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Published: February 18th 2007
Chilling With The Locals
Escaping the sun for a few moments with the freshly groomed locals, whilst the poor women cook their lunch.Finally arrived in 'paradise', culturally alot different to all previous places on this trip, so far. The air is so humid, and the landscape much more picturesque, even when it has been cloudy and raining. We have arrived in the middle of the rainy season, shortly after a major drought that the country has been experiencing (this is the most rain that they have experienced in years and years, must have bought it will us from the 'mother land'). Dispite the fact that it has been terentually raining for the first few days, there have still been intermitant periods of sunshine and I have still been tanning through the clouds. When the sun is out, it is incredibly hot, and when it rains, it rains harder than you could imagine. This has not stopped us from doing activities and enjoying ourselves though, not by a long shot. For the last four days we have had the most amazing weather, clear skies and radiant sunshine, had to apply sun screen really frequently and take long bathes in the sea to cool down.
We are staying in Smugglers Cove Hostel, where the bar leads out to where the swimming pool is, backing
Fijian Sunset
The view from the back of Smugglers Cove Hostel, on Nadi Beach. Lovely! straight onto the beach. It is pirate themed, with loads of amazing decor, and a pirate dorm, and we managed to bag ourselves a beach view room for the first few nights. After a few days of chilling out, and visiting the town (on a 65 cent bus with open gaps where the windows would normally be), where the sales assistants follow you round the shop like a lost puppy, we booked a 3 day 'Pirate Package' to Robinson Crusoe Island, had to keep with the pirate theme of course. After passing through our first military check point (the only sign there is of a military coup occuring), we travelled across to the island through a murky river lined with mangrove trees, on a small motorised boat with two Irish girls, Cira and Chloudy, with whom we hung around with for the next few days. We were greated by several islanders playing guitar and singing to us! It was fabulous! The sun was shinning at this point to. We checked into our little bech front bure levu (thatched hut), then joined the activities, which just so happened to be a canoe based mud fight, in the mangroves we had passed
Fijian Fire
Fire dancing the Fijian way. through earlier. It was so much fun, was covered head to toe with mud at the end of it, which the cold water bucket shower could not completely remove. Still finding traces of mud in my ears for a few days after!! Dirty!!
The R C Island was so much fun, we had a chance to actually get to know some other travellers, which was great, aswell as the friendly and fun Fijians that work there. Amongst many activities, we had the chance to play team games, volleyball (in the rain, which is incredibly amusing), learnt how to husk a coconut on a sharpe stick, learnt how to fish drive, in the traditional manner, canoe, swim in the swimming pool, crab hunt and make things out of coconut shells. We even got to partake in a Cava ceremony, the traditional drink of Fiji, which welcomes you to their village as an islander, rather than a visitor. It tastes really weird, but makes your mouth all tingely. The guys and girls there also performed traditional Fijian and Polenisian dances, a knife dance, and then fire dances with staffs. It was impressive, especially considering that they made them themselves with sticks
Mountain Hiking View
The hike up Waya Island was definately worth doing, seeing views like this. and potato sacks tied round the end, haven't even heard of kevlar. They stood on each others legs to make a pyramid aswell, very impressive. I later showed them the fire poi, which they thought was brilliant, excellent.
Going back to the rain, one of the main rivers running through Nadi burst it's banks whilst we were on the Island, flooding the lower part of town. We were clearly not affected by it, but some of the islanders due to leave the day before us, were stuck on the island an extra night, as the road leading to the jetti was flooded. It caused $50,000 worth of damage, but they managed to clear it up really well by the time we passed through it again.
Just done some research on on mosquitos, and they apparently prefer the blood of males, the overweight and type O blood. Some one needs to tell them that, 'cos I had over 154 when we left the island, and still finding more and more, and I dont fall into any of the above categories the last time I checked anyway. Got some hard core Fiji repellant now though, not sure whether it made
Parasailing Round Beachcomber
Yep, this is really me (unless I've got the picture mixed up, and then it would be Adam!!)!! much of a difference, or whether there were less on the later islands that we visited!
On Valentines day we watched an amazing sunset on the beach, and then had a candle lit dinner in McDonalds, yes, you did read that correctly! This is appearently the first year that Valentines day has been really commercial in Fiji, and they are going wild for it. Figured we had to check it out, as the semtiment seemed quite amusing. It was really busy in there aswell! Crazy Fijians!!
The second island that we visited was called Waya, taking 2 1/4 hours to get to on the boat (on which we watched the flying fish trying to get out of the way). The resort was called Sunset, aptly named, as there is a perfect view of the sunset, and the sun rise in the morning. The beach is so beautiful, white sand and crystal clear waters, so inviting, we just had to spend a whole day relaxing and mostly swimming, snorkelling above the coral reef (saw some illuminous blue starfish). When the tide is out you can walk to the neighbouring island across a sandy bridge. The geographical design of this island is much different to others, in the sense that there are rocky hills and forest, with a few villages of Fijians who are self sufficient on the island. We had a guided walk, almost to the sumit, the views were amazing. It was hard work, especially in flip flops (we were told that we wouldn't need trainers), and the high temperature, so the dip in the fresh water waterfall was very welcoming on the way back down. We ate fresh guava from the trees, and saw pineapple and banana trees growing, on the way back down. We chilled with the natives for a short whille, they were going crazy for the cameras, kept asking us to take pictures of them. The guys were giving each other haircuts (really short dos) with a pair of scissors and a razor blade, crazy, whlist the farm animals were roaming around the beach. Adam managed to get stung by a bluebottle jelly fish as we were climbing back into the boat to go back round the bay, he dealt with it really well, as it stung quite badly, but it was alright after he showered it with a special ingredient! Brave. He's all okay now though, and it wasn't a dangerous or poisonous, luckily. The only venimous creature in Fiji is the sea snake, but it cannnot open it's jaw wide enough to bite a human, so we are safe!
Beachcomber Island, one of the South Sea Islands, is the party island, where we have spent the last night out and about. Once again, majorly differing from everywhere else we have been. The island is small, but the structure of the utilities is very organised. There is a two floored bar, with balcony (still made in the traditional woven and wood manner), stage and live band, a huge kitchen (for the buffet dinner, with the most amazing food ever), and a dorm with over 103 beds (I was bunk 103, not sure how many more there were). We partied in the evening, as we arrived late afternoon. Made friends with one of the band members, so had songs dedicated to the pair of us!! The DJ music was cheesy, but a circle formed on the dancefloor, everyone taking it in turns to dance in the center. It was such a laugh! It turns out that one of the couples that we were hanging around with this evening, and who we had previously met on Robinson Crusoe, are from Fareham and know Hillsy!! Small world. The next morning we Parasailed around the island. It was amazing. Flying and floating. The view was incredible, I could see many of the other islands, and could even see where the reefs were in the sea. They slowed the boat down so that my feet dipped in the sea, I was worried to begin with, as didn't know what they were doing, but it was great! It didn't go on for long enough though. It made me yearn for a stronger adrenaline rush though, it was too calm!! The snorkelling was also great, small, harmless sharks had been spotted the previous day, but it was the squids, tropically coloured fish and jelly fish that had come out to play.
I feel slightly frazzled by the sun at the moment, or is it the latest wave of bites, I'm not sure. Fiji is an incredible and amazing place. Certainly understand why they all belive in 'Fiji Time', with the non stop heat, why bother stressing and rushing things, they just take their time and chill, that is 'Fiji Time'. I could get used to this way of life, it's great, and beautiful.
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Sarah Caldwell
non-member comment
This place looks beautiful, you are sooo lucky! :) I love the picture of you on the beach!