Today Christi started the day by grudgingly performing a rain dance. Out came the brush, soap and hose. It always worked with the car, maybe it would work with the boat. She only washed the areas most in need of a good scrubbing, clinging to the hope that the rain dance would work and Mother Nature would take care of the rest. Oh, and Brad from Special Blend retrieved our ropes for us. Thank you Brad!

After that, we went for a bike ride, trying out our spiffy special folding bikes (Dahon Mariner) for the first time. This is a good place to go riding. From the map, it looks like there is 40 km of unbroken land, and it is flat. The bikes are pretty sweet. The sea wall is against an open park area. We headed south from the park. Beyond the sea wall the lagoon had the usual rings of light blue-green and turquoise water around the shallower areas that we had seen in the other lagoons. The main road parallels the lagoon and is paved. It even has a bike lane! The side roads were unpaved and white, like in Manihi. In the village the buildings were fairly close together, with few fences. Most of the buildings had water collection cisterns beside them. Many of the grounds were landscaped, with grass, evergreens, palm trees, and lots of plants, especially flowering plants like Hinano, Hibiscus, and Bougainvillea. We passed a number of buildings. We were able to identify a small grocery store, a bakery, a Mormon Church and another church, a few houses, a little stand selling ice cream bars and soft drinks. Of course, we stopped for ice cream. Turns out they also sell pizza, too. Past the pizza stand the road twisted a little bit and there was a big sign with a directory of all the services in the town. This seemed to be the end of the village proper.

Some pictures around the village:

And we saw a Ray in the shallows of the lagoon:

Beyond the sign, the road turned to run down the very center of the island. We could see glimpses of the ocean on our left and glimpses of the bay on our right. There were less buildings and more vacant lots between the buildings. The vacant land was full of the same types of plants we had seen in Apataki. Along this stretch of road there were a few pensions, a restaurant, some pearl farms, some houses, a couple small coconut groves and what looked like a small Noni fruit grove. The farther we got from the village, the fewer the buildings/farms and more vacant land. Interestingly enough, the farther away from the village, the less and less coconut trees there were, too. The land was dense with other types of plants and looked a lot like Apataki.

The ride out was easy. We rode 12 kilometers. We credited the ease to flat land. When we turned around we realized we had a pretty strong wind at our backs before. Going back into the wind was harder. While on our trek, we saw a number of people on bikes, scooters and in cars. We even saw little kids driving scooters. Here we saw more small economy cars than trucks. We also saw a lot of dogs, a few chickens, and a couple of cats. Outside the village there were a few bottles and cans along the road, but not much litter. In the village there was no litter at all.

We stopped for lunch at the restaurant, but it was closed, so we went to the pizza stand. We decided to get an old favorite, margharita, and something new, a Mahi Mahi. We hadn’t seen Mahi pizza before. It was actually really good, and so was the Margharita. This place makes pizza with a thin crust, which Eric really likes. Since we have had many people recently request more specifics on the food, we’ll tell you about some of the other pizza toppings offered. “Fruits of the sea” with assorted seafood is on every menu. So is the “Royale”, with ham, veggies and egg. But, for the most part, it is normal toppings, although they do add cream to a lot of the pizzas.

We were both tired after the long ride and we headed back to Kosmos for the night. Shortly after getting back, the rain began to pour down. Yes! The rain dance worked!