We chose the Cook Islands.

A few months later, tickets in hand, we figured we had better learn something about the place, so we picked up a guidebook. The Cook Islands are located in the southern hemisphere about four hours as the plane flies northeast of New Zealand. They are directly south of Hawaii, on the same side of the dateline as America. The Cook Islands were a British protectorate administered by New Zealand, they have been independent since 1965, but they continue to have close ties with New Zealand -- for example, their currencies are interchangeable.

The country is made up of a dozen or inhabited islands spread out over a huge area of the South Pacific. The islands are tiny, just flecks of dust on a wide open sea. The largest island, Rarotonga, is home to the capital city and with a population of about 10,000 the island also has more people than all the other islands combined. The people are Maori and are bilingual, speaking both Maori (to each other) and English (to the gringos). Our guidebook said the "Cook Islands are like Tahiti was 25 years ago," which I think was meant to be a good thing.

After wrapping up our time in New Zealand with a three day kayak trip in Abel Tasman National Park (highly recommended but no time to write a dispatch) we flew from Auckland to Rarotonga, crossing the dateline and landing the evening before we left. We walked down along the stairs onto the tarmac and the humid air of the tropics plastered the shirts to our backs on the short walk to the terminal. The Guy With The Ukulele serenaded us during our leisurely stroll through customs.

When I had made the reservation for our accommodation I had requested airport pickup. The lady on the phone told me to ask for Nana after we arrived. I was a little unsure just how this was supposed to work. Whom we were supposed to ask? Can you imagine stepping off a plane at LAX, walking up to a random person, and saying, "Hi, do you know Nana?" The would either think you were crazy or yell at you for bothering them, and in either case they wouldn't know who Nana was. Here, on Rarotonga, we exited Customs into a small crowded room. There was no information booth and no one was holding a sign with our name. Without much hope I picked someone out of the crowd and threw him a "Where's Nana?"

This didn't put him off at all. He turned to the guy next to him, asked if he had seen Nana today, and that guy pointed us to a slender lady wearing nothing but a floral sheet wrapped around her body. Nana. I knew this was going to be a good country when everyone in the country was on a first-name-basis with everyone else.

Nana gave us each a huge lei that dangled down to our waists, then drove us to our bungalow. Rarotonga has one road that circles the island. No stoplights. The drive from the airport to the bungalow required our driving about 1/3 of the way around the island, but it only took 15 minutes.

Our bungalow was nice. It was a studio thing with a small kitchenette and dining table and bed, but its primary feature was location. It was all alone on a huge palm-covered lot, set on a private section of a long white beach. Complete relaxation. Our main concern for the week would be to heed the "Beware of Falling Coconuts" sign.

Most of our days followed the well-established beach routine that we had perfected in Thailand. Eat. Nap. Beach. Eat. Nap Beach. Occasionally we had to go into town to get groceries, a cheap pair of flip-flops, or sun-tan lotion, but these voyages were atypical bursts of energy that required restorative periods of nap and beach time. All of Rarotonga is surrounded by a coral reef, inside of which is clear shallow water and calm seas with nice snorkeling. The best snorkeling on the island was a short 15 minute walk down the beach.

There are two buses that run on the island. One is called "Clockwise" and the other "Anti-Clockwise" and they circle the island each hour. They are an easy way to get around, but for added convenience I rented a motorbike for the week. Before I could drive, though, I had to get a Cook Islands driver's license, which required my taking a driving test. It was an easy test, just a loop around the block being followed by a police officer, and I have a feeling the main reason for licensing is to generate the $15 licensing fee. I passed the test, walked out of the station with my shiny new license, and I plan on using it the next time I get asked for ID at a liquor store in the States.

One day we booked a tour to the nearby island of Aitutaki. Our small Air Rarotonga prop plane left at 8:00 AM. It was the most informal flight I have ever taken. Instead of a flight attendant, the co-pilot just turned around in his seat and sort of pointed out the lifejackets. There was no cockpit door, and about 1/2 hour into the flight we saw a small dot on the horizon through the front windows. The dot was just a paler fleck of blue on the deep blue of the ocean. It grew larger as we drew closer, but it still seemed a ridiculously small place to try to land a plane.

As we flew in on our approach we got a better view of the island. Most of it was water. A circular reef surrounded a relatively shallow lagoon about 15 kilometers in diameter. Small flat islands were laid out like a dashed line along the east side of the lagoon, and a larger island anchored the northwest corner. We landed on a surprisingly large runway made of crushed coral. The runway was built by the Americans during World War II, and few improvements have been made since that time. The "airport" building was similar in size and design to your typical American picnic shelter.

An open-sided bus took us on a quick drive around the main island, then dropped us off at a boat for an afternoon on the lagoon. We stopped at a few places for snorkeling -- nice clear water and giant clams with florescent lips -- and also stopped at a few genuine deserted islands. One of them was the setting for an Australian knock-off of Survivor called Shipwreck Island. It was a tiny island but looked like a great place to spend a month or two. Our captain grilled a big seafood lunch then he and the crew sang songs and played guitar for the 1-hour putter back to the airport.

The Cook Islands are known for their singing and dancing. Back on Rarotonga, Sarah and I went to an "Island Night" at one of the big resorts (well, the only big resort). The Guy With The Ukulele was there. He sang while we ate a traditional Cook Islands buffet, then after dinner a dance troop came out for a performance. It was sort of like I had always pictured a Hawaiian dance with the grass skirts and coconut bra's and such, but the highlight was the male dancers that performed this incredibly energetic foot-stomping thing. While I expected the whole thing to be kind of cheesy, just a sanitized regurgitation of the stereotypical dances for us tourists, it was anything but. The dancers were so excited and so into what they were doing that their energy was contagious. We could see backstage and watch the band and the other performers laughing and generally having a good time with things. If you ever find yourself in the Cook Islands, don't miss Island Night at the Rarotongan Resort.

We did a few other good activities. A hike across the inland mountains. An afternoon with Piri, the Coconut King of the Cook Islands. Piri showed us traditional ways of cooking and making fire and, of course, climbing coconut trees. But the highlight of our entire week was Sunday morning, at church.

One-hundred fifty years ago a London-based missionary society did an astounding job of converting the Cook Islanders. Today, almost every islander belongs to the Protestant CICC (Cook Islands Christian Congregation), with a few Catholics and 7th Day Adventists thrown in for variety. The islanders had a huge repertoire of traditional songs, and when the missionaries came they just changed the words, praising Jesus instead of native gods, but retaining all the energy of the old tunes. It is these hymns that draw tourists like us to the church services today.

Most of the congregation was old ladies. These aren't your Gaugin-style waifs. They are large women. Very large. A growing number of Pacific Islanders are being drafted into the NFL as linemen because they have huge hulking bodies, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if these were their mothers. If these ladies were guys and if they were NFL linemen, they would be the kind of linemen that would cause John Madden to lean over next to Pat Summerall and say, "Now that's a lot of guy!"

All the ladies were squeezed into flowery dresses, and they had tiny straw hats perched on their melonic heads, tipped forward sharply by buns of hair. The service was conducted in Maori so we couldn't understand most of it, but it didn't matter because most of the hour was song. Amazing hymns. There was no formal choir, just a congregation full of amazingly powerful vocal cords. The ladies and men wove intricate 4-part harmonies, the men belting out powerful base. It was incredible. We definitely felt the power of God (or at least heard It).