23rd October 2009
Another early start today, we were booked to take a tour with Taranga Tours so we had to be at the supermarket for 8.30ish. We arrived just as the landrover was pulling in with the other people on today’s tour, a family of 3 from New Zealand. Before we began the tour, our driver, Useless (honestly!) said a prayer in Cook Islands Maouri, then he talked to us about the umu that we would have on our return from the tour.
An umu is a pit dug in the ground and filled with hot rocks, the food is wrapped in banana leaves and put in the pit and covered over, the umu would take about 3 hours to cook, while we were out on the road.
Then we all loaded up in the jeep and headed off to our first stop, which was Wigmore’s waterfall where we had been yesterday, we hopped out to take some photos (and pick some beautiful gardenia flowers) before continuing on to a viewpoint above the waterfall which looked out over the unfinished Hilton resort. Useless then explained a bit about the land on the Cook Islands. One of the fabulous and special things about Rarotonga is that the beach belongs to everyone, there are no private beaches (and long may it remain so!). The land has long been divided up between different families and is passed from generation to generation. There are currently 4 chiefs on the island, although there should be 5, but the old chief who died had married 6 wives and consequently had 6 firstborn sons who are all entitled to inherit the title and this has been the subject of a bitter dispute which has already gone on for about 5 years and they are still no closer to a resolution. In most cases, land is leased to hotels or businesses wanting to set up on family owned land.
In the case of the derelict Hilton Resort, they began to build it in the early 90s and since the money was being provided by an Italian, they brought in Italian workers to build it. It was pretty much complete, even with a tiled swimming pool and fitted bathrooms when the guy funding it was put in prison. It appears that his money was Mafia money and so the project came to a halt. Useless says there have been other deals put in place, but something always happens and they fall through. The locals think the land is cursed, but not cursed enough not to have ‘borrowed’ some of the toilets and fittings from the almost complete hotel! At one point, when it was realised things were going missing from the buildings, they did employ 4 security guards, but it just meant the security guards ended up with some nice fittings for their homes! So now it’s there for anyone to wander around.
We continued on, following the island’s back road and some dirt tracks, past banana plantations and plots where pineapples, paw-paw and taro root were planted. Useless explained about the Noni tree, the fruit of which is used as a sort of panacea for all ails, it can be used as sun-block, mosquito repellent and antiseptic when rubbed on the skin, or to calm an upset stomach if drunk. It smells horendous and when we stopped to try some noni juice a bit later on, didn’t taste too good either!
We also stopped at the memorial for the Maoris who were thrown out of the Cook Islands in the thirteen hundreds. According to Cook Islanders, this is where the New Zealand Maori originated. They were thrown off the island for being too violent and agressive, no one is sure how many canoes left Rarotonga, but only 7 managed to survive the 8 month journey to New Zealand.
Then we went right to the top of hospital hill, up a very steep and deeply rutted track, for more unforgettable views of this wonderful place.
We passed the prison where there are currently about 20 prisoners. We also passed several hostels near the school which have been built by islanders from the other islands that make up the Cook Islands. These hostels are used for children who have to come to school in Rarotonga when they reach a certain school level and who don’t have family on Rarotonga, they can also be used by people from the island when they visit Rarotonga. A great idea. There’s even one for the Maori.
By now it was time for lunch, so we headed back to the Supermarket where Taronga Tours have their booth. While one of the ladies showed us how the traditional raw fish dish was made by mixing raw fish (preferably parrot fish), with spring onion, tomato, lemon juice and coconut milk (she squeezed the coconut milk from the actual coconut scraped from the shell. I had no idea the flesh contained so much milk), Useless got the food out of the umu. Chicken, lamb, taro (which is like spinach), sweet potato or Kumara - everything was just delicious.
After the tour, we headed out ourselves to explore more of the backroad, or inner island road (there are only 2 main ones - the inner and outer roads!). Then we stopped off in town where I ‘may’ just have acquired another pearl ;).
This evening we went to the Kikau Hut, a small restaurant seating only 30. It’s run by a Kiwi couple, the wife serves while the husband does the cooking. It had a very small menu, but everything was cooked fresh, I had scallops and fish of the day, which was a local deep-water fish much like swordfish and beautifully cooked and Ed had deep fried camembert with a mango relish and chicken stuffed with paw paw. Everything was tasty and cooked to perfection. We were able to take our own wine so we took the second bottle we had bought at the Amista winery in California.
