Mid-Semester Break: Rarotonga

In the last week(ish) of my mid-semester break, I went on a trip with IES Abroad to Rarotonga, part of the Cook Islands! After my earlier, marathonic travels around the South Island, it was nice to go on a trip that was already planned out and paid for. And we didn’t have to pack and set up a tent every single day—just come home to the KiiKii Inn and Suites, where there was a nice bed waiting for us.

The majority of us flew from Christchurch to Auckland, then to Rarotonga, but a couple of people had already been traveling in the North Island and just joined us on the Auckland-Rarotonga flight. The flight to Auckland is about two hours, and the flight to Raro is about four.

When our plane landed in Rarotonga, there was no jet bridge; we just walked down some steps off the plane, across the tarmac, and into the airport. What immediately struck was me was how different the air felt. It was balmy, salty, and sort of heavy—replete with water. Back in Christchurch, things had just started to get cold, with autumn falling fully upon us. The warmth was a welcome change.

In Rarotonga, we went to the Punanga Nui Market, ate out, swam in the ocean, took dancing and cooking lessons, watched cultural performance, and learned just about everything you could imagine about coconuts: how to climb a coconut tree, how to pick a coconut, the life cycle of a coconut, how to grate the coconut, how to husk the coconut, the coconut origin story, how to squeeze out a coconut's oils or pry out its meat. The entire landscape of Rarotonga is incredibly lush, even more lush than what I have been seeing in Aotearoa. And especially, everywhere you look are tall, skinny palm trees, slouching against their weight. I remember thinking that everything looked exactly like Disney’s Moana, and in fact late in the trip we found a mural featuring characters from Moana. One morning, I walked to the corner store, and I was stunned by the sunrise: blankets of lavender and indigo layered upon a jungled, volcanic summit. When we went to the beach, we found another scene from a movie: near the shore, glittering turquoise waters punctuated by bouts of coral, and then, an edge, which opened into a vast expanse of deeper, darker blue. Because coral is everywhere, however, it’s very easy to cut the bottom of your feet. If you’re going to Rarotonga, my two recommendations are:

• Bring WATER SHOES.

• Go snorkeling with sea turtles!

IES Abroad had worked one free day into our schedule and rented bikes so we could explore the island. Many people, including myself and my friend, had booked tickets for sea turtle snorkeling in the Avaavaroa Passage on that day. However, the first few days of our trip had been clouded by some pretty rainy, windy weather, and most people’s turtle tours were canceled on our free day. When ours was canceled, I was pretty disappointed. In the end, though, we rescheduled the tour and ended up missing a planned activity, the cross-island hike, to see the turtles. As much as I would have enjoyed the hike, I did not regret my decision. 

I had never snorkeled before this trip, and my first time, the day before, had terrified me. Attempting to breathe while underwater always gave me the same jolting panic, like I was drowning. This time around, though, I settled in, accepting all the accoutrements on my body: the flippers, the mask, the snorkel. I became brave enough to dive down, pressing close to the turtles, watching  them move smoothly and languidly through the water. At one point, as I surfaced, I saw and heard one of the guides pointing and yelling, “Behind you!” I turned, and suddenly a turtle’s wide, glassy eye and little beak mouth were there. The beak opened gently, slowly, and seemed to exhale, then disappeared back under the water. 

Besides the turtles, we were also able to glimpse some eagle rays. They swam pretty deep, so that at the surface they looked like shadowy clumps of gray. When I dove down, though, I could make them out more clearly. Throughout the snorkeling experience I also saw coral reef, tropical fish, and bright blue starfish, the likes of which I have never been able to see outside of an aquarium before. 

On our very last day, we went back to the Koka Lagoon Cruise, because I had forgotten a pair of shorts on the island they boated us to a couple days ago. One of the employees recognized me, pointing and asking what was wrong. "My shorts!" I explained. 

In the end, they arranged to drive me back to the island; it was close, probably not much more than a five-minute ride. The man who drove me back to the island introduced himself as Calvin. He asked me about where I was from, and I said I was from the U.S. but studying in New Zealand. We compared America, Aotearoa, and the Cook Islands, and reflected some on all that was good about the Cook Islands. At the island, I waded out through the water and then immediately found my shorts on a conspicuous tree stump. We drove back mostly in silence, as the landscape expanded out before us. I tried to take everything in for one last time. It was serene, magical. I imagined what it'd be like to live in a place like this forever. As the boat came ashore, Calvin wished me safe travels and said, "We'll see you again soon." I was so choked up about leaving that all I answered with was, "I'll see you, too." But I really wanted to relive the whole week again, really wanted to know I was going to be back, and so I really wanted to mean it.