Edgewater Resort And Spa Rarotonga

It's Wednesday, again. We arrived at 2:30am Cooks time (it's in the same time zone as Hawaii). We sat in front a group of drunk Kiwi's all psyched upn for the holiday. They started early and jabbered the whole way here. We had to move seat to get some rest. Unfortunately I didn't get any since I can't sleep on planes. Jim is another story. I have sleep envy. As we got off the plane we were greeted by the humid tropical air. Ahhhhh, island air. It felt like home. My attitude instantly changed....

The hotel hosted "Island Nights" last night. I'd been waiting for this all week. It consisted of an island style buffet with local foods being prepared and a Cook Island dance show. The food was awesome! The show was beautiful. There were dancers from the age of 4 to about 21. The children were adorable and the young adults where nice dancers. The men put on a powerful show. The energy was exhuberant. It was similar to Tahitian since it had strong drumming. At one point the kids picked out au...

We saw the most wonderful show this evening. It included a great local cuisine buffet dinner and front row seats to the Edgewater Resort's Island Nights. The Cook Island dancing is some of the best dancing in Polynesia. Check out the video. The kids are adorable!

I have to admit I was very nervous during my first steps into my dorm room at Vara's on Sunday morning. In a way it felt like the first day of college again: surveying your new surroundings and trying to get a handle on everything at once, wondering what your new roommates would be like and if you'd get along, and checking to see whether the mattress would be getting ready to walk away on its own (ok, that wasn't a concern at Brown so much). I was doubly nervous because the write-ups on Vara'...

We arrived at the airport and were greeted by Vara (legend!) who gave us all a flower to stick behind our ear! Vara's was really nice, right on a white sand beach with palm trees. We attempted to sunbathe but the sun did a dissappearing act so we gave up. We headed to the Island night in town with a few other people from Vara's. We decided to get a taxi as we'd missed the bus, and it ended up with about 15 of us on 6 seats - a bit of a squeeze! The island night was brilliant, lots of traditio...

This morning we checked out the shops in Avarua and baught a few things, then basically lazed around until the evening where we caught the bus (had to give the scooter back today) around to Edgewater Resort. Unfortunately the sunset was covered by a cloudburst that came up in the late afternoon, but it was made up for by the look on Shane's face when he tried Cook's Lager, the local brew :) The show at Edgewater was fantastic, a bit of a cheesy cabaret act at the beginning, but then the dance...