A guy named Rudi

Many special thanks to Stefan, my colleague from work. He told me last year: “If you go from Los Angeles to New Zealand, you really should visit the Cook Islands. Every Sunday there is a direct flight from LAX to Rarotonga.”

This is NOT a special species of New Zealand monkeys

So we did go there. We brought a Beer Stein and a German magazine to his friends Jill and Captain Moko. Stefan, the old sailor, seems to have a different name in every place on earth. Does Eva, his wife know about this? So nobody knows Stefan, but everybody knows Rudi on the Cook Islands.

“Are you a friend of Rudi’s?”, I got asked by Tali, who loaned him the bicycle for the triathlon on the island. Rudi, this seems to be your island. They also know Eva. Rudi, change your name one more time to Adam. Eva and you would never have to leave this paradise.

BTW: Our Blog has a forum, where you can post proposals for our trip. Next stop will be New Zealand and afterwards Sydney.

After the lazy beach day, we took the bus around the island. It is 30 km route and gives good sights to the different parts of the island. There is bus called clockwise and the other one is anticlockwise. I asked myself. Do the clocks turn the same way south of the equator? They do. It is only the water in the drain spins around in a different direction, when the water leaves the sink or shower. Only Bavaria has clocks running the other way around.

At home, I read an article in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, where they interviewed the bus driver on Rarotonga. “My job is a very diverse. I can drive the bus around the island every day. And every third day I get to change the direction.”

The capitol is called Avarua and has a population of around 2000. But they have a Baumarkt, where Michelle did not want to go in L. And they have a Computerman. I want to be a computer man on an island.

And they had lots of Back-hoes and heavy machinery lined up on the beach. The next day the Chinese ambassador came in from New Zealand to hand over the machines worth 10 Million $ to the Cook Islands Government. Michelle planned on doing a protest against building up the island for this ceremony, but unfortunately we had heavy rain on the next morning. This was why we started our bike tour late and did not make it into town on time. But we found out, why the island is so incredibly green. Not because of the Green Party Michelle wanted to found. Man, it does not rain, it pours.

As already mentioned we had a nice bike ride on the next day. They have nicely decorated graves in the front yards of the homes on the island. Almost as nice as the Allerheiligen graves back home.

Then we brought the presents from Rudi to Jill. And we had the very best fish lunch ever in her Mooring Fish Café.

On the next day we took a nice 3 hour walk inlands next to the river. The green and volcanic mountains are so overwhelming. Most of the time, the mountains are covered in clouds. That is where the green comes. As always, on the island you get a doggy escort service for free. Two dogs just came with us, when we started the walk and brought us all the way back to the place, where we started and where they live.

We also met a nice New Zealand couple, who gave us lots of tips for our New Zealand, especially about good wineries. Many thanks to Louise and Earl. We are looking forward to the trip. And again many thanks to Rudi for recommending this island.