Manea Beach Villas Rarotonga

... have been better if his wife had been there?; Samada meals (apart from Island night), grog prices, atmosphere - not the happening place we were expecting; overly religious (for us) atmosphere - "No flights on Sunday, keep Sunday holy", grace at every meal.

Would we go again? Absolutely! I'd go back tomorrow if I could.

Less than four months and we're off to NZ. October next year is still undecided. Better get planning.

... not many. The water was murky. To top it off the camera went through its battery like lightening. All in all pretty disappointing but we still had a great morning. The water was warm, the beach gorgeous and we are on holidays so it has to be good! And the smoothies we had at Fruits were bloody fantastic.

We’d noticed while we were on the beach that the seas outside the reef looked to be getting bigger ...

... to survive :) After this we went back to the hostel where our neighbors were cooking us a traditional dinner in a whole in the ground under a bunch of coconut and banana leaves. We were excited to try the food, but it wasn't quite what we were expecting. Our wonderful dinner hosts had tried to teach us to dance before dinner, we were not good. While we ate dinner they sang for us, and after we had finished they had a dance performance for us. There were the ...

... The airport was a little hut that was burst as people poured into three queues, the signs "Returning residents," meaning nothing in the desperation to get passports stamped, bags collected, hotels to check into and beaches to rush to. We were serenaded by an islander singing and playing the local tiny guitar, I'm sure it has another proper name, but it is basically a wooden front fashioned onto half a coconut with three strings. I grabbed my bag as soon as I got ...

... little resort right on the beach (found a good deal on line, we are still backpackers on a tight budget). Our hotel manager "Alrighty" pick us up from the airport gave us a some flowers on bit of string and make us feel very welcome (Maja had to hold my hand when ever he was around as I think he had taken a shine to me), more importantly he gave us free breakfast every morning. It was full of people going to weddings or on honeymoons ...

... imagine of a local bus. The bus was several years old and was at one time equipped with air conditioning. The time of the air conditioning was gone and now the windows were raised on the bottom or lowered on the top. Earlier I described the road as a narrow country road. As with some old country roads, this road was full of bumps and had a graveled edge between the road and the rain forest, the front yards of homes, or the beach areas. We bumped and shook our way around the ...

... second youngest in a group of affluent U.S. senior citizens. One lady in our group is 85 years old. It's just sort of funny how this happens. I'm not actually picking on my group, because they happen to be really decent fun people...but they're still old (sorry Mom & Dad :) I won't bore you all with details of orientation, etc. But it turns out that I'm assigned to the most perfect project in the world. Starting tomorrow morning, I'll be working at a school ...

... BEKIJKEN, VISJES BEKIJKEN EN AF EN TOE OOK OPETEN. WE HEBBEN RONDGEKEKEN OM HIER WAT LANGER TE BLIJVEN EN MISSCHIEN WAT TE WERKEN MAAR ZOALS TE VERWACHTEN WAS, IS HET NIET AL TE EENVOUDIG OM HIER TE MOGEN BLIJVEN. DIT ZOU ONS 500 EURO KOSTEN VOOR EEN VISA EN DAT HEBBEN WE DUS NI MEER. SPIJTIG... WANT ALHOEWEL HET HIER MINDER PARADIJSELIJK IS DAN IN FIJI OF DE GILLI EILANDEN IN INDONESIE, VOELEN WE ONS HIER TOCH MEER THUIS. ENJOY THE PICS!

"It seems like we are still at home" Simon said as we walked along the white sand beach, beneath the swaying coconut treet. As everybody nodded in agreement we heard the roar of the waves breaking on the reef 400 m off the shore of Rarotonga, Cook Islands. We still can't believe we are here. Our days have been filled with a mixture of physical activity and rest. The rest prtion is spent sitting aroung the ...

... some distance more than that - we ended up paying $100 between us - probably enough for a new tyre, but left us with a nasty taste. So we walked back to town and had a drink at a local bar - the local beer, Vailima, is very nice. It was one way of using up what was left of the Tala (local dollars) - that was our excuse anyway. We have noticed a strange phenomena happening on board, and have decided that it is the sea air that is having a disastrous effect on our clothes - they seem ...