Sunday 7 August 2011

Going Troppo



Wow!  What an amazing journey of discovery we have been on!  Just returned from 9 days soaking up the hot tropical sun on Rarotonga, one of 15 islands making up the Cook Islands!  We went, we saw, we bought the t-shirt, fell in love and would love to return!  Island life in winter time, at an embracing 27-28 degrees is what I call heavenly bliss!  Sheer indulgent pleasure!

What grabbed us by the chin was the beauty of the island.  We went with reservations, having travelled to Goa, Bali and Thailand and been bitterly disappointed by the degradation of nature and the pollution on  the beaches. We have learned that brochures DO lie!  However, what you see in the brochures in Raro are exactly what you get!!  Beautiful pristine vanilla fine sands, clear aqua water and swaying palm fronds providing welcome respite from the hot sun (in winter!!).  What unadultered bliss!  I realised how important Vitamin D is for the emotions - it makes me feel naturally high!  Our 18yr old son commented on how his "old folks" seemed to grow visibly younger each day on the island.  I joked at how we were starting to resemble a coconut, brown and hairy, drinking coconut juice and eating coconut flesh and fruit each day!  I think the sun might also have played a wee part in the brown bit!!
Muri Beach

End of another stunning day.

Our wonderful mid-winter break was only possible, in large part due to our sustainable living practices.  Growing our food reduces our living expenses to such an extent that we can make savings and set these aside for travel purposes.  Mike chose the destination - I wasn't too fussed about it, knowing that I would probably be disappointed, much as in Bali and Thailand, with all the pollution and litter everywhere.  I had to eat very humble pie, as I fell in love on the very first day, and the love affair grew and grew daily.................. unfortunately it is not so easy to "immigrate" to Rarotonga, as we found out!  Sad day of disappointment!
Fruit at breakfast time

Passion fruit, starfruit, bananas, coconut and mangoes hiding
Mike booked self-contained accommodation via the internet, and luckily, we were also surprisingly pleased with that too - basic but totally adequate.  We were able to buy a huge stock of vegetables and fruit at the Saturday market in Avarua - bananas, star fruit, passionfruit, coconuts, mangoes, paw-paws and papaya!  A vegetarian heaven!  Our breakfasts consisted of paw-paw drizzled with organic sugar and lime juice, papaya (honey sweet), passionfruit, coconut flesh and muesli with banana sliced on top!  Mmmmn!  In comparison, back home, and this morning I just had an orange as nothing else is fruiting right now!!  We took a 23kg suitcase of food with us, thinking that we may not be able to get much of what we eat - aha, oho!  It just wasn't so!  Prices are a little dearer for staples as they are imported from New Zealand, but there was plenty fruit, veggies and even organic sough-dough breads, croissants, baguettes and crusty white bread, all baked fresh each day by expat English women.
Beach loungers waiting for us each day...............

Beautiful wooden vaka
The people are of Maori descent, and we learned that our NZ Maori left the shores of Rarotonga  during the Polynesian migration, bound for New Zealand.  So although there are similarities, the language and culture is quite different on the island, to NZ Maori.  We met a fierce little old lady, who defiantly scoffed at my attempt to address her in my scant NZ Maori.  She corrected me quick-smart!  I was sure that she would have even considered clipping me alongside my ear for good measure if I had been standing close enough!

Total Unsustainability on the island which shocked us to the core, was the Sheraton Hotel Complex.  I vaguely remember reading about it somewhere and then there it was!  As we whizzed past on our scooter at 30km/p/hr, I spied this huge monolithic complex of greying double storeyed buildings clustered together overlooking the beautiful Pacific Ocean.  Nature seemed to be reclaiming the site and I just felt the need to explore further at a later stage, so one day, while our teens stayed at the poolside, we motored off on a little bright blue scooter (maximum speed limit in Raro is 50km, and 30km in the villages) to the Sheraton Complex in Vaimaanga, on the south coast of Raro.  A local lady mowing the lawn with a piddley push mower gave us the nod to enter, passed the Private Property!  No Entry! signs and pick our way through the long grassy weeds to gaze in outraged wonder at the massive waste of money, time and resources.  The hotel was 80% built, with a total of 200 luxury apartments, but never saw one guest step over the threshold.   It was  a project started and financed by an Italian company that went belly-side up, taken over by another Italian company, and amidst rumours of Mafia-related corruption and $60 million later, it nearly bankrupted the Cook Islands.  It has twice been taken over for development by New Zealand property developers, once even being renamed as a Hilton hotel but they say a curse placed on the land keeps development at a standstill.   Inside, we saw the units were tiled, corner spa baths with their fancy tapwork lay ominously waiting to be filled, several units had been vandalised, with graffitti and light fittings being ripped out of the ceilings.  There is a central swim-up pool and bar which was completed and now is diguised by vegetation.  It was so sad - a monument to man's greed and folly!

But Sheraton aside, this is one recommendable destination, to get away from it all and to soak up some sunshine in a tropical paradise.  It sure replenishes the batteries for the rest of the winter ahead.
My husband has already booked our next mid-winter break......................



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