At the beginning of my fellowship, I was allowed to request leave. I asked for two full weeks off as well as three long weekends so that William and I could take some local trips. We just took our first long weekend trip- to the Cook Islands!
The Cook Islands are a group of 15 islands in the South Pacific, located between American Samoa and French Polynesia. They are a sovereign country but have political ties to New Zealand and use the NZ dollar. The largest island is Rarotonga, which is about a three-hour flight from Auckland. William and I flew into 'Raro' on a Thursday afternoon and went straight to our hotel. It was raining, so we didn't get a chance to explore much. However, the weather cleared up as the evening went on, and we enjoyed a spectacular sunset.

Early the next morning, we returned to the airport for a 40-minute flight to the island of Aitutaki (eye-two-talk-ee).

The island is quite small, only taking about 30 minutes to drive from one side to the other. We dropped off our bags at the little cottage we had booked, then rented a scooter and took off to explore.

We borrowed kayaks from our hotel and went out in the crystal-clear water.
The next day we went out on a boat ride to some amazing snorkeling sites. It's hard to describe how beautiful it was. Instead, I'll just share some pictures.





Aitutaki felt like paradise on earth. It was by far the most beautiful water I've ever seen. We only had two nights there, then returned to Rarotonga just briefly before getting on a flight back to Auckland. We would go back in a heartbeat!
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