Times are changing in this formerly overlooked paradise as tourists discover the food, snorkelling and distinct culture

We’re just over the last crest of Maunga Pu when we see it.

Here, at Aitutaki’s highest point, the true glory of the island’s sprawling lagoon reveals itself. Its outer edge encircles the tiny island, splitting crystal clear waters from the heaving dark blue of the Pacific beyond.

It lends the atoll – the second most populous of the 15 Cook Islands – an air of stillness.

“Pretty amazing view, hey?,” I say to a rare group of American tourists we find at the top of the hillside. “Yeah, incredible,” one responds, smiling.

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Time on Aitutaki still moves with the kind of slow, lazy gait long lost to the more tourist-dense island paradises, like Bali or Phuket. Only 2,000-odd people live on Aitutaki, and the community has been careful to keep its long, arcing beaches peaceful, free from pollution or the western hordes.

It has a modest tourist trade but is far from overrun. The resorts that are here, like the boutique Etu Moana villas, have been careful to maintain the island’s relaxed air. The elegant rooms sit just off the water, their thatched roofs hidden among the palm trees. In the evenings, my partner and I sit on the veranda, cocktails in hand, watching the sun lower itself toward the horizon.

Our mornings are spent uninterrupted, usually exploring the teeming reef, chasing tropical fish til exhaustion. The waters, still as glass, light up with the reds of the angelfish and the yellows of the butterfly fish as they flee into forests of coral.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The resorts in Aitutaki in the Cook Islands have been careful to maintain the island’s relaxed air, and the elegant rooms sit just off the water, their thatched roofs hidden among the palm trees. Photograph: James D Morgan/Getty Images

Out beyond the reef, between July and October, whales can be seen making their great migration south, heading to the warm Pacific waters to breed and give birth.

Shops in the main town of Arutanga are counted on the digits of one hand, and cars are outnumbered by the population of cats roaming the island.

Elsewhere in the Cook Islands, times are changing. Tourism is now reaching record levels. Last year 161,362 visitors came here, the highest level in the nation’s history, and a growth of 10% on the year before.

About 61% were New Zealanders. Australians (21,289) were the next biggest cohort, followed by Americans and Europeans. You see it most on Rarotonga, the Cooks most populous island, where new resorts like the Moana Sands Lagoon resort are popping up, seemingly overnight. Life rolls at a faster pace on Rarotonga, the capital of the Cook Islands. But even Aitutaki, an hour’s flight from Rarotonga, has not been immune to change.

Eteta Fepuleai and her family have run a small takeaway restaurant, Puffy’s Beach Bar and Grill, on Aitutaki for almost 18 years. Puffy’s is the best kind of takeaway joint. Unpretentious, cheap and simple, it doesn’t stray from what it does best: fresh seafood, salads, burgers and cold beer.

But when Fepuleai began, it was one of the only takeaways here. Over the years competitors have sprung up as more tourists sought out Aitutaki’s paradise. “It’s changed a lot,” she says. “A lot of businesses compared to us, a lot of takeaways have come up. I don’t really worry, because everyone knows us. They know the way we cook.”

Fepuleai spent much of her life in nearby New Zealand, before returning to her place of birth. It’s not an uncommon story.

Curiously, there are more Cook Islanders in New Zealand than in the Cook Islands. But more and more are returning home. Most come back to Rarotonga.

Like Tupou Metutaopu, a New Zealander whose parents were born in the Cook Islands. He came back to Rarotonga five years ago to reconnect with his roots. Metutaopu now helps crew for Koka Lagoon Cruise, a company that runs glass-bottomed boats in the waters off Rarotonga.

“Locals who used to live here are coming back,” Metutaopu says. “I’m from New Zealand, born and bred in Wellington. My mum and dad are from here.”

“It’s the culture [that’s bringing people back] ... Our culture is different from everywhere else.”

Metutaopu is speaking to me while standing in the shallows of Muri beach as he unloads the boat after finishing a long morning on the water. We’d just spent half the day on the lagoon cruise, which weaves its way through the reef before making landfall on one of the islands scattered off Rarotonga’s eastern coast for lunch.

Within minutes of casting off, hand drums and wood-carved ukuleles materialise in the hands of the crew. The music is an eclectic mix of traditional Polynesian songs and western pop hits, all set to the rapid, bright strum of the ukulele.

We’re on the first of two daily cruises run by Koka. Much of the cruise is spent in water, exploring the reef, and watching as the crew try to lure Roger, an impossibly large eel, from his hiding place in the coral. When we stop at an uninhabited island for lunch – a fresh seafood barbecue – one of the crew expertly climbs to the upper reaches of a palm tree, without a hint of fear, to retrieve fresh coconuts. They make a show of teaching tourists how to open the harvest and use the milk or oil inside. We’re taught how to weave coconut leaves into a basket, and how to tie a sarong in the traditional style.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The churches on the islands seem almost to outnumber the bars and cafes, but Christianity has not pushed out the traditions of the Cook Islanders. Photograph: James D Morgan/Getty Images

The smiles have not left the crew’s faces all day.

“Everyone’s happy,” Metutaopu says. “If you’re not happy, you’re in the wrong place. Don’t bother coming.”

It’s hard, of course, for any tourist to truly understand what Metutaopu means when he talks about the Cook Islands’ culture. It’s the product of a people who lived uninterrupted on these islands for 1,000 years, from 500AD, when the first Polynesians arrived, until the Spanish sailor Alvaro de Mendaña sighted Pukapuka in 1595.

Captain Cook, for whom the islands are named, was not far behind the Spanish. Nor were the missionaries, who brought disease, but also a Christian tradition that is now deep-rooted and a profound influence on daily life in the Cook Islands.

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On Rarotonga, an island of 14,000 people, the white coral and limestone churches are ubiquitous. They seem almost to outnumber the bars and cafes along the single 32km road that circles the island. But Christianity has not pushed out the traditions of the Cook Islanders.

We’re on the island for Te Maeva Nui, a week-long festival of dance, song, and culture, designed to celebrate the Cook Islands’ birth as an independent nation. Huge numbers have come from all over the far-flung islands to take part.

Tickets are at a premium, and the local news carries stories of parking woes and “heavy congestion” – most unusual for the Cook Islands – when the singing and dancing finally finishes at Rarotonga’s main auditorium. The situation is so dire that the police are even warning of a crackdown on illegal parkers.

It’s the event that, quite literally, brings the small nation to a standstill.

When I first take my seat in the auditorium, I’m unsure of what to expect. There’s a restless energy in the overwhelmingly local crowd.

Drums begin to beat in the darkness.

A spotlight casts down on a lone woman, her face partially covered by a floral headdress. Her voice rings out, soaring out across the auditorium and stilling those still nattering in the stands.

The stage lights up. Dancers dressed in green, red, and yellow begin slapping the floor in unison. They quickly jump up and begin moving as one. Pendulum hips swing. The men pound their hands on thighs. The drums roll again.

It’s a dizzying display of sound and colour. And it continues on throughout the night, each act as impressive as the last.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A traditional Cook Island dancer entertains the crowds. Photograph: Marty Melville/AFP/Getty Images

There is a striking individuality between the cultures of the 15 islands, born of the great distance between each and their varying histories of migration.

Some have come a long way to be in Rarotonga for Te Maeva Nui.

There’s a team from Pukapuka, known as “the island of beautiful girls”, the northernmost atoll and the most remote part of the Cook Islands. It’s closer to Samoa (750km away) than Rarotonga (1,140km away), and its culture is linked more closely with its Pacific neighbour.

The island is stunning and all but untouched, largely because getting there is nigh-on impossible for tourists.

An occasional charter plane lands on the a tiny airfield on one of Pukapuka’s three islets, but it runs sporadically – usually once every six weeks – and is often full of government officials. Some tourists have been known to board the cargo ships that try to get supplies to Pukapuka four times a year.

But there is no set schedule for the ships. They go to Pukapuka when weather and opportunity permit. Tourists can either get off and explore Pukapuka while the boat unloads, or stay on, not knowing when the next boat will come to take them back.

It has helped Pukapuka remain immune from the trend that is transforming Rarotonga. There are rumblings from some within the island’s opposition party that the infrastructure will not be able to cope.

Yet the average visitor will hardly notice. For most who have travelled abroad, these islands will, for now at least, remain a thankfully untouched paradise.

• Guardian Australia was a guest of Cook Islands Tourism, Jetstar and Air Rarotonga

