Rarotonga.

Until fairly recently, I didn’t know much about the Cook Islands. I’d heard the name Rarotonga, who knows where, but had no idea that it was in the Cooks. I just thought it was an exceptionally cool name, one that conjured up all the magic of the South Seas in its four syllables.

As I planned my South Pacific adventure, I was hoping to visit the Coral Sea (the Australian barrier reef and New Guinea), Fiji, and Tahiti. Looking on a map, I saw the Cook Islands and remembered that my son John had told me that when he was a dive master on Maui, all his workmates dreamed of going to the Cooks.

 

So I did some research and decided that I did, too.

 

I’m glad I did. I arrived late from my flight. I started in Nadi, Fiji at 3:30PM Sunday, took a three-hour flight to Auckland, New Zealand and after a three-hour layover, a four-hour flight to Rarotonga, crossing the dateline into the previous day. It was 2:15AM Sunday when I arrived, more than twelve hours before I left Fiji!

I stumbled into my room around 3:30AM, dazed and confused, and woke up around 6AM in paradise.

 

Rarotonga, it turns out, is the largest of the Cook Islands, a tiny dot in the largest ocean on earth. The island is a great getaway for New Zealanders looking for earth during the southern winter. In spite of that, it isn’t yet overdeveloped or overcrowded.

Here's the main tourist area at Muri Beach. Feel the congestion.

Named after Captain James Cook, who visited the islands in 1773 and 1777, The Cooks comprise 15 islands in a stretch of ocean the size of southern Europe, about 850,000 square miles. Rarotonga is a volcanic island with a central peak 2,140 feet high. The island is only 26 square miles, though it is still being lifted by tectonic activity The other islands even smaller, mostly low coral reefs that have grown on top of sunken volcanoes.

 

The main Cook Islands language is Rarotongan Māori, but since it is part of New Zealand, the official language is English, and everyone learns it in school. The Cooks are the penultimate point of Polynesian migration, a process that started around 3000 BCE in what is now Taiwan, wound its way through Micronesia to Tahiti, then branched out around 500 AD to Hawaii, Papanui (Easter Island), and the Cooks. From the Cooks, groups migrated south, reaching New Zealand around 1000 AD.

This is the beach where the big migration canoes set out for New Zealand a thousand years ago.

 

The islands are home to about 18,000, with about half of that population on Rarotonga, but there are estimated 37,000 Cook Islanders living in New Zealand and Australia, which gives you an idea about the lack of economic opportunity here.

 

The islanders’ first contacts with Europeans were unhappy. Disease decimated the original population of Rarotonga in the early 1800s, Peruvian slavers kidnapped 75% of the people in the northern group in the 1860s. Ship’s rats killed most of the native bird species. There were the usual conflicts with Christian missionaries. Though one woman told me that they were grateful to the missionaries because “we don’t eat people anymore.”

 

Other than the incident with the Peruvian slavers, there is evidence of earlier contact with South America: the sweet potato. Called kūmara in Māori and kumar in Quechua, it was widespread in Polynesia when Europeans first reached the Pacific. Remains of the plant in the Cook Islands have been carbon-dated to 1000 AD. It was probably brought from South America to central Polynesia around 700 AD and spread from there. By the way, this fact doesn’t vindicate Thor Heyerdahl’s theory that Polynesians migrated from South America. A host of genetic, linguistic, and archaeological data prove his ideas wrong.

Sweet potato is still popular here. So is pork, like this lovely slab of crispy pork belly I got at the Muri Beach night market. It was incredibly delicious, but I got  mild case of food poisoning from it because in my greed I had forgotten the lesson we learned the hard way when eating street food in Vietnam: don’t eat food you haven’t seen prepared.

 

A happier meal was this beautiful plate of smoked marlin that I was served at the Hidden Spirit Cafe hidden away in beautiful grounds of the Rarotonga Botanical Gardens. The gardens are privately owned by an Aussie winemaker and his wife, so he showcases his own wines, in the cafe. They grow all their own herbs and produce organically, too. I had a delicious smoked marlin salad with a tasty chardonnay. The marlin is fresh-caught and smoked for 24 hours. It was some of the best smoked fish I've ever had, so fresh it was almost translucent and tasting of just enough woodsmoke. 

 

Apparently Rarotonga is trying to increase tourism by catering to foodies. I've definitely had the best food of the trip here.

Le Bon Vivant is the best place on the island for coffee and breakfast, with great espresso drinks, excellent croissants and other pastries (like this not-too-sweet cinnamon donut), and perfectly prepared egg dishes.

 

I had read that the diving in the Cooks was not as spectacular as elsewhere in the South Pacific. I found that to be true to a certain extent. Compared to Fiji and the Solomons, the coral here is fairly monochrome and the fish life a bit sparse. Still, I had some great dives with Dive Rarotonga, a top-notch outfit. 

Check out the trigger fish wrestling with a very spiny sea urchin.

 The views of the coast from the dive boat were amazing.

I rented a scooter and drove the backroads.

Marvelous scenery: dense forest, farms, and deserted beaches. 

 

Unfortunately, I lost my phone. I had just stopped to take some pictures with my phone and must not have put it back in my pocket securely. I didn't notice it was missing until I stopped about a half-mile later to take another picture. I drove slowly back and forth  over my route a couple times, but saw nothing. Finally, I went to the town and reported it to the police.

 

I hadn't heard anything from them by the time I left for Aitutaki, so I figured it was gone forever. Two weeks later, when I came back to Raro on my way to Tahiti, I checked back at the police station. The woman behind the counter remembered me and said she would check in the back. She was gone for a long time, but when she returned she had my phone! The battery was drained, but otherwise it was in perfect condition. Someone had found it and turned it in on the day I left the island.

 

It was a great end to a truly magical two weeks.

P.