May 8th Cook Islands

May 8^th, 2006

It continued to rain heavily today right up until 1pm or so and then gradually the sun came out. So we got the marriage license. It was funny because on it Marsha is classed as a spinster (don’t think it has the same negative meaning here as in Canada).

From there we went to the Internet café and I tried to upload my pics but was only able to put on about 6. The Internet here is painfully slow; even though it is broadband it is only 256kbs/s at best (5 times faster than dialup). I have decided to only add a couple of pictures here and there on my blog and upload the works of them to Flickr when I get home to my own computer. The internet cafes here are pricey, $10 NZD for 1 hour (but you can sign out and come back later and use your remaining time) at Dougies and $12 for 90 minutes at the post office. The villa here charges about $6/hr for dial up service. It takes me 10-20 minutes to upload just 6 pictures at the Internet cafes.

We took a lot of cool pictures again and ended up eating at the Fish and Chips place next to the main wharf. $14 for two huge pieces of marlin, two deep-fried battered sausages and some chips. Not bad, I was full afterwards. Then we had to wait a long time for the bus as there is no bus from 4pm to 6pm and then the bus only goes in one direction for the rest of the night, clockwise. Roratonga is round island so during the day there is a clockwise bus and a counterclockwise bus. To quote the locals, if you ask them when the next bus is they say “when it comes”. Usually it is every hour though give or take 10-15 minutes.

We also extended the rental of our mountain bikes today for a week as they come in quite handy for getting around cheaply.

When we got home around 7pm it was already dark and the dog we have named “creampuff” was there to great us as usual and he followed us to our balcony and flaked out for 10 minutes before leaving. Going to bed now as we have a tour book for tomorrow. A lot of people here are using skype to call home, it is a phone over the internet service that ebay owns. Perhaps I will try it sometime, it must be cheaper than the $20 NZD/6 minutes I get with a prepaid calling card.