Hello All.
It has been a while since our last journal entry...the main reason being the price of internet in the Cooks is outrageous! I guess we have been spoiled by South American prices and we are slowly adjusting to the increased costs. We went from paying $0.30 an hour to $8.00 an hour here! Crazy.
BUT...all things considered, life is great!! We are relaxing at a wonderful, cheap hostel complete with pool and right on the beach on Rarotonga, Cook Islands. We just completed our 4 day SCUBA course and are now certified divers to 18 meters. We saw some spectacular views underwater and even got to see a small shipwreck just off the shores of the island. The visibility was about 25 meters!! It was unbelievable, clear, warm waters filled with cool corals, reefs, fish, turtles, and so much more. We also met some fantastic people we DARE to call friends...Simon, our 'pseudo' instructor who is a bloody POME (joke)...Ben...helper, becoming a dive-master, plays a mean hand of underwater poker...you guessed it, a POME...and Jason, who was always ready to crack into that bottle of Jacks and offer up shots of tequilla...
Other than that we plan to meet up with Jen and Andrew, friends from Saskatoon who are on a cruise ship that docks at the island tomorrow for one day! We are excited to spend Christmas eve with friends. Christmas day, our hostel is putting on a huge dinner that is open to all of us staying there. A huge feast followed by another beachside barbeque on Boxing Day.
Tyler's rash is clearing up. I insisted we go to see a doctor the day after we got to the island as the rash had spread to his entire body and was itching like crazy. The docor was shaky at best and basically didn't tell us too much we didn't already know. He prescribed some antibiotics and antihistamines that have helped quite a bit, I think. The kicker was that we decided to venture out after 48 hours of straight travel, airplanes, airports and buses...on bikes. The island is only 32 km around...one road...and we were jet lagged enough to not think much of it. It was about 35 degrees celcius and SUPER sunny. We set out to find the hospital only to learn that it is right on top of one of the only "lived on" mountains on the whole island!! It was a greulling bike ride up only to be rewarded by a quack doctor who didn't really know what he was talking about!! We stopped along the way for a refreshing dip in the ocean. Needless to say, the very next day we rented a scooter (our first island deal) for the remainder of our stay and are LOVING the freedom and fun of getting around the small island with ease at a pretty reasonable price.
We ended up experiencing some major hassels in getting here. A very LONG story short, Aerolineas Argentinas, the airline we flew with delayed our flight by 2 hours from Buenos Aries to Aukland...conveniently, just enough time for us to miss our connection flight to Rarotonga. The airline would assume NO responsibililty saying that the ticket we had with Air New Zealand was a "use it or lose it" variety. We had no idea as our travel agent did these bookings. After much arguing and frustration, we had to pay a crazy amount of money for two more flights to the island that left 10 hours later that day. An irritating start to our much anticipated "vacation" but it only took a few hours imersed in the sun, heat, incredible views and wonderful, friendly people for us to chalk it up to travelling lessons learned and start livin "island style"!
We wish everyone a MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS and hope that everyone's holidays are filled with lots of snow, fun, family, friends and good food. We miss being around family the most at this time of year. It just makes us appreciate the little things, and big things in our lives, all that much more.
All our love,
Julia and Tyler
