February 6, 2011

I had read warnings on the net about the stability, or rather lack of such, of the flight schedule to and from Aitutkil. You could easily get stuck here for several hours. So, going out of here i had booked a relatively early flight and a night on Rarotonga before continuing to New Zealand.

We packed everything up in the moring and the caretaker, “Mama” Tatui, drove us over to the airport. She is a remarkable woman. She is now 84 but still handles everything at Aretai and Are-a-matatui, the bungalows owned by her son and daughter. She is originally from Aitutaki but married a Rarotongan and lived there for many years. After her husband died she was back on Aitutaki on vacation almost 20 years ago. She found it so nice to be back she didn’t want to leave.

We could soon see the protestors who show up here every Sunday to protest against flights on Sundays. Mama shook her head and said *Look at them. I know some of these people, when they were young they used to party and drink a lot of alcohol. Now they are suddenly holier than the pope. And here they are protesting against disrupting Sunday peace. One of their arguments is all the noise. And then they come here in their large noisy cars. Couldn’t they at least have walked? Oh, such small minds.”

I love how life wisdom can swing in both directions. From my observation old people treat some issues more diplomatically and with a more flexible view than younger folk. On other issues experience seems to disillusion and make you cut straight to the core of the issue. Why fool around when you can just state the obvious?

We said good-bye:

There was no security check, no fuss about hand luggage, just smiles and good relaxed service. Hey, Heathrow, you guys should send someone here to learn. 🙂

We flew back to Rarotonga on Another Saab 340.

We took off exactly on time. Just after takeoff we got some last views of the lagoon:

We checked in at the hotel closest to the airport in Rarotonga. It was only 3pm and we could just relax and chill out. The hotel is just next to the shore and the view from the room was great:

Swimming here was out of the question, the water depth was just a couple of decimeters (less than a foot)

However, there was a pool, and the kids didn’t waste much time before getting in:

Iseline did the daredevil dive. She puts her arms straight down and just lets herself fall forward until she hits the water with a loud splash:

Adrian found gold! A one dollar coin at the bottom of the pool:

I used the opportunity to catch up on some blogging

The occasional rain shower was no match against an inventive Norwegian blogger:

Iseline relaxed in a huge hammock (getting in and out was a big challenge):

The boys kept going in the pool for almost 5 hours. They were completely exhausted afterwards and very easy to get to bed.

There was wifi here, but it was outrageously expensive.They wanted 10 NZ dollars (over 8 USD) per 15 MB! I still had almost 200 MB left of the 500 MB I had purchased for a fraction of that price per MB when we were on Rarotonga a week ago. I knew they had a hotspot of the correct kind at the airport. After Helene had gone to bed at around 11pm I trotted over to the airport with my MacBook and sat down in the waiting area to update and work on the blog.

There was a late night flight and in the beginning I disappeared in the crowd. The flight left around 12:30 and after a while I sat alone among the many seats. The airport is never physically closed as there is only a roof here, there are no walls around the building. There were some people cleaning and someone finishing off the paperwork over at the Air New Zealand Counter. I was clearly being watched, but no one approached me. I was expecting to be thrown out at any minute. After a while everyone left.

A bit after 1am a security guard came over to me and asked if I was allright. I confirmed and told him I was using the internet. He carried on with his inspection routine and then turned off the lights and left.

There was a party somewhere and a lot of distant noise of music and people shouting and/or singing. I reflected that I wouldn’t have dared do this in many other places, but on Rarotonga it felt perfectly safe. At around 3am the party was over and everything got very quiet.

At about 3:30 am a very drunk guy stumbled by and mumbled something unintelligible. I smiled and wished him a continued good night. He stumbled on.

At 4am I was finally finished. I had posted 6 new blog entries. Not bad. I would only get an hour and a half of sleep, but had plenty of time to sleep on the plane to New Zealand in the morning, or so I thought.

Eirik

—–