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Published: July 11th 2006
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I left LA on the 18th May and arrived at the airport in Fiji at about 3am on May 20th having not existed on May 19th!! I was greeted by to Fijian men playing the banjo and singing very happily, a little too happily for that hour of the day if I'm honest! I then made my way to the Fiji Experience desk where I was given a shell necklace to wear. I met a couple from England who were also going to be on my bus, in only 5 hours time! A taxi took us to the hostel but seeing as I only had a few hours to sleep before the bus picked us up in the morning, the receptionist told me to crash on the sofa in reception. Free night-result!
In the morning the bus picked us up...a full size coach which was actually full to my surprise. I sat close to the couple I'd met at the airport but soon got chatting to the lads behind and I wasn't sitting alone for long. One guy got on and hunted me out, as I was the only other solo traveller on the tour! So, Day 1. We first
stopped in town to buy sarongs for our visit to the local village. When we got to the village I was quite shocked at what I saw. Everyone lived in tin houses, well, if you can call them houses I guess. The majority of the houses didn't have a front to them! The children had nothing but a football to play with but they were so happy. We played some rugby with the children and had a walk around. After that we drove to a sand dune in the middle of nowhere to experience sandboarding. After watching one girl go flying down with her mouth open screaming, and consequently ending up getting a mouthfull of sand, I decided to dig my feet in and take it slow! It was pretty good fun though. The hostel we stayed at this night was on the coral coast and it was very beautiful. The only downfall was the number of mosquitos! I got bitten to pieces. In the morning I went to have a shower and fouind about 30 mozzies in each cubicle! I decided to head to the posh toilets by the restuarant and washed my hair over the sink!
Day
2 started with a 3 hour rainforest trek in the tropical rain! It was such a different experience. We were told at some point we'd have to walk through a river, I thought naturally that meant we'd be crossing a river to get to the other side. How wrong was I?! We literally had to wade through a river, at points up to our knees, for about half and hour or more! I was dreading what was beneath me, snakes? Eels? Ahh. The trek ended at a clearing by a river. From there we all got into river tubes and floated through the rapids down the river. We were picked up by long boats and taken to a waterfall where we proceeded to jump off rocks into it! That was fun, I was too scared, or maybe just too sensible to climb the wall of the fall and jump off! We then got picked up by the long boats and had a huge 40 minute ride back down the river, having water fights between the 2 boats on the way. Fun you may think? Well, at first, maybe, but when you're in a bikini top in cloud filled skys, wind
blowing in your face from the speed of the boat and wet from the swim...I think maybe you'd feel my pain! This night I completely lucked out with my accommodation. A few of us got put into our own appartment in a cute little lodge whilst everyone else had a huge dorm. The lads I shared the appartment with were actually to become really good friends of mine.
Day 3 was a very cultural experience. We were to be visiting the orphanage. First stop was the town so that we could stock up on pressies for the children. When we got to the orphanage we saw a 9month old girl, so beautiful, she'd been abandoned by her family when she was 3 weeks old. The conditions of the orphanage were not too bad, very cramped and basic but not like the horrif images we see from places such as Romania. The children greeted us with a song which was quite emotional. You could see how loved the children were. Later that day the cultural broadening of my mind continued...the dreaded Kava ceremony! For those of you who aren't clued up on Fijian culture, Kava is the drink fijians drink
in village welcoming ceremonies and also just socially. It's basically muddy water made with a root. We were told to nominate a "chief" in our group to lead our ceremony. Luckily it wasn't me, but I soon got passed the cocnut cup full of the muddy water...the muddy water that had been drained through the hands of the fijian lady's hands-YUK! Did it once, got that over with, then guess what...round 2! :O( Next...Bilibili rafting! Rafting on bamboo! Quite fun although we were completely overloaded and sank slightly! Our place of rest this evening was to be VoliVoli beach. Such a nice location, I decided I'd stay there for a good few days. We had our own private beach, which was a peninsular, free kayaks and a good bar. I took a Kayak out as the sun was setting, it was so nice. Then we sat on the beach whilst Matt from our group played Jack Johnson on his guitar.
After a few days at VoliVoli we rejoined the bus and headed to the Mud pools for some serious mudfights and cleansing!!! This was one of the weirdest experiences of my life! I thought I'd be getting into a
solid pool containing liquid mud. Oh no! I stepped into this pool of brown water to find my feet didnt actually reach anything solid at all, just knee deep hot gooey mud! You actually had to reach down and pick the mud up from the floor. The lads found it amusing to throw it at us, rub it in our hair etc. We then stepped into the natural hot pools which when you're as sunburnt as I was...not very pleasant! Aweosme day all in all though.
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