen the moray eel.  When we were almost to the shore, walking over rocks and coral, Justin startled a large white fish which darted straight towards me.  I let out a huge blood curdling scream (remember how serene this beach is) and fell on my knee.  I was thankful it was a minor owie because coral can hurt.  It did bruise up the next few days.  

Day 4 Wednesday

Feb 22

All three sunrise pictures are of the same day.

The back of our little bungalow on the beach.

 Charlie (not the rooster, his actual name) was nice to get us a fresh coconut, right off the tree.  He was our landlord guy.  Here's a short clip.

 They use that wooden stool to scrap the meat out of a coconut.  In the foreground is breadfruit.

 I didn't like this when I was younger and thought I'd try it again hoping I had grown up, but nope.  I even tried it twice.  The rubbery meat was okay though.

Justin said he didn't like it either, but this time he said it was good.

Charlie's granddaughter.  

There was this annoying cat that kept coming in our bungalow.  A lot.  And kept rubbing my leg and meowing.  Gave me the creeps.

  Scooter!  Justin walked to a rental place up the street and paid $20 for the rental and $8 for a one day license.  Wahooooooo!  We should have gotten one every day.

We poked my blisters with a needle I had packed in a mini sewing kit (you never know! ) and got them bandaged.

 Drove about a mile to snorkel across from a store called Fruits of Rarotonga.  There is a reserve there so no one is allowed to fish etc.  We slathed on the sunscreen and took off.  Right near the shore, there were huge fish!  But after a bit, no more big ones.  We swam out to a floating dock and rested, then went out farther towards the reef.  There was a huge, HUGE coral, not brain, but with hundereds of colorful baby fish swimming all around.  They let us swim right in the midst of them.  This has been my favorite sighting so far snorkeling.  There are large metal cages with about a hundred clams, mostly with brown mouths, but some are the most vibrant colors. Purples, blues, teals. 
 

Pic from google images.
 We swam out to where the reef was starting, and saw some more interesting corals and even some large fish again.  It was a long swim back to shore.  We went back to our place and rinsed off then drove to Wigmores for lunch.  Chips and a toasted cheese for me, a Raro burger for Justin.  Meat, lettuce (coleslaw-ish), egg with cheese scrambled in, slab of bacon (ham), and pineapple. $10 for the burger.  Of course we shared another passion fruit ice cream cone.
We stopped at the mission home.  Very nice senior couple.  Elder Bellingston? Drove us around the island showing us locations where they filmed The Other Side Of Heaven and introducing us to local Mormons.  I even saw how pineapple is grown.  A little more than we bargained for, but we got some interesting information about island life.  For the most part, the locals have no air conditioning, which is why there hair is always up and they wear a towel over their shouldha. Electricity is very expensive. So when it's night, they go to bed or use candles.  There are three LDS buildings on the island.  

We stopped at Black Rock and snorkeled around.   I saw two more varieties of fish and a snake that looked like a rattlesnake.  Its coolhow every time we've gone out, we see more types of fish and corals.  There are al many vibrant and interesting ones.
Finished driving around the island, stopping to watch some Rugby in town.  We ate ate at a swanky restaurant.  Chips for me.  Justin ordered a chicken curry which I guess was great.  It was a beautiful spread on a banana leaf.  Mango salsa.  Then we got to check out my sunburn.  It's a doozy.  I look like I'm red wearing a white swim suit.  I slept nude and took two ibuprofens and a tylenol pm. 

And my behind was more red.