Ambala Garden Lodge Rarotonga

I'm here! I made it! I'm so happy to be back in the South Pacific! I actually wrote my very first entry of my very first travel blog on the plane. But I decided to scrap it, because it was sadly focused on the bonehead who broke my heart right before I left. And who really wants to hear about that in a travel blog? So instead, let me tell you about this place...Rarotonga. I was filled with my familiar panic when we landed this morning. The sun was just coming up over the tropical landing stri...

It's always amazing to me how much everyone from everywhere else knows everything about U.S. politics. I posted my ballot weeks ago and sort tuned out the election since then. But while I was suiting up for my first Cook Islands dive today, the election was all the buzz from my non-US citizen fellow-divers. It makes me feel a little narrow sometimes and a little ignorant of what goes on outside my country...it's good to be reminded of this and to be humbled once in a while. So I mentioned div...

Two times I've been out and about in a boat driven by someone else, and I've been the innocent victim of tidal wave strikes. The first time, I was a passenger in a boat driven by my friend (who's name I politely won't mention), when we ended up driving over the wake of a houseboat....it was like we'd driven over the side of a plateau, except the plateau was liquid. A giant tidal wave of water curled up over the bow and struck us (mostly her, actually) squarely in the head. The second time, I ...

It turns out I'm the world's worst underwater photographer, which isn't a total surprise to me. I'm not very patient with things that are moving....and pretty much everything under water is moving. But I tried. I really really tried, and I think you'll get the idea of what was going on in Rarotonga today. I spent most of today in and around the water. I began in the swirled up, howling, roiling waters north of Avarua Harbor, and I descended as fast as I possibly could to the calmness of the d...

I'm staring at my packed up suitcases again. Tomorrow I leave Ambala Gardens and Muri Beach and move to the north side of the island, where I'll settle in at the Kii Kii Motel just outside of Avarua. My real reason for being in Rarotonga is officially beginning. Prior to leaving home, I'd read the online journals of the past volunteer groups. One of the journal entries showed a fantastic mural that the school kids had painted on the side of their school building, with help from the volunteer ...