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Published: April 27th 2018
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After a busy and wettish end to our time in New Zealand we were looking forward to some sun on the beaches of Fiji. So when we landed in Nadi to be greeted with overcast conditions, rain hammering the tarmac and news of an imminent cyclone approaching we weren’t particularly hopeful! We visited duty free to get some essential supplies for the week - Fijian rum, vodka and two bottles of wine.
Our first night in Fiji was spent in a 32 bed dorm room at a place called Smugglers Cove which wouldn’t have been as bad as it sounds had the group of Indian men staying there weren't using it as a meeting room at all hours of the night. The next morning we headed to port where we would take the ferry to the Yasawa Islands and make our way to the first of four resorts we would be staying at over the next six days. The journey would take four hours and I wasn’t feeling too confident my sea legs were going to behave considering the conditions, so I put in my headphones and zoned out whilst Julia spoke with a couple from Germany, Juergen and Gabi,
that were heading to the same resort as us. We had seen them at Auckland airport the day before and ended up chatting to them a lot over the next few days. They were a lovely couple and Juergen even gave me his business card and told me to get in touch with him if we were to ever move to Germany and I was looking for work!
The Blue Lagoon Resort was really nice and we were staying in an 8 bed dorm where I was the only male - a theme that would be continued throughout Fiji. We got chatting with a couple of German girls, Anna and Maja, and a Swiss girl Olivia who we spent the next few days with. Even though the weather wasn’t great we were very much enjoying having all our food cooked for us, not having to move too much, reading our books and watching the wind and rain. We ended up having to stay an extra night due to Cyclone Josie and the ferries being cancelled but from that point the weather improved for the rest of the week. Staying the extra night also meant we got to have tuna
steaks for dinner so it wasn’t too bad at all really!
The next place we stayed at was Manta Ray Island and I think of all the resorts we stayed at this was our least favourite. When we arrived it felt like we were being lectured with rules rather than welcomed and the staff didn’t seem as friendly as they had been at the last place. We did speak to people later on who said it was their favourite place so I think it might just go to show how much we enjoyed Blue Lagoon if anything. We managed to do a bit of snorkelling but the current was so strong that you’d start off at one end of the beach and get swept down to the end in no time at all so you couldn’t really enjoy it or take your time to look at what was there.
By the time we reached our next stop Barefoot Kuata the cyclone had completely passed and the sun was shining. We ended up staying in a 8 bed dorm which was a big canvas tent on the beach but had it to ourselves and we spent the afternoon there
sat on the porch drinking the wine that we’d bought at the airport. The next day was spent lounging around in hammocks and by the pool. We did go for a walk up to ‘The Summit’ and were given a fright by a local goat hunter with a big machete jumping out and shouting “BULA” at us! A word that means ‘life’ but is used to greet people like ‘hello’. We spent our last night on South Sea Island which was by far the smallest island we stayed on and you could walk around it in 10 minutes. There must have only been about 30 people staying there that night and they lit a bonfire on the beach and told us about the history of Fiji, including how the men would traditionally find their future brides. The story goes that the men would stand on one side of an area, that I’d imagine to be the size of a bowling green, and then roll out an orange to the opposite side where the women were lined up. The woman who picked up your orange would then be your bride, so much simpler than wining and dining or the world of
online dating! The bonfire was a great way to end our time on the islands, but we ended up leaving early the next day as the place was swamped with day trippers from the mainland and it lost a bit of its charm which was a shame.
When we booked all of our flights, in what seems a lifetime ago, Fiji hadn’t been a destination that either or us had thought of but it was apparently cheaper to get back to South America from New Zealand via Fiji and LA. We booked our Coconut Cruiser package through the same travel agent - STA Travel - and we didn’t really have much of an idea of what we had paid for or what was included in the package. I think if we were to go again we would only pick a couple of resorts and spend more time at each rather than moving resorts daily as we did the last few days of the week. It was a great week though and I really enjoyed how friendly and welcoming all of the resort staff were and I’m grateful that we had the opportunity to spend some time there.
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