Aitutaki, Cook Islands | photoreport
Aitutaki - a small coral atoll, located a 40-minute flight from the main island of the Cook Islands - Rarotonga.
Aitutaki is positioned from a tourist point of view of the island with the most beautiful lagoon in the world.
Local flight from Rarotonga Air Rarotonga is performed by an airplane Saab 400. 3 flights per day, and fly the same plane there and back.
If you are arriving on Aitutaki, your property manager will contact you and pick you up, Ranginuis does it for free. I do not advise to go on foot - there is a very long and windy road from the airport and, at times, do not want it to pass, even on a scooter.
There are well-known hotel chains, but they are terribly expensive, and some are located in the western part of the island where the lagoon is not even visible in the best case, you get the picture, which would be easily able to get while on Rarotonga, and with much better snorkeling.
The island has a kind of mainland, where there is a small village and not so small road network.
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The main transport - a moped or scooter, and here, in contrast to Rarotonga, you do not need to show or to exchange their driving license (it may simply not have). Maybe not in all locations so, but we took the scooter for $ 20 per day at the hotel Ranginuis Retreat, the hotel, which is located on the other side of the hotel Aitutaki Lagoon Resort and Spa, through the beautiful Strait, which has almost every video from Youtube, relating to Aitutaki.
The hotel holds and completes Steve. Very nice people who always assisted in many areas.
Ranginuis is 5 times smaller than the Lagoon Resort and SPA and it is available free of almost any equipment, whether kayaking, padlbord, fishing or barbecue tools. Yes, the rooms are rustic, but the hotel left the most pleasant memories, as well as the entire staff, which consisted of 3 people. Sometimes there is a feeling that the staff left the territory of the hotel in the evening, leaving some travelers. You can do whatever you want.
I would not say that in the lagoon of Aitutaki is the most beautiful in the world, because at Kiritimati I liked it more, and lagoons themselves there anymore, but there is absolutely a wild place, and with zero infrastructure, which suits most avid fishermen. Yes, Resort Lagoon and SPA everything is fine, but nothing radically different, they can not offer.
Go for a swim in the lagoon is not such a great pleasure, because it is water, though beautiful, but due to their nature are not very transparent. It was like bathing in a completely standard Russian lake, with a little more beautiful greenish water. Visibility around 1-1.5 meters and then just a greenish background. The bottom is almost always sandy, with small corals that hide green algae and an indispensable attribute of the bottom - sea cucumbers.
Our trip was in early June, which means that at this time, in this hemisphere - winter. No, there is heat, but the sun still shines is not 100% and green vegetation in some places yellow due to the fact that the winter is very little rain.
Internet anywhere on the island for an extra charge and slow - for 150MB you will be charged in 10NZ average. You go to any hotel or coffee shop and just pay for the service, and you have given a sheet with login and password. Speed could not be verified, because spending limit is not wanted. All due to the fact that to ensure a stable connection to the remote islands so it expensive. The main provider - BlueSky. Oh, and in fact it is not very far from here there is an island with a completely free internet. Do not think that we have come here to sit on the Internet, but it is really needed here.
The local population - the real Polynesians - Good people. Plump women and men brutal and powerful with real Polynesian tattoos. By the way, Aitutaki men somehow a little and got the impression that the women come here to work on the watch. Local Fijians do not like, because among them a lot of people with a different orientation. Incidentally, we noticed this in Fiji, when the men were painted nails.
Dangerous insects on the island and there is no water in the dangerous marine animals, but there are unknown. Since here the open Pacific Ocean, then swim in the lagoon fauna can not be learned and once again swimming with a mask, you expect everything, even the worst.
Aitutaki - a popular place for a honeymoon celebration of the New Zealander, there are special services for the couple and the whole separate islands, designed exclusively for couples. Prices - from 1700NZ for the ceremony.
In fact, the train on the Pacific, begin to approximate all and understand that there is nothing fundamentally different can not be found, and the same island of Bora Bora, until a stone's throw will be 1000 times more beautiful and better, the water is 10 times clearer and more transparent - everything will be just more expensive.
Polina
Nikolay
Anna
Irina
Sergey