Cook Islands: Rarotonga

My family arrived earlier than I, so our first family day together was Sunday. The Cook Islands are highly religous, so the only thing to do on the whole island is go to Church.

Just down the street from our hotel, was one of the oldest churches in the Cook's, a lovely little white washed chapel. Now, i have to admit, for me - it's been awhile. The singing of the hymns was absolutely, well, heavenly. the hymns were sung mostly in Cook Island maori, some in English,with the women and the men splitting up to harmonize at parts. While the sermon was about as riviting as sermon's go, hearing the whole congregation in song and being invited for tea and local baked goods after it, was more than worth it.

Our first few days we were treated to beautiful sun, but January is cyclone season, and unfortunately that means cloud cover and showers. Really, really big showers. You would think less sun would be OK - you would miss getting some nasty sunburns. Despite all precautions, I burnt my butt snorkeling so bad the second day, and all of us were getting those little funny-shaped streaky burns you get from re-applying sunscreen badly.

I did manage to pick up my Cook Island's driving license ($10, most unusual souvenir) during one of the torrential downpours. We had so many rainy nights, that the women who ran our little hotel (Rongo, she made our stay) decided to organize something special - a champagne patangi (bacci, or lawn bowling) tourney on the beach. After a few glasses of chmapers, none of us could remember whether it was raining or not anyway, and the whole hotel (about 14 of us) trooped down the beach to the nearest restaurant and had dinner together.

Basically, we spent all of our time reading, eating, snorkeling and drinking. It's tough being on vacation....