Kia Orana Rarotonga

Well a final post on my time in Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. The last few days have been a bit weird....

I was spending a fair bit of time with couple from Switzerland. We would go to the beach together, play cards etc etc. They are really nice and i bumped into them in Auckland?? They came to find me to say goodbye as i didn't see them before they left the hostel. They were here en-route to South America from Rarotonga and knew i had come here. We swapped email addresses. They are now on their way to South America.

The last few days the weather was storming and overcast and so I spent the days playing cards with a few of the hostel staff and the manager. We were playing a game called sh@thead that we re-named George Bush. I actually got quite good. I won the last four games and so left on a winning streak... The hostel staff take the game quite seriously and on the second to last night a fight broke out which lead to further arguments and repercussions. It sort of spoiled the last week as there was an atmosphere around the place...all for a game of cards.
The other wierd happening was to do with mossies. A new bloke was put in my room. He had just come from another of the islands and was a bit ill. I thought nothing of it and carried on as usual. At the end of the day the manager came and saw me and said that I needed to move rooms because the bloke had got Denge Fever from the other island!!! Now I have been coating myself every four hours over the last 2 weeks in mosssie repellent to try and stop me catching Denge Fever.... and they put someone in my room with it???? I was moved next door - which i guess was kinda useless really. This got me really paranoid as I spent a good few hours before i knew anything was wrong in the room wearing aftersun and no mossie repellent!!!! After that point, i put on double the amount of repellent and tried to avoid the bloke and the hostel common areas!! I was so paranoid - i was itching for the last few days all the time. Denge fever is pretty nasty and as well as a fever you have headaches, you feel weak and it can lead to bleeding. The bloke got really ill from it and could bearly talk , walk or eat. Nasty. Now thank god that i dont think i got bitten. I'm hoping i will be okay. The flight to Auckland to New Zealand was okay except fropm sitting next to a Welsh man who moved to NZ five years ago. He was nice enough but had at least six glasses of wine and was getting a bit on my nerves!!! He was really enthusiastic and was extolling the virtues of living in NZ for over 45 minutes in a slurred welsh accent that wasn't that easy to understand.