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Published: November 12th 2006
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Mango Bay
Pissing with rain in the morning! We awoke to find the heavens has opened. Though I'm here in Fiji's Summer it's also their wet season as that's the time it's most humid. Gareth had snuck in at some point during the night having finished his kava sesssion and was in no mood to catch any breakfast. The rest of us slowly got up, it was about seven in the morning, and got showered and dressed and made our way for breakfast cursing the weather and bemoaning the fact we had a three hour trek through the rainforest today in it.
We made our way down to the river, stopping to buy lunch and stock up on water, and got out of the bus to transfer to and old army truck. We'd eventually make our way back to bus via a big loop but we needed to take the sturdy truck up to the hills. We'd been joined that morning by Andy, a guitar playing Jesus lookalike, Mark and Emma, a couple whose boundries concerning public affection are a little blurred, and Kate and Jenny, a couple of just graduated law students from Nottingham Trent who apparently complained about EVERYTHING although I never heard them. The truck
Rainforest Trek
The army truck they drove us to the trail in. Military coups, army trucks in the jungle, there were a few nervous laughs around. ride was scary to say the least, and the whole air of military coups that seems to hang over Fiji at the moment just added to the whole feeling that perhaps all was not well as we got further and further off any kind of beaten track. We eventually reached the Matakibau Trail, only cut two years previously, and just as the truck left us the heavens opened once more to completely drench everyone through to the bone. At that point I was rueing not bringing my waterproof jacket as some people had but by the end of the trek I was SO glad I hadn't, and I was praying for the rain to start up again whenever it stopped; I have no idea how people do that in the blistering heat. Te and the other guide did the trek barefoot, that's NO SHOES ON A TREK THROUGH A RAINFOREST! Crazy. Te zoomed off ahead and the group was soon strung out through the trek out of sight of those in front or behind. I, being the coward I am, pushed on and stayed with Te so as not to get lost and after a while Andy and Gareth caught
Rainforest Trek ii
The river we tubed down. up. About forty-five minutes of the trek were spent up our knees or higher in a creek whose level had been raised by the rain. There were "amusing" signs like DANGER: Freshwater Crocodiles through there and a few places where the trail seemed to disappear and where I was sure those behind us would get lost. Eventually we emerged from the jungle and made our way down steep slope to a stunning river below. We'd done the trek in about two hours and so it was likely we'd have a long wait whilst the back lot caught up - it was eventually about an hour as people came through in dribs and drabs and no-one was lost which I couldn't believe - with various tales of broken sandals, repeated falls. and sinking in the creek. We stopped for lunch and then tubed down the river - in real inner tubes, not just rubber rings, they had a massive metal valve on them - to the wateralls where we stopped once more. One of the waterfalls dropped into a pool at the top which then ran into a smaller pool before tumbling over a twenty foot drop into the river. A
Raintree Lodge
The place Brussels bureaucrats come for their holidays. few people we jumping and diving into the top pool including myself, and we managed to convince Pauline, who had only learnt to swim two years before to jump in too which was completely unbelievable and since there were some standing around who didn't so it really was an achievement to jump into a swirling waterfall pool if you're not an at all confident swimmer. Some of the lads then jumped off the big waterfall, again myself included which I'm still a little surprised about. I think it was because I didn't look over the edge before jumping, as I don't think I would have jumped had I done so. Sarah even went in which totally put Kev to shame as he stood there contemplating it for some time before eventually deciding not to. After we were all done with jumping we rode the longboats back down the river to where we first parked up. It took a hell of a long time, but was good fun crammed into this tiny wooden boat just a few inches off the water; the driver banked too hard a couple of times and let in some water, by about halfway down the river I could see him desperately trying to bail out the water at the back, not something that filled me with confidence.
All changed and dried we piled back into the bus to make our way into Suva. Most people, myself included slept most of the way thanks to the knackering trek so I didn't see much until we were right in the centre. It's nothing like the rest of Fiji, which is quite third world, because this is where all the money is, it's known as the capital of the south pacific, so the buildings all look a little shinier, the embassies, Presidential and Prime Ministerial residences and endless big churches give the feel of a more modern place - at the beachfront it felt just like being in Waikiki. We got back to Raintree Lodge, and checked in. It was here that I learnt the truly insane nature of Fijian bureacracy which is completely off the scale to anything we have in England. Trying to do washing was a nightmare filled with tokens, receipts and machines that didn't work but the absolute pinnacle was at dinner. First, I paid for the buffet at the bar and went over to grab a plate where the guy asked me if I could have the voucher. I had been given no voucher but the guy at the buffet insisted, despite the fact he was standing about 10 feet from the bar and ahd watched me order and pay for the buffet mere seconds beforehand. So I duly went back to the bar, all in the full view of the guy at the buffet, and asked him where my voucher was he was sorry but they didn't have any at the moment and told me just to go to the buffet where the first guy asked for my voucher again. Eventually the guy from the bar came over and just told him that I'd just paid and it was all sorted. Shocking. THEN, after we'd eaten one of the girls ordered a chocolate cake and ice-cream for desert and when it came Justin had a look and thought he fancied some ice cream. When he asked though he was told they didn't have ice-cream on the menu, so when Justin said that they had ice-cream though so couldn't he just stick some in a bowl and charge half of the chocolate and ice-cream price - which would've been too much anyway but he said he didn't mind, just fancied some ice-cream - and to this the Fijian was agog and just kept repeating that they didn't have ice-cream on the menu. After he'd gone to the bar to get someone more senior to come over and try and explain why they couldn't just serve him some ice-cream he got bored of the whole thing and told them to forget it, which they were delighted to hear as they seemed to be on the verge of having to go and get the manager to try and explain their strict ice-cream related policy. Un-believable.
I didn't get to sleep until around two o' clock the next morning, thanks to the comedy that was the washer and dryer so a few of us stayed up drinking kava with the staff and watching a video of the Suva-wide school dance competition 2006, in which no-one watching had any relatives in or had even gone to any of the schools and they could not come up with an explanation to us as to why they had a video of this. They were really good though, looked like professional dancers, especially when placed next to the kind of dancing we get from English schoolkids. Though, even after the whole evening's bureacracy-related nonsense you couldn't deny it was a wonderful thing that the Fijians were not only tolerant but actually very pleased to have us sit around and join in drinking kava with them, they just can't seem to get enough of foreigners trying to get involved in their culture.
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