A Christmas Paradise
We spent Sonia´s birthday in New Zealand. Then we flew to Rarotonga and it was the day before Sonia´s birthday. The next day, it was her birthday again. This sort of bizarre temporal paradox explains why they put the date-line around the back end of the world where it doesn´t really matter.
I have been lucky enough to visit a few island paradises. Boracay in the Philippines stands out amongst the genre for its warm crystal-clear water, white powdery sand, and wonderful outrigger sailing boats silhouetted against perfect sunsets.
Personally I´m not a massive island paradise fan, so I´d bend the rules and put Fraser Island in Queensland at the top of my list. It´s not a proper champagne-sipping paradise as it involves camping and soap is banned, but is stunning and unique with its freshwater lakes, beached shipwreck and self-drive Landcruiser treks.
Rarotonga had its unique features too, including sensual traditional dance and amazingly friendly, laid back locals. For example, we missed the last hourly bus on our trip to the supermarket, but the off-duty bus-driver just happened to be passing, heard us talking about the bus, and gave us a lift home in his car. Our beach-front apartment was a bargain (view from our balcony pictured below) and Christmas day was crowned with a spectacular sunset.
On the other hand, the food was largely mediocre, the fine sand was mostly washed away by a series of storms last year and the island has the worst supermarket I´ve ever seen. Nevertheless, we chilled nicely for most of the week we were there.
Sadly we spent some of our time on the continuing quest to persuade Varig airlines to sell us one of their valuable and closely-guarded airline tickets. After several days of email silence (we couldn´t phone them as they only gave out 1-800 numbers which don´t work outside the USA), they emailed at midnight on Christas Eve. They demanded that we sent them a fax within 24 hours (ie zero working days) of copies of passports and a credit card, otherwise our flights would be cancelled. Fortunately we received this email in Rarotonga´s premier communications centre, the only place on the island with proper email access, international telephones and a fax machine. Unfortunately, they didn´t have a photocopier. After two hours driving our Nissan Micra convertible around every establishment on the island which looked open, it became clear that there wasn´t a single photocopier on the whole frikkin island. We began to consider ¨brass-rubbing¨ techniques. Evenutally we did find a photocopier, but by then the only fax machine at the communications centre had broken down. I leave the Varig saga there, as it only gets more tedious, but Sonia would be happy to relay the full story to anyone with five or six hours to spare.
I have been lucky enough to visit a few island paradises. Boracay in the Philippines stands out amongst the genre for its warm crystal-clear water, white powdery sand, and wonderful outrigger sailing boats silhouetted against perfect sunsets.
Personally I´m not a massive island paradise fan, so I´d bend the rules and put Fraser Island in Queensland at the top of my list. It´s not a proper champagne-sipping paradise as it involves camping and soap is banned, but is stunning and unique with its freshwater lakes, beached shipwreck and self-drive Landcruiser treks.
Rarotonga had its unique features too, including sensual traditional dance and amazingly friendly, laid back locals. For example, we missed the last hourly bus on our trip to the supermarket, but the off-duty bus-driver just happened to be passing, heard us talking about the bus, and gave us a lift home in his car. Our beach-front apartment was a bargain (view from our balcony pictured below) and Christmas day was crowned with a spectacular sunset.
On the other hand, the food was largely mediocre, the fine sand was mostly washed away by a series of storms last year and the island has the worst supermarket I´ve ever seen. Nevertheless, we chilled nicely for most of the week we were there.
Sadly we spent some of our time on the continuing quest to persuade Varig airlines to sell us one of their valuable and closely-guarded airline tickets. After several days of email silence (we couldn´t phone them as they only gave out 1-800 numbers which don´t work outside the USA), they emailed at midnight on Christas Eve. They demanded that we sent them a fax within 24 hours (ie zero working days) of copies of passports and a credit card, otherwise our flights would be cancelled. Fortunately we received this email in Rarotonga´s premier communications centre, the only place on the island with proper email access, international telephones and a fax machine. Unfortunately, they didn´t have a photocopier. After two hours driving our Nissan Micra convertible around every establishment on the island which looked open, it became clear that there wasn´t a single photocopier on the whole frikkin island. We began to consider ¨brass-rubbing¨ techniques. Evenutally we did find a photocopier, but by then the only fax machine at the communications centre had broken down. I leave the Varig saga there, as it only gets more tedious, but Sonia would be happy to relay the full story to anyone with five or six hours to spare.
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