January 30, 2011

We all got up early to finish packing, and… go to church.

Polynesian church services are, it seems, renowned for the beautiful singing. We wanted to go when we were in the Marquesas but didn´t have the energy to get up early enough.

It was raining heavy in the morning, but just as we were getting ready to go it stopped. The lull lasted until we were inside the church. Maybe someone was trying to send us a message. 🙂

Rarotonga is riddled with churches and we only had to walk about 150 meters to get to the closest one:

The service was held in Rarotongan Maori (the Polynesian languages here and on New Zealand are called Maori). It was, naturally, difficult to motivate the kids to sit still. I had told them about the great singing and was relieved when everyone finally got up to sing. Background music came out of the speakers mounted high up all over the church. The volume was way too loud and the sound quality was awful, like a worn out car stereo on full volume. What a disappointment.

Everyone was singing loudly and I could make out that some of the sound that filled the room had to be human, but the resulting cacophony was not very pleasant. After a long and painful song we could sit down again. Ouch.

We held out through a long monolog by the priest, before the congregation again sang with accompanying background music of the loud kind, followed by more preaching. I was starting to get very disappointed and embarrassed that I had dragged the whole family here for this.

Then, just as I was giving up all hope, everyone rose to sing again. This time they left the stereo off. Wow! The room filled with loud fantastic a capella music. It was magic and I immediately understood what all the fuss was about. Everyone in the congregation chimed in and no energy was spared. The church vibrated with positive energy. The kids were petrified and sat still like candles.

We had to sneak out before the service was over to get back and on our transport to the airport. Tim gave us the traditional Polynesian farewell shellfish necklaces.

On the road again!

We had had really nice and relaxed days on Rarotonga and gotten used to the slow pace of life. Tim warned us about the pace on Aitutaki, though. He said that after a week on Aitutaki we would think Rarotinga was very stressful.

We arrived at the airport one hour before the flight only to discover that there was no one there.

Around 40 minutes before the scheduled flight time a couple of people came strolling by at the inside of the counter and entered an office without looking at us. Half an hour before departure check-in opened. We still took off on time! This sure wasn’t Heathrow!

Our plane was a Saab 340:

We had learned our lesson and packed very light hand-luggage. The saxophone did not pass this time. The woman in blue below insisted on putting it with the gorilla and all the suitcases. After a couple of protests we gave in. She assured us they would take good care of it. She claimed they had even successfully transported a wedding cake back there.

The flight lasted less than an hour. On approach we could see some of the colors in Aitutaki’s famous lagoon:

and some of the motus (small islands)

Aitutaki, like Tikehau, does not offer much resistance to the wind and weather systems. Rain comes and goes in a matter of minutes. As we taxied to the airport building a very strong rain shower suddenly dumped its contents on the airport. As we got out we could feel that the wind was very strong. Viktor was the only one who complied with my request for taking an arrival picture:

One on the inside there was no one with the expected sign with our name on it. We got our luggage, looked a bit around and finally asked someone. He knew the travel agency we were using and said they were probably on their way. This happens all the time here. People aren’t very focused on time here. They will come.

We waited:

and waited. Once everyone else had left and there were only a few people left, working at the airport, we were starting to get just a little bit worried. Since we were using a travel agency for only the second time during the voyage (Peru was the first time) I had been very relaxed and happy that I could let go a bit of that constant slightly uncomfortable feeling of being responsible and accountable for all our logistics. I had no idea what the place we were going to stay was called, much less did I have an address or a phone number. In addition our phones did of course not work out here. Amateur!

I fished my MacBook out of the luggage and found the document I had received on email from the agency. OK. The place was called Are-a-Matatui. I remembered now that I had even had a look at their web site back when I booked. Unfortunately there was no address or phone number in the document. It was also Sunday and impossible to reach the travel agency

We grabbed the same guy again and he had to admit they should have arrived by now, even by Aitutaki standards. He lead us over to a counter where he said we could get help. After having presented our problem the guy there told us that we were on the wrong island! Are-a-Matatui was on another island. The travel agency must have mixed up the reservation.

Helene freaked out.

I was not convinced and told him I had seen their web site and was sure they were here. He countered that the islands was very small and that he knew it and every single accommodation option like his own back pocket. There was no place called that here. Period.

Our only hope now was connectivity. I asked him if he had access to the internet. The response was affirmative! He had a very small and very old notebook computer hidden under the counter. He let me come around and with a certain suspense I typed in the name of the place in Google. It took about 3 minutes to get the results page back. I was taken aback. This was not some cheapo internet line, this was the connection used by the guy who seemed to be running the airport here.

I remembered reading an article some time ago about the new technological divide in the world. Many developing countries suffer with very slow network connections and are less competitive because of it. Internet infrastructure has become just as important as having a good transport and road infrastructure. This is going to become more and more important in the future. Many investment decisions are taken and will be taken based on the quality of the internet infrastructure of a country. Countries will fail or succeed based on this factor. Given services that will become available in the future lives will also depend on it. If you willingly put yourself inside a Surge-o-matic long distance surgery machine where you are getting remote control heart surgery from an expert surgeon sitting in New Dehli, you wouldn’t like the line to go down or halt for 5 minutes just after your artery has been cut.

Ooops, sorry.

I cliked on the link to Are-a-Matatui and managed to convince the guy that it existed and was on the island. There was a phone number and a crude map! Here we are during the investigation:

The guy who had lead us over to the counter was paying close attention. He helped us with the map location. He correctly guessed that we were actually at Are-a-tai. The next day we discovered that a sister and a brother owned the place and that the two bungalows owned by the sister was called Are-a-Matatui and the others Are-a-tai. However, all signs said Are-a-tai and that  was the only name the locals knew.

The guy with the computer called and the other end said that they did not have any register of any new guests today, but would come over immediately. The guy in red said “I can bring them, I’m going home anyway and I live just next door.” He drove us slowly down to the place in his pickup.

Whew! We had a place to sleep for the night.

Later Helene got our rental car. They had a strange system where they will not let you have the car at the airport, but drive to pick you up where you are staying and then drive you to the rental agency, which happens to be very close to the airport.

We took a drive around the island, which is about 8 km long (5 miles) and 3 km (2 miles) wide at its widest:

The main road on the east side goes through a banyan tree!

There were many signs protesting Air Rarotonga’s introduction of Sunday flights:

This is a very Christian place indeed. Since we arrived on Sunday (may our flight sins be forgiven) everything was closed, except one little shop and its corresponding fast food place. We could only imagine how the local Christians must talk about the place. Our late lunch consisted of deep fried chicken and fries. We were very hungry at this stage, after having searched for something to eat for a while:

When I asked for ketchup I was given a long stare. Of course not, what kind of fancy place did I think this was? When I asked for paper napkins they grudgingly went into the kitchen and tore off three paper towels. The logic was probably that since we had bought three plates of chicken and fries I could have three paper towels. We bought a large bottle of ketchup in the store, as you can see.

When we got back we started chatting with the people staying in the bungalow next to us, the only other people staying at the property. They were a British/American couple (living in California), Dave and Kate. Dave’s father, Ron and their two daughters, Juliette and Carolyne were also with them. They invited us over to a late parrot fish dinner. End result:

Ron was over 80, in excellent shape, full of wit and humor and very British. During their stay here he had been snorkeling in the lagoon and really enjoyed it.

They had only good things to tell us about the island. Unfortunately they were leaving early the next morning. What a shame.

Sometimes you just click with people, and at the end of the evening it felt like we had known them for a very long time. Helene and I noticed how much we miss having friends around that we can have good discussions with. Be warned, there will be dinners organized when we get back.

Eirik

—–