Cook Islands — August 11-21

AUGUST 11 - 14

So we are in the middle of the Pacific. The flights together took about 12 hours, stopovers were in LA and Papetee, Tahiti . In Rarotonga we landed at 6 in the morning local time - 6 hours difference from Toronto , 12 from Poland . Leszek was waitng - good thing because I did not really remember the name of our hostel, which turned out easy - Rarotonga Backpackers - you can see pictures of it at rarotongabackpackers.com. First two nights we shared a bungalow with Lori, who has been here for a week. Today we move to the dorm for one night.

For me everything is amazing here - I have never been so close to the equator, never travelled to Carribeans, as many of you. So I had to pinch myself quite often to make sure it is not just a dream.

There is a road running 32 km around the island - you can take a bus, or hitchhike - we do both, whatever is first - just have to remember whether you want to go clockwise or anticlockwise and stand on the right side of the road. Since it is left side traffic - it's confusing at first. Locals are wonderful - give us rides all the time. That's how we get to Internet Cafe, to Avarua - town where we can buy groceries, to the beaches for snorkeling. The underwater life is awesome, and they say it will be even better around Aitutaki Island where we are flying tomorrow on a small plane and staying for 4 days until our flight to Fiji on Aug. 20.

AUGUST 15

Before flying to Aitutaki we went to Aroranga Christian Church for the service, singing and a feast. Among the foods we ate: Ika Mata - marinated fish, rukau - young leaves of taro plant i coconut cream, poke - cooked ripe banana mixed with arrowroot. A future pastor ate at our table - he's studying here in Avarua, we hope to see him again on Friday.

AUGUST 16 - 20

/Magda is helping me to post the notes on my sites because the computers here don't have Java. Thank you Magda and do it again if you can./

Good to hear from you - Ela, Agnieszka, Esio.

It's Friday - back on Rarotonga after Aitutaki - a chain of atolls, called motus which form a triangular area of incredibly beautiful turquoise lagoon.

Roosters wake us up every morning. The crescent of the moon looks like a smily face. First day - exploring the island on rented bicycles and snorkeling on a few places on the beach / saw huge clams/ Second day - a cruise on a small boat with Quentin, the skipper, his helper and a couple from England . Snorkeling behind the reef - a bit scary: deep and wavy, swallowed water a few times - new kinds of fish and big ditches on the bottom. Quentin speared a few parrot fish which we ate for lunch later. On the lagoon we fed fish with bananas - hundreds appeared around us - they are crazy for them. On the third day we climbed a local hill for the view - were lucky to see an entire rainbow from the top.

Yesterday Kamila spent two hours at the local school - she had a class of math and health. The principal not only agreed to her joining a class, also gave us a bag of tomatoes. Later Leszek rented a hobie cat and we sailed / avoiding all the corals was not an easy task at all for L. the skipper/ to Honeymoon Island - a kind of a desert on the ocean with a few palms in the middle. Today we have the whole day here before we fly at midnight to Fiji . This is the moment when we lose one day of our life - I don't think I can afford it - must do another trip in future in the opposite direction. I already used up my hour on the computer / never learned to type fast and tried again to get to my site directly - failed and it cost me heaps of time /. So long then.