It was raining the next morning, so we checked out of the hostel early, waited for a lull in the rain to make a mad dash to the bus stop with all of our stuff. Jared decided he want to try to go diving in Fiji off the coast of Pacific Harbour, a small town on the south side of the island, while I opted to skip Pacific Harbour, as the only thing to really do there was dive. Instead, I looked up the nicest beach on the island, Natadola, and decided to continue on the same bus farther along the coast. I had seen in the decade old guidebook that there was a small backpacker’s accommodation, but without internet at hostels, you’re always sort of taking a gamble. Also, neither Jared nor I assumed we’d have internet where ever we visited, so in order to meet back up again in Nadi, our final destination, we came up with the cockamamie idea of meeting everyday outside of the Nadi Police station at 7pm; if the other person doesn’t show, they hadn’t arrived from their destination yet. We thought it was a perfectly acceptable idea, but other people seemed to raise eyebrows. Anyway, that was the plan upon Jared’s departure from the bus. I continued on for another two hours maybe, mostly chatting with a British writer who had ventured to a teenie resort off the coast to cure a case of writer’s block. When I got off the bus at the Natadola sign, I was picked up by a man with a pickup truck who said he was a cab. I told him I’d walk to the beach, thinking it was about a 10-15 minute walk; turned out it was a 15 minute drive, so I did take the ride. I have to say, a lot of this type of travel does leave you a bit vulnerable to scary moments. I just try to stay as vigilant as possible, keep mace handy and pray for the good faith of people. So far, so good thankfully. He chatted a bit on the ride toward the beach, telling me there were definitely no backpacker or budget accommodations anywhere near this beach, but that I could always stay with him and his family that night for a small amount if I wanted. I did contemplate that a bit, but in the end decided against it. He dropped me off by the beach, and I toted my bags up and down, popping in to the three different resorts along the beach, only to find out my cheapest option was about $250 a night; yikes, definitely outside of my budget. I lingered around a bit, before asking someone to call me a cab back to the highway. I ended up catching a ride with “the chef” who looked about 18 years old, but was nice, despite his questionable choice of conversational topic, about an Australian woman who married a Fijian, came to visit Fiji and was murdered and hacked up to pieces. Definitely NOT the story to bring up when driving a single female traveler. Needless to say, I was happy when we made it to the bus stop. I waited a while for the bus; a few people, including a handful of backpackers returning from the beach joined as well. The next large town to find accommodation was Nadi, though when the bus came around, I didn’t actually know where exactly to stay. Luckily, some of the other travelers helped me by making suggestions in the area. The bus dropped us off in the center of town, where we had to pick up another bus to get to the hostel area, which ended up being about 15-20 minutes outside of town by the airport surprisingly, but also right on the water. When I finally checked into the hostel and settled in with their free wifi, I messaged Jared in case he ended up finding wifi, and it turned out neither of us had much luck that day with our original plans, but we did both find wifi! Jared found lots of hostels and all of them we sold out; luckily, a manager allowed him to set up his tent on the porch for a significantly discounted rate. In a panic, he actually booked himself into a hostel in Nadi, which by sheer luck ended up being only two doors down from where I was staying.
The next few days I spent at the hostel in Nadi were incredibly uneventful. Suffice to say, every day I pretty much laid by the pool, played on the internet, and read a lot. I looked in to other options like trekking in the highlands and daytrip to islands, but everything was just so expensive, and I needed to start cutting down a bit instead of splurging on $200-500 excursions all the time, so I decided against them; even taking a daytrip up the mountain to hike, a total of two hours of actual hiking, would cost $150, outrageous. Anyway, Jared came three days later, at which point I switched to his hostel as he had already paid his deposit and couldn’t switch to mine. His diving plans completely fell through, as the weather was crappy the entire time and every day’s dive was cancelled. He did spend the next three days going out every morning to surf off of the island of Tavarua. I thought about doing that, for nothing more than just breaking up the monotony of poolside tanning, but decided against it due to pricing; he came back every day happy but completely cut up from falling on the reef, also deterring me from going out. His feet got banged up, because he mostly hops off the board as he goes down; I actually dive off the board as I go down in the hopes that I won’t get caught in a wave and so I can get far enough from the board so I don’t get wacked in the head, so I would have ripped off half my flesh attempting to surf on a reef. Anyway, at night, we rotated between our hostel and the next one for kava drinking and fire dancing shows.
We had however planned to get off the main island for a few days, so when that day came, we packed our small bags and were able to leave our big packs at the hostel. A tourism bus came by in the morning and picked up all the different travelers along that road, as it was basically lined with several different accommodations. We were collectively transported to Denarau Island where all the fancy resorts and spas are, including the Hard Rock Café, so suffice to say it was sufficiently Americanized. We boarded a large catamaran bound for the Yasawa Islands. Jared had booked a 4 night 5 day package (ours was the least number of days allowed, but it does increase), which included unlimited cruises to any of the 20 volcanic islands, which I thought was awesome! We only had a few days, so we were a bit limited, but you could conceivably spend a much longer time there and float around to every island to your heart’s content! I dunno, normally I’ve never just seen an unlimited amount of cruising allowed on vacation packages. Anyway, since we did have to be a bit more prepared due to our time limitation, we planned our days well. Our first stop was one of the farthest islands in the chain, Nacula, known for its blue lagoon surrounding the island. The boat cruise took a bit over four hours, stopping at each island to pick up or drop off other people. When our stop finally came, we got into a smaller boat with a few others and headed to our accommodation, the Safe Landing Resort, where we were greeted on the beach by a village band and men in grass skirts and traditional weapons, like a “neck breaker”, which obviously Jared explained to me, because I thought it was just a fancier looking club. Anyway, straight away we were served lunch; there are no stores on any of the islands so you are at the mercy of the resort’s restaurant. We lucked out, as our meal was both tasty and very filling. After lunch, the weather messed around a bit, quickly changing for scorching heat and sunshine to light drizzles, so we alternated between beach lounges, hammocks, and the covered restaurant. There were a few activities in which travelers could participate, like jewelry making; we tried to watch a bit, but got pretty bored, because they were not interactive like we had hoped. Toward the end of the afternoon, we joined in on a volleyball game before a traditional umu dinner of taro, potatoes, and manioke, with roasted chicken, different salads and roasted vegetables. It was buffet style, so in true Jared and Kathleen fashion, we made ourselves pretty uncomfortable by the end. That was Friday night which meant post dinner entertainment of a traditional dance by the locals. Jared told the MC it was my birthday soon, I will say he was specifically asked he wasn’t just trying to humiliate me spontaneously, so I was pulled up for the first dance consisting of lots of male gyration and war shouts, so that was…that. Unfortunately, the whole thing was entertaining, but the women were definitely the most unmotivated of performers we’ve seen so far. The women are always the best part, but these looked like they’d rather be anywhere else. Anyway, at the end of the evening, we just showered and headed to bed.
After a hearty breakfast the next morning, we set out with a couple girls from the resort on a short hike to the other side of the island and the blue lagoon. We were told there were two ways across, one about a 45 minute walk, the other an hour and a half. We asked about the quicker route and were instructed to go “just around the point”. As we walked along the beach and approached the point, we met a man cleaning his boat and directly across from him a path leading inland. When we asked him how to get across, he pointed down the path, which did look like the logical route, as “around the point” kind of looked like it would lead us into the water surrounded by sharp rocks. The path we took lead us up a mild incline and across the island via the ridge line of smaller and larger hills. The walk itself was really quite nice with great views, and there was a strong breeze keeping us cool. Despite the fact that we never saw a path diverge from the one we took, an hour and a half came and went, and we still had a bit of a walk to go, so clearly we had somehow taken the wrong path, but we were still happy. We really just wanted to get in the water as seeing the perfect blue of the lagoon from above was a pretty big tease. Finally, we descended off the hills down onto the beach and were able to enjoy the gorgeous water. There were almost no people around, which is always nice. Unfortunately, because we had taken the long route there and were unsure of how to get back, we couldn’t stay very long, but we enjoyed every minute. The beach and water were actually just like our side of the island, there was just more area between the beach and the beginning of the reef life. Thankfully, we asked how to get back and quickly found the alternate path. The walk back was very easy, and took us along the floor of the island, around the hills rather than up and over. As we approached our side of the island, we found out that we were in fact supposed to go “just around the point”, but the longer hike was much more scenic and we enjoyed it all. We hoped to make it back in time for lunch, and though we were about 30 minutes late, they did serve us individually. We had definitely wanted to return to the other side of the island, but the tide got pretty high, making the short route unpassable around the point, plus poor Jared’s feet looked mutilated and were starting to attract flies…no I’m not kidding, so we opted to give his feet some respite, oh right I forgot to mention, his flip flops were basically not functioning anymore so he had to walk on the volcanic rock bare feet. I’m not sure if you know volcanic rock, but it is really sharp and uncomfortable to walk on without good shoes. Anyway, instead of going back, we laid on our beach and went swimming and relaxed the day away. That night, after another good dinner, a few of us decided to pitch in and purchase a bag of kava, so we were taught how to make and drink kava in the traditional Fijian way. I think I touched on kava in Tonga, but this one was, at least for me, more informative. We learned how to prepare the kava and well as the rituals to drinking it. There is a chief, which for our purpose was just randomly selected and Jared got that title, and a “spokesperson” who speaks for the chief. Whenever the spokesperson wants to drink, or thinks the chief wants to drink, he yells out “Taki”, at which time, the chief claps once, receives his cup of kava, says “Bula!” which means “welcome” or “thank you”, and drinks the whole cup of kava from his own cup, then claps three times. Next the spokesperson does the exact same thing: clap, Bula!, drink, three claps. The only difference is that the chief gets his own glass, everyone else has to share a cup, yuck, though you sort of have to throw hygiene out the window from the start, as you watch the man prepare the kava by dunking his hands in the water and rubbing the kava around in the filter and water with his hands. Anyway, I mentioned before that kava has narcotic properties. Kava is drunk every night by a lot of men in the villages. Women are not really supposed to drink kava; we are not exactly sure why, but heard a pretty ridiculous story recently about kava originally growing out of the vagina of a dead woman, so, you know, LOGICALLY women can’t drink it because of that…? The first glass always makes your mouth and throat numb and after that it takes quite a few glasses to have any other effect. We have yet to make it far; the taste is not very good. It’s made from a root of a bush stamped down into a fine dust. The dust is then places in a cloth bag and washed around in the water. Based on the description, it tastes exactly like you might imagine. A few of the more common descriptions include “dirty water” and “wet wood”. Anyway, we all had a good time watching the people who had never tried it attempt to choke it down. I think everyone stayed up late, but the kava got me tired, so I just showered up and headed to bed for the night.
The next day, we were headed to Wayalailai, another island farther south in the Yasawas. We had our breakfast and spent the next few hours reading and relaxing while awaiting the boat. That afternoon, we boarded the small transport boat out to the larger catamaran. The cruise took about 3 hours back south, during which time Jared was hit by some sort of virus, developing a fever, sore throat, and malaise. When we finally arrived at Wayalailai, he was out of commission. We had a bit of tea at the restaurant and he went to lie down while I walked the beach, which was covered in coral making it great for finding awesome shells, but a bit painful when walking into the water. After collecting quite a few really neat shells, I made my way back for a big buffet dinner. Just before bed, Jared spiked a pretty high fever, so we spent the next bit of the night in misery as I soaked all my clothes trying to bring his temperature down until he finally, begrudgingly, got into the shower, successfully getting better after a bit.
The next day was MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! But I basically spent the whole day by myself, because Jared was confined to bed. I woke up early and ate breakfast before going on a short, but steep hike up to the tallest peak on the island, with great views. I lounged the rest of day away on the beach.
Our last day on the island, Jared felt a bit better. We participated in some jewelry weaving taught by the local women, before heading back to the main island again. Our last day in Fiji was spent much like the rest, with sunning and reading and playing on the internet to plan future adventures, mostly in Indonesia, but that story is best left for later; Fiji was probably my most unproductive island, but you can’t complain when you lying by a pool or in a hammock on the beach in Fiji. Up next was Vanuatu.
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