Fiji

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Bula, still here, never want to leave. Today we had a driver who took us to some sand dunes and promptly told us to climb them to get the view. They looked mighty high and here I go again, I was scared !!! So of course we climb them, (because I haven't been scared for a couple of weeks now !! ) I just followed in Stu's footprints, it was quite a job getting to the top and it was hot. Anyhow got to the top of that one and Stu said we'll climb the next one. Really ! Sure this is not enough ! nope, let's climb the next one while we're here and we did get fantastic views, no denying that, we saw the ocean and mountains and it was quite spectacular. Now for the getting down, looking down was really scarey (why am I such a scardey cat !) but managed it. Good ticked that one off my list !! Pila our driver then took us to a Tavuni Hill Fort, we had to travel on a bumpy dirt track where we were met by a fijian lady called Alita, she walked us way up, hot and humid to the top where the Fort was except there was no Fort just the site. Ok, got the picture, Alita said the British came and destroyed everything, all I could think of was saying 'sorry', she laughed and said 'no worries', it turned out ok in the end because the British took control and stopped the nonsence between the tribes. (Good, felt better then !!) She showed us different plants and fruits and we found that really interesting, we tried a fruit which was sweet and sour, haven't got a clue what it was called. She showed us wild chilli's growing, curry leaves, lemon leaves, figs and oranges just in this forest alone. When we got to the top, again fantastic view of the Sigatoka River which was brown in colour because it had been raining in the mountains, usually it was blue. We saw some ladies in there who were diving for mussels, they then sell them. We saw what they call 'the salad bowl', this is where they grow, yep you've got it all their salad stuff, but we're talking on a huge basis here. From there Pila took us to Lawai village where they gave us a ceremony of Kava. Thought oh no, here we go again, gotta drink that awful stuff. So we did the ritual, clapping, saying Bula, drank it, mouth went numb again, help, then the ladies got up and danced for us ( it was only me and Stu in the hut)! Then to top it all, they got me and Stu up dancing, not you're Top Rank stuff but wiggling our hips !! It really wasnt a pretty sight, I saw Stu's face which had this distorted smile on it, could see it definitely wasn't his thing ! We then had to do the train dance, you know where you hold onto hips and dance around. It just seemed like it would never end. When it did, we politely thanked them and said we had a lovely time and off we went. Mmmmmmm what can we say. The people really are just so nice, you would never want to offend them. We then headed off into the little town called Sigatoka to look around. Had a lovely day again in Fiji.

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