We woke up early to catch our 9 am tour of the island with Tangaroa Tours. We were picked up in a 4x4 pick-up truck, where we sat in the back kinda like in the songthaew's used in Thailand. We shared our tour with a nice and funny Swiss couple. It was a very bumpy ride, but a rewarding one. We got to go up the "old road" into the mountains and get a panoramic view of the island. It was gorgeous. You can see where the reef surrounds the island and where it's been blown up so that ships (and sharks) can pass in and out.
Our driver, who told us to call him "Mr. Useless", was very informative. He told us how the island is made up of 5 villages, and each one has a chief. However, there are only 4 chiefs now because in one of the villages, the chief had 5 wives, and all the first borns
are vying for the position of chief.Mr. Useless also showed us some farms and some local medicinal plants that are supposed to cure everything from cuts, burns, asthma, rock fish stings, and cancer. We tried some of the "Noni" juice, which tasted like really bad coffee with a slight chocolate taste. Perhaps I should have bought some for my asthma. The leaf of this tree is used by the locals to bathe their kids from age 8 months to 13 years. They swear that it protects them from skin cancer. If you do that, you never burn. Interesting.
He pointed out this huge hotel development that was deteriorating. It was supposed to be a 1000+ room hotel, which was developed by an Italian developer. Unfortunately for him, the US traced his funds to the mafia and he's currently sitting in jail. The resort hasn't been worked on in 22 years. It's on prime real estate right on the water. Too bad.
Speaking of real estate, it turns out that all land in the Cook Islands is owned by certain native families and the ownership is registered with the government. The families are not allowed to sell the land, they are only allowed to lease it to people. This is to protect the indigenous people of the land so that they don't end up losing it to foreign investors.
So, the family that had leased the land to the Italian investor has cursed the resort development land. So, they are now waiting for the curse to end so that they can start doing something with the land again. Apparently, after 22 years, the curse remains.
There are not that many restaurants in Rarotonga. I asked Mr. Useless why there were no Chinese restaurants here. I joked that there are Chinese restaurants everywhere! He said it's because it's hard for foreign persons to come in to start a business because they need a license and the government makes it hard for foreigners to get a license. There is one Indian restaurant and that's only because the Indian guy married a native.
He also mentioned how the Rarotongans used to be cannibalists and how they used to sacrifice any persons that did anything bad. He showed us one site where they used to do these sacrifices. There are 115 of these "secret" spots all around the island. Interesting facts.
After our tour of the island, we got treated to a "umu" a traditional underground earth oven. We had placed the food in there at the beginning of the tour and came back to eat it. Our umu consisted of chicken, lamb chop, sweet potato, taro, pumpkin, taro leaves in coconut cream and a "mata" which is a raw fish (ours was marlin) marinated in lime juice, salt, and coconut milk. It was a really tasty meal and we were stuffed! For dessert we had papaya, watermelon and coconut. Yum!After our meal we bid farewell to the Swiss and to Mr. Useless and came back to the villa to change into our swimsuits. It was time for snorkeling. This time we did a little better with the camera. We saw some big blue fish and parrot fish. When we were above water we saw this huge shadow of a fish darting in the water. Unfortunately, we never spotted it under water. The sun here is pretty fierce. Even after multiple layers of sunscreen we are still getting pretty dark here in the Cook Islands. We are becoming true islanders.
We were supposed to go to this island feast (similar to a luau) but our ride never showed up. Instead, we treated ourselves to a nice dinner at one of the upscale restaurants on the island - The Little Polynesian. It was a beautiful setting with the
restaurant situated on a hardwood deck overlooking the infinity pool which in turn overlooks the Muri beach with tall palm trees swaying in the wind. It was really gorgeous. We had some drinks, a goat cheese salad, a grilled moon fish for Eric and a spice crusted seared tuna for me. We were stuffed!We then had the bright idea of walking to this other resort we wanted to check out which had wifi. We don't have any internet access at our villa and my blackberry doesn't work for the first time since we started our trip. It's been strange not having my blackberry, but I guess it's telling me to just let it go. Very appropriate really, as today is my official last day of work. As of tomorrow, I am officially unemployed. Eek!
Anyhow, I digressed. We started this walk to this other resort. Turns out it became almost an hour's walk - in the dark. It was not fun and, when we got there, it turns out it wasn't the same wifi network as the card we bought in town. So, we hopped on the local bus and came back to the villa to call it a night. Then it started to rain.
For pictures of the day, go to: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=eric.chang1&target=ALBUM&id=5412359405156920081&authkey=Gv1sRgCJivgIL3lPL18AE&feat=email
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