Heading home

We had to fly from Rarotonga to LAX and then have a 5-hour layover in LAX and then go to Portland. A long night right? Glad we had all those drinks. Ugh.

Waiting at the airport, spending time in the duty-free. We didn't buy anything, but are always intrigued by smoking warnings in different countries. The ones in the Cooks are kind of grim:

On a happier note: We were serenaded again--this time with a goodbye song--by the ukulele dude as they made the announcement that our plane was boarding (I mean, come on, it's the only big flight all week, of course it's a big deal).

The good news was that our flight was pretty empty on the way home. I got to stretch out over an entire three-seat row. (Somehow this was more comfortable when I was 26.) The bad news: It was one of the most turbulent flights I'd ever been on. Having Justin across the aisle shout "Jesus Christ!" in exasperation and stress as we bobbed and rolled only made me more stressful. Boy needs a Xanax to fly next time. Not to mention there was a creepy as hell guy in front of us who was taking self-portrait photos of himself and filming every time the plane got turbulent! Uh...dude. You kind of don't want to do that in this day & age.

Back in LA, we had said layover. Luckily I had a Groupon for two passes to the Delta club. We were flying United (or, as I like to call it "Untied"), but we had plenty of time. And the Delta club had showers.

Though the food wasn't great or plentiful...it was still a good thing.

Upon arriving back to Portland, we discovered that only two out of three of our bags arrive. The third was enroute from Seattle, and would be arriving in half an hour. This was the coolest thing: They gave us food vouchers for $15 each, so we went over to Stanford's which was having happy hour and got a ton of food (Justin got a Manhattan, which the voucher did not cover but which he deemed medically necessary).

The happy hour food was plentiful, unbelievably cheap for all we got, and delicious. Stanford's at the airport: Who knew? Anyone want to go to Happy Hour there sometime?!

For some reason, chillin' out at Stanford's, drink and food in hand...well, it wrapped up the trip so nicely. This trip was one big bowl of silver lining. And that's something we needed.

Until next time...

Rarotonga: Last Day

Rarotonga has a Saturday market. And you know, living in Portland, we can't resist Saturday markets.

It is not quite the clusterfuck that any of the Portland Saturday markets are, but it was so fun to wander through the stalls and see the foods that were for sale, the items on display. I wish we could have timed our travel to coincide more with the market so we'd have more things to eat and drink that had been sold at the market, but oh well. 'Twas not meant to be.

This day was really hot and humid, and rain started about 1 p.m. This was really fun to drive through on the scooter. Except when it wasn't. Poor Justin was soaked.

Packed up our things from the bungalow and spent out last evening at an island night at the Edgewater hotel. An island night is supposedly like a luau, though I have never been to a luau (or to Hawaii, for that matter). Food, dances, song, forced participation, etc.

I was told this was supposed to be the best island night on the, well, island, but was kind of disappointed. I got more mosquito bites in five minutes here than I did for the ENTIRE trip. I rushed over to my bags to find the heavy-duty DEET shit.

Plus we were told to be there at 5:30 and the island night and the food doesn't even start till 7. This is so they can load you up with weak umbrella drinks. For which they charge a fucking fortune!

It is fun when Justin does stuff like this:

So yeah, that is fun.

So I was a little meh on this. But: This guy was an awesome dancer, though:

And supposed to be sexy dancing. Maybe?

The costumes were fun. Good colors:

We were seated with this very nice couple from New Zealand who were there to celebrate their 5th anniversary. By the time they were seated with us we'd been through some drinks and it was loud in there and I feared I was spraying when I talked.

Then it was time to go to the airport for our flight home. And that in itself was interesting...

Day 4: Aitutaki to Rarotonga

Sad face: It was time to leave Aitutaki--and Etu Moana--for Rarotonga. We bid farewell to the couples we'd met and the really nice staff.

At least it was sunny, so we could get some good arial Aitutaki views from the plane:

Looking at these photos, I am again sad. It's rare that I want to go back to a place after having been there. But I want to go to here. Again.

And here we are approaching Rarotonga (this is about a 40 minute flight):

See? Mountains.

We had a taxi pick us up and take us to our next place, which was a bungalow on the beach in Rarotonga. This place was on a better beach, but we liked Etu Moana a lot better. For one thing, the manager/owner forgot we were coming, so no one was there to give us a key, etc., like had been planned. We lucked out and found someone to call her--luckily she was just down the road, but still. But whatever, we got in, we were still on vacation, and we overlooked this:

This is a puppy who hung out with us on the beach sometimes. She was so sweet. And friendly! And soft! A good girl.

Here she is right before we named her "Paw Paw."

We walked around, stopped at a sandwich/smoothie place, and looked at the mountains:

We decided to rent a scooter to get around Rarotonga. We almost did not, after seeing a guy return his scooter for a car after seeing his REALLY HORRIBLE ROAD RASH. But I am so, so glad we did. It was so.much.fun. Here is the cool lady getting Justin acquainted with it:

They make you do a road test first, and then give you a temporary. Technically you are supposed to then go to the police station and get a license, but they said we could just roll with the temporary since we were there only a day or two. Here's bad-ass Justin doing his road test:

Scooter licenses are rad:

We went to the grocery store. Because food shopping in foreign countries is so fun. A surprising number of gluten-free items (though we did not purchase any):

Also: an abundance of yeast spreads. Can someone explain--again--their reason for existing? to me?

Other weird items:

I also thought this sign was funny. Who knew kitsch was hot and not just, well, kitschy?

Some of Avarua (i.e., "town").

We ended up getting dinner at The Flame Tree, which was over a lagoon, which had a really lazy eel that we could see. The photos of it didn't really turn out, so here is Justin instead:

We scooted back to the bungalow. Have I mentioned how fun scooting was?

Aitutaki, Day 2

We decided to go for a walk into "town" the next day, to get some supplies, and well, to go for a walk. It's what we do on vacation. We walk around. It was kind of cloudy, so we pushed off the lagoon tour to the next day.

In addition to cats, Aitutaki has pigs. And many chickens. Some of them obviously belong to people. Others, we're not so sure about.

The cutest little baby piglets! On the road! (We stayed on the other side of the road to take the photos. Who knows what Angry Mama Pig might do!)

They kind of look like rocks, but look again! Piglets! The size of rocks!

There isn't much town, so I guess we didn't take any pictures of it. We did get a shot of one of the many beaches along our stroll:

This is from the road, looking out toward the beach. This is a soccer field, right in front of the beach. How lucky are these soccer players?!

Walking on the beach, with our only agenda to track where the beach crabs are going (get your mind out of the gutter):

That is us! Expert crab trackers! This dude's been busy! Look how far he's gone!

And...not much else to do but chill by the pool, on our porch, read, make some dinner, and getting the occasional drink from Etu Moana's honor bar. Oh yeah, and watch the sunset:

Yeah, that's a lot of sunset pics. Sorry.

We happened to meet some really cool people on Aitutaki (Raritonga we met some, but not as many; another reason we liked Aitutaki much better). I had expected to meet more people from New Zealand, Australia, etc., but we met and got friendly with a bunch of couples from the U.S. There were others from Europe, as well. I'm not so much complaining--it's always cool to meet cool people, and when everyone's in such a great mood and happy and open, as you are at a place like Aitutaki--but I was just surprised, that's all.

We had an early night. It's tiring being so mellow!

(This is also what happens when you try to recap a trip almost a week after you return home. All the good stuff flies out of your brain.)

Aitutaki

We were picked up at the airport by the marvelous Cecille and taken to Etu Moana. Aitutaki is about 12 miles around, and Etu Moana is where we stayed and it is maybe a mile from the airport. It is six bungalows, either on, near, or within a hop, skip or jump from the beach.

Here are some differences between Rarotonga and Aitutaki:

Aitutaki has cats and no dogs. Seriously. No one knows why, but there are no dogs on Aitutaki. Something apocryphal about a prince of somewhere being bitten by a dog and outlawing dogs from the island. Who knows.

Raritonga has dogs. There are cats, if you know where to look. But mainly dogs. They are not really strays, but I would call some of them "beach dogs." We'll get to that later.

Raritonga has mountains. Aitutaki is pretty flat.

Raritonga has more rain than Aitutaki (see above paragraph).

Aitutaki was hit by a cyclone in February. Rarotonga was not. While it appears that the majority has been cleaned up, you can still see some houses in repair and disrepair, some downed trees, etc.

But let's get back to what's important: cats.

Etu Moana has four cats. This one liked to hang around our bungalow. I named him Garth. I can't remember what his real name is.

I think Garth was used to getting fed by the former inhabitants of this bungalow. One night we cooked in the bungalow and opening a can of tuna made him just about nutso.

We loved, loved, loved Etu Moana. This place was just perfect. Not opulent. Not showy. Not even on a very good beach, to be honest. But the bungalows were just perfect, the bed comfy, the mosquito coils* effective (and kind of nice smelling!), the breakfast perfect and simple, and the staff just so lovely. Places like this make travel easy. I would go back to Aitutaki knowing that there was a place like Etu Moana. Perfect! Flawless. Book in advance.

Justin slept most of the afternoon, while I took a long walk. That was another thing I loved about Aitutaki. I didn't feel threatened at all walking around, a woman alone, far from home. I walked about three miles on the road and then back via the beach. It wasn't raining, but it was a little cloudy and the air heavy, but it was about 75 degrees and far from home. You breathe that in. You love it.

Etu Moana:

Roused Justin and we walked down the beach about 200 yards to Puffy's (no relation) and had some fish & chips & chicken & salad. Fish was eh. But who cares when you look out on this:

We got there early and so were the only ones there. Justin is tired.

Came back to this sunset starting:

*Aitutaki supposedly has a lot of mosquitos. It was like, all I read when I did research on the place. Honestly, I didn't feel like that was the case. I think they were worse on Rarotonga, especially the last night. Granted, we loaded up on bug repellant, but I really think they weren't as bad as everyone makes them out to be. Maybe it's because of the time of year we were there?

Let's Get Cookin'.

When we told people we were going to the Cook Islands, we got a couple questions:

1. Where is that?

2. Why are you going there?

When we told the people in the Cook Islands why we were there, we got one question:

3. Are you on your honeymoon?

Answers to 1, 2, and 3 are as follows:

1. The Cook Islands are in the South Pacific. They are as far south of the equator as Hawaii is north of the equator. (We have never been to Hawaii.)

2. Why not?

3. Every day is a honeymoon when you're with the Groonins.

That out of the way, let's move on.

We left Sunday, the 17th. PDX to LAX to RAR to AIT. We had a five hour layover in LAX, which actually ended up not being so bad, because our flight from Portland was 90 minutes late. Plus we had to walk clear across LAX and across 6 lanes of highway traffic to get to our terminal.

Justin's brilliant comment. "They should rename LAX to POO."

So true.

Self-portrait, waiting at PDX.