8.1.13

Te vara nui, was the big Island night across the water. We were picked up at 4pm from the corner store and travelled around to Muri to the Te Vara Nui, village that is a tourist village set up in the name of Vara a successful and internationally influential pacific dancer who took pacific dancing to the world in the 70s. She returned to the Cooks to bring up her children and after the divorce of her marriage she set up a successful backpackers and went on to develop the Te Vara Nui village for tourists. We were welcomed in to the village in a traditional way with a challenge from a warrior and address in a typically intimidating way from the chief. Our elected or volunteered representative Wally from Adelaide accepted the challenge and handed over our club to the chief and we were given permission to enter. We had a series of demonstrations and presentations, on the history of the Cook Islands, Medicine, Marae etiquette, Fishing, Textiles, and finally the coconut. Came out with our heads full of information about the culture and history and some handy skills with coconuts. Most importantly we came out with a big hunger. Conveniently we straight on to the Island night buffet dinner. The meal was a western island fusion dinner, which was very good but disappointingly was mostly western. The reason became apparent as clearly the tourists have restricted tastes, as the small volume and number of local dishes were ignored it seemed. Di and I did our best to make up for this and focused our efforts at the plate on the Pacific food. Excellent Ikamata (marinated fresh fish salad), pawpaw salad, baked banana and coconut, local spinach, and various fish dishes. Di and I both enjoyed a Pina Colada with our meal, which would keep you going for a week on its own.

The dance show was a triumph of story telling, choreography and athletic dance, to the beat of tachyphylactic Cook Islands drum band, and a complimentary light show. There was a central stage surrounded by a moat like pond with two large food areas either side of the pond looking on to the show. Overall very impressive, informative and thoroughly enjoyable afternoon and evening. After the show the desert was served and we did our best to have at least a couple of goes at this as instructed by the emcee. A breezy trip home in the Te Vara Nui truck to finish the evening.