Fiji Day2 + Jan 7ish

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So I woke up in the middle of the night to my eye burring terribly. I had slept on the plane with my contacts in and fallen asleep the night before with them in. My eye continued to puss through out the night and was red in the morning. i then started to fear pink eye. But we were headed out to surf so i had to put the contacts back in and sucked it up.
The boat left to go to the reefs to surf at 7:30 which is late in the surfing dawn patrol life but whatever. So we head out to the first spot willks pass. And the wind isnt right and looks really tiny so we went onward to desperations. Which didnt look much better but seeing as we all were desperate we decided to hop in and surf desperations fitting huh. The water was very warm and super clear like the south shore hawaii. It felt like you were surfing on air. You could clearly see the reef below. I should have brought my spearing stuff out. But i thought id surf all day today and tomorrow when we went out id bring it then. The surf wasnt great some waist to head high fun nothing amazing though. but i was pretty stoked to be there. There was about 11 of us out there and we stayed out for about 3 hours. It was very hot the sun was scorching me but i didnt want to get out because theres nothing to do back at the resort so i was the last one out. We eventually hopped back on the boat and went back to the resort. Where i popped out my contacts and just rested my eye the rest of the day. I found this eye wash at the tiny store in the resort so i used that a bunch. It was slowly getting better. That night i hung out with Zak and Larry and we watch some surf flicks.
The next morning i woke early again eager to Surf and Spearfish. However the wind came up a bit and it looked somewhat stormy out there so we didnt go out. Which i was mildly ok with because i got so burnt the day before and i could go to town today to get some eye drops and check out nandi. I got to check out the Sri Siva Subramaniya temple, an Indian temple. It was beautiful the ceiling was currently being painted and he was doing a very good job. When i walked in i was greeted by this friendly man. He told me i had to pay 3 bucks to walk around and check it out. so i went and paid and then the guy walked me around telling me a little about hinduism and the temple. He also claimed that we had met before he kept saying dont you remember me. me "No" he said " we meet years ago maybe 30" me "well im only 25" He " we must have meet on a different planet or when you where on you way here. " he continued to claim that you can talk to people on other plants and when they are on their way here and that you can get those people to help you out possible do something for you or something when they arrive. Id say he was either on something or incredibly religious. Nice guy just out there. So from there i went to the famous Tata's for some more curry lunch. I ordered something of course i had no idea what it was haha but it wasnt bad. After lunch i started to walk through town. I found a pharmacy got some eye drops and zinc. Then found the famous hot bread kitchen to get some you guessed it bread but it wasnt as good as i thought maybe i just got the wrong thing. After than i went to the Fiji surf shop and picked up a pretty sweet shirt. Then hopped on the bus to head back to the resort.The bus was supposed to leave by 2:30 but we didnt leave till after 3. On a over full bus and apparently your not allowed to stand so i gave my seat away a few times to women and i sat on the floor. but as we passed the security check we got stopped for about 20 mins i think because a few of us didnt have seats we had to squeeze cheeks to look like we were sitting. it was ridiculous. Finally made it back to the resort where i realxed for a bit then went out for a run and one of the workers john joined me. We really only ran 1/4 of what we did. But he told me some really good stories and showed me a neat back road to the resort. He was an adopted fijian from Salmon island i think. He played Rugby and told me of a story where he had tackled this massive guy who swallowed his mouth guard when he did. Then later that night at the night club that guy stabbed john in the back. They arrested the guy and John got rushed to the hospital. Hes lucky to be alive and walking it was really close to his spine. Jonh said that he escaped from the hospital by way of bed sheets because he loves food and hated the hospital food. haha. Then he told me stories about him being a soldier for Fiji arm apparently i was the first person he ever told about that. I felt honored i tend to have that affect on people like telling me things. He then told me about Fijis history and basically slavery with the Indians from India. When we got back i did a little work out push ups and pull ups and some other exercises. Had dinner and went to bed.
Jan 8th
I woke up to go for a run with John but he didnt show and it was better off because it started pooring really hard. It rained all day. I read some of my travel books and meet 2 hawaiian couples and then went swimming in the pool in the rain with Zak and the 2 German girls Jasmin and Carolin. Then went back to Zaks to play some cards. Uneventful day.
Jan 9th
I was going to head to town with Zak, Larry, and the Geramans just to walk around and do something. But the Hawaiian couples said they were headed to this beach break at Masa with the massive sand dunes. so i decided to hop in the car with them and head over. It was really cool we climbed up this massive dune like Endless summer. Not knowing what the surf was going to be. We got to the top and it really didnt look that good. small peaks with weak shoulders. and the river mouth was about 1K away so there was lots of debris in the water. I ran over a log at some point. The water was really cool because it tasted like fresh water rather than salt water because of the river. It was pretty fun i got some nice workable waves. It was a hard paddle in because it was mushy but it walled up a bit on the inside so you could get some turns in and i snuck into a closeout barell. It was a fun lil session and the sky had some blue spots in it so i had hope for the next few days at least. The weather report had looked grim but i was hoping that it might change. When we got back i had heard that the others never made it to nadi because the roads were flooded from the storm i had convinced the LA boys to move camp with me to the Sand dunes in so we could at least surf the beach break rather than sit in the isolated resort.
Jan10
Woke up early eager to get to the beach to surf and set up for a few days but it had rained really hard the night before and the weather out look was really grim there was a cyclone that was supposed to hit Fiji where the last one had just passed by. I still wanted to go to the beach but was getting worried that i wouldnt make it out. the roads were already flooded and would only get worse next week. So i opted to stay and try and get the taxi to the airport. We waited around all day hoping for an opportunity at low tide or make it through but no such luck we sat around playing games all day.
Jan 11th
Got up super early to check the status everyone had different ideas about what was going on very nice people but word of mouth was not reliable information. We finally decided to get the taxi to nandi to wait there for low tide to see if we could make a pass at some point. That was an amazing drive as we got closer the low lying lands around were more and more underwater it was really terrible a disaster zone, really sad. We got to the base of nadi but the police were there not allowing anyone to pass yet maybe in the next few hrs as the tide went out. we walked down the road to the flood it was amazing and devastating. Really sad you could see locals were walking through the water. Apparently there had be 8ft of water in town completely underwater. Im sure all of the shops and homes were destroyed. Really sad. There were 2 roads to the airport the main one the closed completely not allowing anyone to pass. The other was a back road that locals were walking through some were playing in the flood floating down like a lazy river it was an experience. Zak and i walked along the old sugar train track to see if we could possibly walk to the other side of the flood. It seemed doable but a 10 K hike or so in flood waters wouldnt have been very fun . Zak at least had a flight that night i wasnt even sure if i could get a flight out. We had met Martin a New Zealander that move to Fiji and worked at some resort. He had to drive through the flood to pick up some clients to take them to a wedding. So was asked if we could hop in with him he said ok so we got the others the 2 germans and the japanese guy. The trucks that were attempting to go through started taking out their air filters and flipping their air intake upside down some cut soda bottles tops and bottoms off to make snorkels.
We all started out after this massive truck. It was really pretty deep water was pooring through the doors and the wake from the truck was pushing over our truck i honestly thought we were going to get stuck. Meanwhile Martin had got a call from his clients and was talking on the phone as we drove through. some how they made it half way way so martin pulled over on a dray part and told us we had to get out. So i immediately ran to the other tucks to see if we could squeeze on one said ok but didnt have much space and werent keen on squishing in and then speed off to follow the lead car. We then asked another one and they said sure so we all pilled in the back the 5 of us and 2 others in this tiny pick up with tons of luggage and 2 surfboard bags sideways across the top. Just held on by myself and one of the other guys. We began to plow through the second part of the flood. Seeing people taking all of their possessions out of their house throwing them on top of cars and into trees to dry. Even during this time of disaster and ruins the people still seemed happy as they smiled, waved and said Bulla ( literally means life but now accepted as hello). Kids were playing in the waters like it was an amusement park. It was a truly amazing sight. We made it through part 2 of the flood and were cruising now on dry roads for a bit. But in the distance we could see another flooded road looked deeper than what we had just gone through. We started to panic thinking we were going to get stranded in between these too floods. But a local said there was a way around and hopped in the back of one of the trucks and we turned around and started through the Fijian country side. Basically 4wheeling/mudding through these back dirt track in the middle of no where Fiji. Things were pretty sketchy some one made the comment that he was leading us to the villages that have or use to have cannibalism. haha good one. So we preceded down these dirt tracks for what seemed like an hour remembering there are 7 people plus baggage in the back of a 4ft truck bed myself and the other Fijian standing up holding on for dear life as well as holding on to the surfboards. We all thought for sure we would pop out north of or very near to the airport, after all the driving we did. But we actually just came out on the other side of the flood. Literally about 150 meters from where we were before on the other side of the flooded road, Crazy. So we finally make it to the airport tip and thank the people and the driver then head inside to the mayhem of the Nandi Airport.
To spare boredom I spent hours in many different lines trying to get a flight out. One line says yes the other no. It was an emotional roller-coaster. As night came Zak was able to get on his flight, the German girls had called their father and he had got them a flight out the next am and it was looking grim for me. Midnight came i asked again if they could get me out, finally they agreed to let me get on stand by. So 4am wake up to get in to line only to get in the wrong lines and waste time and potential spots but finally got on the stand by list and sweated the hour and half to boarding time to see if i got a seat, which thankfully I did, out of disaster zone into my favourite country NZ.

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