Advertisement
Published: November 20th 2006
We arrived into Nadi airport on the mainland of Fiji to a with a welcoming of... rain! As we'd heard from a few other people the weather in Fiji wasn;t very good t the moment, but hoping for fantastic weather affter some cold weather in Fiji we couldn't help being dissapointed. Ah well, the welcoming of singing and guitar playing from four men dressed in hawaiian shirts (or Bula shirts as their known here) brightened our arrival.
After a long journey through customs we were greeted by a Fijian lady presenting us with a lei; a necklace made of lots of tiny shells on fishing wire. She lead us to a bus stop out side of the airport grounds where we saw our first sights of Fiji; stray dogs, rugged huts, strange smells and nothing westernised. There seemed to be a big divide between the people we saw, either dressed nicely in Bula shirts or looking very poor.
A man in a van pulled into the lay by in front of us to pick us up and ship us to our first nights accomodation.
*
In Auckland we booked everything all inc. so there were no more costs apart from
bits of food here and there and alcohol.
*
The driver was very jolly and introduced us the Fijian word: "BULA" meaning hello, cheers, hi, and everything else jolly!
As we drove down the roads to our accomodation Fijian people waved and shouted 'Bula' to us; the white people in a van, we weren;t sure how to take this at first whether they were being rude or whether they were being welcoming. The heat was slightly damp for the rainfall, but it was welcome to our NZ acclimatised bodies to be warm again and in shorts and thongs. Our accomodation was very basic and the food we bought from a disgusting but very cheap takeaway was awful - lamb curry with lots of bone in it.
ROBINSON CRUSOE ISLAND BEGINS - 27th October
An interesting drive through villages and even down onto a beach took us to a little jetty on a river. A small motorboat was waiting there for us as we loaded our bags and ourselves onto the rocking little boat. The boat carried us down the river lined with mangroves and then out to sea and across a short distance to the idilic
looking Robinson Crusoe Island (RCI). It was a tiny little paradise island only with palm trees pokingoout of the white sand surrounded by crystal clear blue water as the sun shone and the sky was cloud-less. As we got closer I could hear the sound of the RCI welcoming commitee singing and clapping with guitars strumming. I couldn't help but arrive with a huge smile beaming across my face. 1, 2, 3 "BULA!!!!".
We were shown to our 40 bed dorm room decorated with Fijian style paintwork on wooden bunk beds.
After lying on the beach for a while the sun began to set and it was time for the sunset bonfire where the entertainer; Stan began to play some tunes on his guitar and sing some traditional Fijian songs. It was perfect!!!! The sunset was stunning, sillouetting the palm trees, the scenary surrounding us was paradise and I sat sat on a weaved mat with a cold Fiji beer.
Our welcome ceremomy began. Each of the new arrivals of which there was only about 7, we sat in front of a large islander called Joe, with Stan sat next to him mixing a grey water in a large
wooden bowl. Joe lead the ceremony in a slightly tongue-in-cheek manner, with his witty and comical additions and then it was time to be welcomed and have the much talked about Fijian 'Kava' drink. Stan dished out the bowls to the chosen Chief's and local Chief's (someone sat in the circle) in bowls made from half a coconut. It was passed around and then to me. After a big palm hitting clap (#boom-sound# as Joe explained) and a big "BULA" I accepted the bowl of murky grey looking water and gulped it down in one, as expected by the islander's. Stan had become a friend of mine already because I had filmed him singing and repeatedly played the footage back to him, which he loved, so I was given a large bowl of the muddy-water tasting drink. It tasted of nothing more than muddy water as the drink is made form the roots of a tree and then grinded up and mixed via a tea towel into water. My tongue tingled a little bit, feeling a tiny bit numb, but no other side effects.
I was now one of them; I was now an Islander!
The ceremony was then carried
on with explanations of how the island worked and rules etc. with some very funny comments from the islanders, calling each other 'Gay' or 'buffalo-head', even though they were huge well built, intimidating black men, it was all very funny and welcoming.
That night after a good all-you-can eat buffet was the big show night, where we were treated to traditional polynesian dances where the dancing girls had beaming smiles through-out, which just looked so good and then knife dancing, with large sharpe mashetti (?) knifes and then the much anticipated fire dancing. A pole with a flame on either end was spun around, thrown and twisted in front of us, and looked amazing!
How to spend time in paradise... Each morning we were woken by the sound of drumming, which also signalled that breakfast had been served. Breakfast consisted of cereal, toast/pancakes and tea/coffee, all of which was very nice.
In the morning I usually lay in the HOT sun (30 degrees or so), trying to regain the tan I lost in Melbourne/NZ. Once the tide had come in I went for a swim to cool down in the warm pacific ocean. When the tide
Big Joe and me
Spot the difference, we're like brothers! ...He was such a cool guy.was out there were Stingrays in the sea weed so it was best to avoid it and avoid a Steve Urwin incident!
One day Matt and I walked all the way around the island taking us nearly 15 minutes (I know... it's huge!) finding on the way around, that part of the island was not all beach, so we cut through the bush walking in my ever toughened bare feet. On the windy side of Island there were a whole load of Terns (sea birds) which as we approached all floated into the air in synchronisation and against the white sand and blue sea/sky looked awesome. In the shallows of the shore we also saw a Sea Snake; a black and white striped snake that can apparently kill you in 15 seconds if your bitten, so we stayed well away from that.
One morning I went snorkling out to sea and saw little 'Nemo' fish (clown fish) protecting it's young by swimming out of it's anenome to my face as if to say "get lost you!!" The rest fo the snorkling was also very good and once again I enjoyed the beautiful colours of hundreds of fish, as I remember
Absolutely incredible sunsets
usually enjoyed by a fire with a Fiji baby (beer)! so clearly doing in my beloved Australia.
I tried to get Stan to learn 'Love Generation' the Bob Sinclair song, I even wrote out the words for him as it definately one of the songs of the whole trip, sadly he only learned the guitar chords after listening to it from my iPod. He was working in Fiji-time, i.e. 1 hour is 6 hours!
One day I was sat in a hammock reading my book, when Ziggy the leader and most primative of the islanders who was fascinated by my book mark; a picture of the Queen, I bought in London. Fiji is owned by her but he'd only ever really seen her picture on their money. I found out he was born the jungle and had lived there 10 years in a 'jungle ghetto' he called it. His actions resembled a Gorilla so much of the time, it was really cool to see him in action cliimbing palm tree for coconuts of using the huge knifes so easily to open and husk coconuts. Ziggy was in our eyes a legend! Awesome guy, as they all were!
The island gave us free use of Kayaks which was cool rowing
The Kava bowl
...mmmm muddy water! out to sea and looking back at the tiny paradise island.
At 1pm the drum would pound signalling lunch, which was also very nice; patties, fish cakes or sandwiches, salad, potatoes and bread, yum!
Activities were pplanned all day by the islanders and they'd try their best to get you involved, one of which was snorkling out at the reef, a 10 min boat trip out to sea. It was again very impressive.
Volleyball was also something I played most days and was a lot of fun, often using my height at the net to my teams advantage.
Every other day 5 boats would arrive and people invaded our island for the day. These were people from the 5 Star resorts on the mainland, known as the 'ole bastards' to Ziggy, Joe and the guys, haha! With that though the lunch was more amazing with under-ground cooked chicken and fish, again, yum!
We went fishing one day with a large net and sticks with which to round the fish into the net by slapping the surface of the sea. We caught lots of little Dart fish.
We were lead into the jungle one day to hunt for coconuts
Sing-a-long!
Front: Lex, Right: Ziggy, Left: Stan with which we then learnt to husk and then saw into braclets or Kava bowls after a lot of sanding. Whilst we were doing this Ziggy was cooking the Dart fish we had caught earlier on a coal BBQ on the floor. We ate the fish marinated in onions, garlic and chilli on a huge leaf plicked from a nearby tree and used as a plate.
At night we either sat and watched the fire dancing or Joe would get us all playing Fiji games, normally running around a stick or some other silly games like 'shark attack'. After the islander's had done their bit we played drinking games with the other backpackers, all of which was really good fun and made some good friends in the time I was there. It's always a lot of fun playing silly drinking games with foreign people, we had a good crowd of Swedish, Irish, Dutch, American and German people and a lot of laughs were had by all!
We'd bought a few bottles of Appleton Estate rum at Duty free for very cheap so one night Matt and I poured it into a coconut and sipped it all night through straws
hiding it from the security who hunted down people drinking their own alcohol, haha, he never found out! True way to drink Jamaican rum, straight from a coconut, very cool!
One night before sunset we we're invited for no extra charge on a booze cruise with Ziggy, Stan and Lex (Lex was also a cool guy, I chatted to on numerous occassions, he had a thing for slapping my back everytime he saw me, thanks!). We went out on a little motorboat for the sunset booze cruise, it was beautiful seeing the island from sea at sunset and they had an eski (cool box I think we call em at home) fulll of beer which we could put on our tab. Stan played some tunes and we all sang along and watched the sunset after a quick swim in the sea to cool off. Another reason for such good times at RCI!
At midnight we were lead down to the 'midnight bonfire' down the beach where Stan the Man would play his guitar and sing his little heart out under the clear starry skies, I'm sure you can imagine how terrible this must have been; under the stars with
a beer, a huge bonfire and a big group of friends, not quite 'The Office' and a brew as we did in the NZ days!!!
One night whilst we were walking along the beach in the near pitch black only lit by a lantern, Eric and American guy had to take a lengthened step in order to step over a Sea Snake that was slithering along the shoreline on the beach, eek! Later the same night another Sea Snake came to join us at the fire attracted by the heat, much to the fright of the group and the screams from the girls. Luckily Stan the Man had no fear and simply grabbed it's tail quickly flinging it out to sea.
With the package I was entitled to a free 15min massage, which I gladly took on my last day at sunset.
The sunsets were absolutely stunning every night. I filmed one in time-lapse that was just perfect, there wasn't a cloud in the sky and as the bright red sun was halved by the ocean, the sky and everything I could see in front of me was incredible/unbelieveable!!
RCI was absolutely brilliant and I really fell
in love with everything about the place. Byron has always been my favourite place but now RCI is right up there with it... and that's a big call!!
Waking in the morning to the beautiful screams of laughter by the Fijian women and the shouting of Ziggy, Joe, Lex and the guys beckoning each other from one side of the island to the other was all wonderful.
At first the islander's being huge, ripped black guys were slightly threatening, but by the end of our five days there they were like family and I was soon shouting at them and calling them 'big buffalo heads' and 'mr. faggotty', just as they did to me and each other.
They welcomed us with open arms and were such fantastic and fascinating people I really felt by the end of my time there I was part of the family. I was often called upon to be local cheif with my friendship with Stan and Joe and was often given the big bowl, full, of Kava during each daily ceremony, the same as the one they drank from, rather than the small one the new arriavls drank from as I did one my first
FIRE DANCING
This was one of the girls; spinning great balls of fire! night. I was often given extra bowls too.
I felt so relaxed and happy all the time and loved every second of my time there.
THANKS TO EVERYONE AT ROBINSON CRUSOE FOR SUCH AN AWESOME TIME!!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.381s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 17; qc: 78; dbt: 0.3095s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Suzie
non-member comment
Hi there, I just wanted to let you know that i think your travelblog is absolutely amazing! I came across it a few times when i was searching for blogs on various countries, as i'm setting off on my world tour next January and will be taking a similar route to you (Also will be leaving sunny Manchester behind!).... anyway, after reading a couple of your entries I've ended up reading the whole lot and have found it sooo interesting, i just had to let you know! Hope you enjoy the rest of your trip and I'll look forward to your next addition!! Suzie :)