Trip

1/7/2002 (Kelly)
Today Phillip and Ed, an English boy who is also staying in Aremango Guesthouse, left this morning at 8:00 to go rent a motor bike. I was going to go but due to the damn roosters that started crowing at 4:00 this morning, I opted for more sleep instead. Rarotonga has wild roosters running all over the place, which tourists are allowed to kill and eat (free chicken!) I personally wanted to kill them all myself this morning! So the guys returned at about 10:30 to pick me up and I got on the back of Phillip's newly rented motor bike. He is quite excited about it...in fact he even got his Cook Islands motorcycle license. We headed down the road towards town. I needed to go to the local post office so we drove around for a few minutes trying to find it. We stopped for lunch and I bought a sarong form a local shop. We got back on the motorbike and headed for a water-fall that looked like it was straight from a postcard...got a couple of pictures of it. On the way back my hat blew off and so I had to run down the road to get it. As I got back on the bike my leg hit the exhaust pipe...as Rarotongan's like to say, I now have a "Rarotonga tatoo" on the inside of my right calf (it's a burn.) The pipe was so dang hot...I just pray that it doesn't blister because it is extremely red.

1/8/2002 (Phillip)
So even though the Cook's are famous for great weather, today it actually rained, briefly. We were in the town and on the motorbike. So I thought it'd be a good idea to NOT ride in the rain, of course, Kelly, crazy as she is thought it might be fun to ride in the rain. Now, I didn't think about it at the time but since I'm driving and Kelly is clinging on behind me she is fully protected from the rain, me on the other hand, I was pretty much an anorak.

Anyway, we've met lots of nice people here. It's amazing the diversity of it all. However, we felt quite unique in travelling for a year, until we got here, although it seems like most of the other year long travellers are finishing their trip here in the Cook's. It seems like they all needed rests after a difficult year of travel! Maybe we'll have to come back by here on our way home, in fact that would be a lovely present from our mothers :)