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Published: September 9th 2007
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After the gorgeous sunrise cruise from Ovalau, we were off on another 5 hour bus trip, this time taking the Kings Road, which runs along the northern coast of Viti Levu. Our bus ride along the Queens Road on our first day in Fiji had seemed sort of rough at the time, but it certainly didn’t prepare us for this one. The first 56 kilometers of the Kings Road were unsealed (unpaved), narrow, twisty, and riddled with rickety, half disintegrated, one lane wooden bridges. Again, we reassured ourselves by repeating what had become our new Fijian transportation mantra, “They do this every day. We’ll be fine.” And then our bus driver took the wrong fork and had to reverse for about 400 meters. On an unsealed, narrow, twisty, one lane road. Had he done this before? Our confidence began to wane.
Luckily for us, we had “The Marinir” to take our minds off of the ride. Otherwise known as “The Marine” (you probably haven’t heard of it - for good reason), “The Marinir” is a HORRIBLE, cheesy-as-hell action movie that was playing on the T.V. at the front of the bus. If you’ve heard of this movie, then you know
it was done in English. Which is the most widely spoken language in Fiji. Which made it all the more amusing that there were subtitles. In “English”. For example, “Thank you for your service” became “I congratulate you your service of you.” Nothing more needs to be said about “The Marinir”. Next up was a Hindi variety show. In Hindi, with no subtitles. Go figure.
Five hours later, we arrived safely (miraculously) in Nadi. As soon as we got a good look at it, we wished we hadn’t. The only reason to go to Nadi is the airport. We weren’t scheduled to fly out for another day and a half. So we braved the gauntlet of souvenir vendors and arranged a caving/river rafting tour that would get us the hell out of town.
The next morning we were picked up by the tour bus at our “motel”, where we were the only guests. En route to the cave, our destination for the day, the bus stopped in Florida to pick up the other people taking the tour. Okay, it wasn’t actually Florida, it was Denarau Island, but it looked exactly like Florida. The people staying in the resorts
(these definitely deserve to be called resorts) there probably spent more on one night’s accommodation than we spent our entire time in Fiji. It’s no wonder so many Fijians seem to think all travelers are filthy rich.
The tour took us about an hour’s drive east to the town of Sigatoka, then up through a gorgeous river valley devoted mainly to farming. After a bit, we stopped at a seemingly random empty house along the side of the road. The plan was to meet with the village chief, who would allow us access to the cave. However, the chief was operating on Fiji time. Eventually he was tracked down and joined us for a kava ceremony, where he granted us permission. Then we had a lunch of “fancy food” - otherwise known as barbequed chicken and potato salad.
After lunch we crossed the river by leaky boat (which our guide had to swim to retrieve from the other side - the boat’s owners were also operating on Fiji Time), trekked through farmland, and eventually reached our destination - the cave. After much shouting between our guide and the construction crew working at the cave entrance, we were allowed
Farmland
These are pawpaw (papaya) trees inside. The cave was huge - at one point in its history it sheltered hundreds of people from the nearby village for over a month while they hid from a British siege. It had lots of delicate cave formations - our guide warned us to be extremely careful not to touch any of them because they took thousands of years to form and could be destroyed with one touch. This was explained while he stood directly on top of one. The “highlight” was the “cannibal oven,” which looked suspiciously like a cave formation in the very rough shape of an oven. The cave apparently wasn’t even discovered until after cannibalism had stopped occurring in Fiji, so we weren’t as horrified by the oven as they intended.
Once we exited the cave, we were herded onto a raft for a float down the river for tens of meters - a bit less than the half hour journey we were promised. This concluded our tour. At least there was free beer.
Although our last couple days in Fiji were spent where most visitors stay, they were definitely the least enjoyable. We still had a great time, but we highly recommend
that anyone going to Fiji get as far away from Nadi as possible. As soon as possible.
We were sad to leave Fiji after such a short stay (we’re already planning to go back and see much more), but excited to FINALLY get to our real destination, New Zealand.
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