Fiji

16 March 2008
Nadi, Fiji
                Fiji is made up of about 300 islands, and we were landing on the largest one.  The plane landed on schedule around 4:00pm Fijian time.  Fiji is one hour ahead of New Zealand during daylight savings time.  Getting off the plane, customs was pretty normal. 
                Coming into the terminal from customs we were casually bombarded with people asking if we had a place to stay, and what activities we were planning on doing.  Thankfully we had reserved a place on Hostel bookers for the first night in Nadi.  Traveler’s Beach Resort also had a shuttle to take us from the airport.  This was nice.  Often getting to and from airports it is not convenient.
                Arriving at the resort we were checked in.  The room was nice and big.  The resort was small, and the restaurant had a nice view of the sea.  First thing Doug decided to put on his board-shorts and take a dip in the ocean.  Anna feeling dirty jumped into the shower. 
                After settling down in the room we went out to the restaurant to mingle with the other guests.  Sitting down at another table we met a couple of guys from Ireland.  They had been traveling for the last 6 moths through Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Australia, and New Zealand.  They were about half-way through their trip.  It is always nice to sit and chat with people traveling.  They had many stories to tell about their travels.  We ended up getting some local beers and chatting for a couple of hours.
                Around 9:30 Anna was getting tired, and we retired for the evening.

17 March 2008
Nadi/Suva, Fiji
                The day began around 7:00 am.  Our time zones were still a bit mixed up.  We gathered our stuff together and went to check out.  Today was Monday, but also a public holiday.  Normally we would have been able to take a bus on the Queens Road (the main southern road on the island), but today was a holiday, and not many buses were running.  We ended up taking a taxi into town, to catch a direct bus to Suva.  We had to get to Suva to get the information for the ferries to the other islands.
                The taxi driver dropped us off right next to the bus.  Doug paid the bus fare of $12.30 per person Fijian money for the 4 ½ hour bus ride to the other side of the island.  The bus left promptly at 8:00am. 
                The road on the island was defiantly not very well kept, but the scenery was beautiful.  The bus stopped after about an hour and a half for 10 minutes.  Doug got out for some snacks. 
                We arrived in Suva around 1:00pm.  According to our map Patterson shipping, the company we were going to use as a ferry, had their office only a couple blocks from the bus station.  We walked over to their office to find it closed, due to the holiday.  Well now it was time to find a place to stay for the night.
                The book had some recommendations; we decided to check out the Sunset Apartment Hotel.  Luckily Suva is a small city.  We walked another 5 blocks to the Sunset Hotel.  Doug asked the girl how much the room would be she said $50.  This was less than what the book had listed, and a nice surprise.  We checked into the room, and unloaded our stuff. 
                It was Monday, but Sunday back in the US.  We wanted to make our weekly phone calls to the family.  To do this we needed the AT&T access number for Fiji, and to locate this we needed internet.  There was an internet place nearby.  We looked up the access number, Doug went to make his phone call, and Anna did some emailing.
                Now it was time to eat.  The only food we had had was some cookies and soda.  Walking around most restaurants were also closed.  We decided to go to Nando’s.  Doug just couldn’t get enough of their famous marinated chicken.  Anna was still undecided about the flavor of the food.
                After lunch we wandered around for a while, but with everything closed, and the rain pouring down.  We went back to the room to relax. 

18 March 2008
Suva/Levuka, Fiji
                Up early, we headed over to Patterson’s shipping to book our passage over to Ovalau island.  The guy working the desk gave us the info we needed and off we went.  The route over would involve two bus rides and the ferry.
                Fiji is full of very nice people.  A lot of people will stop you in the street and ask where you are from, if this is your first time in Fiji, what do you think…etc.  Trying our best to be polite we would stop and talk to every one of them.  A story we told often to people was how we watched their national rugby team compete in the “Super 7’s” in San Diego back in February of 2007.  During those matches we just happened to be sitting with a bunch of Fijians during the matches. 
                The drawback to being so polite to everyone is that for every 5 really nice people, there is one person trying to sell something.  We encountered our first on the way back to the hotel.  We went through all the normal questions and then he offered some advice, “Don’t buy stuff off the streets, only from Fijian owned stores.”  Biting at the bait we asked where they were and next thing you know we are being escorted into a store.  Anna ended up getting a necklace and bracelet to give as gifts to any hosts we may have or meet.  Then we asked him where a laundry place was.  While he was showing us how to get to the laundry place he began to mention that he shows people stuff for tips and asked for $10 USD.  Doug laughed and handed him $2 Fijian dollars (about $1.25 USD).  We might have paid him $10 USD if he did our laundry for us.
                On the way back we met another guy who offered us some sort of black wooden thing and he would carve our names in it.  No thanks.  We stopped to make phone calls and were approached by a guy wearing a city council badge.  We went through the usual conversation and then he handed us a carved wooden mask “as a gift.”  Then he said he would also give us the same black wooden thing, complete with carved names.  We should have known better but before we knew it he was carving.  Then of course he says he would like a little something as a donation and he shows us the back of his card which says he shouldn’t accept anything higher than $30 for the mask two small wooden sword things.  Doug pulled out a $5 (thankfully he pulled it blind from his pocket since he wasn’t about to pull out his wallet so the guy could see all our money) and said it was all we had.  He wasn’t happy about it so he took the mask back but left us with the black sword things.  On further inspection we saw that these things already had the beginnings of somebody else’s names on them too.  (On a side note, once we left Suva we did not experience anybody else attempting to trick us into buying anything, everyone was very nice and accommodating).
                While Anna was on the phone Doug was approached by another guy with a city council ID.  Doug saw the ID, saw the bag with the black swords and humored the guy for a minute.  The guy picked up that Doug was onto him and quickly ended the conversation and headed off for greener pastures.
                We checked out of the room and headed off to drop off laundry.  The lady at our hotel drew us a map and after we hiked up there another gentleman explained that this place had closed but another place was about a block away.  At the laundry place they said they couldn’t have our stuff cleaned in time for our ferry.  Covered in sweat from our 20 minute hike up hill with full packs in the thick humidity, we started back downhill to drop off our bags at this shipping place.
                With some time to kill we went to a café that offered 30 minutes of free internet.  Then we went to the store and picked up some food before going to the shipping place.
                At the shipping place a guy lead us to the bus stop for the first leg of our journey.  We waited for about 20 minutes when the bus finally showed up.  Our bags were loaded underneath and we grabbed seats.  The bus was headed up the eastern coast of the main island to a small pier.  The bus ride took about an hour and a half and when we arrived we were a bit surprised to find that they simply backed the bus right onto the ferry.  We got off the ferry and found seats on the boat for the hour long ferry ride over to Ovalau.  Once we arrived we loaded back on to the bus and it headed off for the old capital of Fiji, Levuka.  The ride took about 1 ½ hours to cover 20 km (nearly none of the road was paved there were a lot of little hills).
                Once we arrived we set out for the Royal Hotel, the oldest hotel in all of Ovalau.  Right in front of us was another couple.  When we began talking with them at the front desk we discovered they had nearly the same itinerary for Fiji that we did.  Their names were Bronwyn (from Australia) and Urs (from Switzerland).  After settling in our room we set off for a pizza place down the street for some OK pizza before retiring for the evening.

19 March 2008
Levuka/Bobo’s farm, Fiji
                Our first stop was to go to Ovalau Water Sports.  It seemed that most of the tourist destinations have consolidated all their bookings through this place which makes it easier for us to arrange accommodations for a couple places.  Our first booking was for a place called “Bobo’s Farm.”  It is more of a “home stay” and would expose us to more of the Fijian culture.  The second place we booked turned out to be fully booked and we later changed that booking to Leleuvia Island, a small island that we could completely walk around in about 15 minutes.
                Before we left we went and got some post cards for family and a couple friends and then did some shopping.  Our truck (the local bus) arrived and we loaded up.  This was kind of set up like a troop transport truck in the military.  It had bench seats on the side and the bed of the truck was covered.  The road was still unpaved and hilly so everyone was getting thrown around in the back.
                The truck could only take us about ¾ of the way; from there we had to split the cost of another truck with Brunwin and Urs.  The second truck took us right to Bobo’s Farm.  As we pulled up we were greeted by Bobo.  He took us over to his house and we met his wife Karin who is from Germany.  We were given kumquat juice which was quite good before getting settled in our own rooms which were separate from the main house.  The guest house had a small kitchen, bathroom and two identical bedrooms.  There was no electricity in the guest house.
                Once settled Bobo took us around the farm and pointed out which plants had which fruits and what was good for medication.  Next on the agenda was a swim in the ocean.  Bobo said it wouldn’t be good for snorkeling and when we got down there we saw why.  The ocean was absolutely roaring with large waves crashing around.  The water was quite comfortable despite having to fight our way through the large waves to get to a slightly calmer area where we just sort of floated and talked.
                We went back to the house and got cleaned up and then heard some loud metal “pings.”  We all went to the house and saw that Bobo had just started grinding up some kava.  They take shavings from the kava tree and put them in a large bowl (in this case an iron bowl) and then grind it up by using a large heavy stick (also iron in this case).  We took turns grinding up the kava into a fine powder and then sat down to watch the rest of the process.
                Bobo took the grindings and put them into a cloth bag and placed that into a large bowl.  He then poured water over the bag and then would squeeze the bag and add more water and mix it until the consistency was right.  He then spoke Fijian welcoming us and passed the first bowl to Anna, then Brunwin (ladies first), then to Doug and Urs.  What we had heard about kava from books and other people was that it looked and tasted like muddy water, and there is some truth in that, but really wasn’t that bad.  Brunwin and Urs said when they had tried it before it was quite bad and this was much better.  Apparently kava ground up with a machine doesn’t taste as good.  What we heard about kava was that it had a sort of intoxicating effect but made people more calm than drunk.  The biggest thing we noticed right away was that the tip of our tongues would become numb, but that was about it.  We sat and talked and had many more rounds of kava through the night.

20 March 2008
Bobo’s farm, Fiji
                The day began early with the sun shining through our window.  After the 4 of us had breakfast we suggested we wanted to go snorkeling.  Bobo said we could go right off the shore.  We all got changed and with our gear Bobo led us back down to the beach.
                The water was very inviting with its warmth.  Bobo led us to different spots showing us various fish.  At one point he gathered everyone around showing us a puffer fish he had speared.  It was beautiful.  The fish were just hanging around doing their daily feeding.  As the day went on Bobo would show us a variety of different fish. 
                After about 2 hours of snorkeling we all got out of the water and trekked back to the farm.  We took turns taking cold showers.  Then we all had some lunch.  Brunwin and Urs headed to the house while we had brought some food for the majority of our meals.  Then the 4 of us relaxed a bit.  The sun had gotten to all of us and our backs were started to resemble lobsters.  Even though it was overcast outside the sun seemed to come through and attack our skin.
                Doug wanted to take a nap and Anna wanted to go explore.  After Doug had fallen asleep Anna suggested to Brunwin to go for a walk and check out the nearby village.  She agreed and we set off. 
                The village was about a 15 minute walk down the road from Bobo’s.  Once entering the village a young girl approached us showing us around the village.  She brought us back down toward the ocean, showing us the church, and the local store.  Then she showed us the school and the school children.  The boys were playing rugby with the headmaster and the girls were playing volleyball with the female teachers.  After about 15 minutes went by, the drums were played signaling the school day was over. 
                We watched the children line up by grade.  Then Bobo appeared saying hello, also giving Anna a wrap around sarong for her legs.  No one had told us most importantly a girls/woman’s legs have to be covered and a sarong has to be worn at all times.  He then said he would wait for us until the end of school-day ceremony was over.  We all watched and listen to the flag being lowered by two boys and one of the teachers said a few words.  The school day ended with a prayer. 
                The girl brought us to Bobo, we said thank you and she left. Bobo then explained to us any visitors need to be escorted in the village and all women had to wear a sarong.  Anna immediately apologized again and again.  He said it would be fine, but the girl should have told us the rules.  Bobo then took us back around the village, then back to the school.  He wanted to play rugby with the older guys.  We sat and watched them play.
                Arriving back at the farm the boys were patiently waiting for us.  It was now dark and time for dinner.  Brunwin, and Urse went to the house for their dinner.  We made our pasta.
                After dinner we went up to the main house for kava.  Since Brunwin and Urse were leaving the next day Bobo had some guys from the village come and sing traditional Fijian songs to us.  During the songs we all shared a couple pots of kava.  During the singing Bobo would take Anna and Brunwin by the hand and show them how to dance.  It was a nice evening.  After a couple of hours and much kava, we retired for the evening.

21 March 2008
Bobo’s farm, Fiji
                Today Brunwin and Urs were going to leave for Leleuvia.  After they had their breakfast, we escorted them down to the beach where there was a boat waiting for them.  We all said our goodbyes and watched them leave.  Then we headed back to Bobo’s for a short rest.
                Bobo was going to take us snorkeling again today, but to another beach.  We got changed and headed back down to the beach.  He took us past where we were the day before.  Today the sun was out.  We both wore shirts, because the sunscreen we had was not waterproof.  This spot was not as good for snorkeling.  Bobo took us farther out in the water, so he could do some spear fishing.  It was nice but not near as good as the day before.  We didn’t stay out as long this time.  By now the sun and the kava was catching up to us.
                We went in early while Bobo did some more fishing.  It was nice to sit in the shade and watch the waves.  When Bobo came in we trekked back to the farm for a bit of rest.  After a couple hours we went to the main house.  Karin (Bobo’s wife) was watching the news.  We got to see a story on Levuka, and the history behind the old Fijian capital. 
                About an hour later Karin had dinner on the table.  Because each meal was an additional fee we decided to cook the majority of our meals.  But today we wanted to experience a local meal.  Karin had prepared some marinated chicken, bread fruit, and a salad.  Then for desert, she whipped up some papaya mixed with another local fruit.  The dinner was good, but definitely not worth the $28 plus the 19% tax we were to be charged. 
                We hung around for about an hour after dinner watching the moon, and chatting.  It didn’t seem like the previous nights, where Bobo was in an entertaining mood, Karin seemed to take the lead on driving the conversation.  We soon retired to our room for the evening. 

22 March 2008
Bobo’s farm/Leleuvia, Fiji
                Today we were ready to leave.  The boat arrived promptly at 8:00am the day before so we were ready to head down to the beach right at 8:00.  We said our goodbyes to Karin and headed down.  Arriving at the beach, there was no boat.  We sat down and began chatting.  After about an hour some girls from the village came to tell us the guys from the boat had phoned and would be a bit late.  Well we obviously figured this out for ourselves.  Another 20 minutes past and the boat came around the corner.  There were about 4 other passengers on the boat when we loaded in. 
                The 4 passengers were coming from Leleuvia to Levuka to check out the city.  So then the boat took us around the island to Levuka.  We all got off.  They needed to get more petrol.  We then headed off to the ATM and to the store for some snacks.  Then back to the boat.  Another 30 minutes went by and we were off to Leleuvia.  With us in the boat was another couple from France. 
                We arrived at Leleuvia around 11:30.  It is much smaller than Ovalua.  This island you can walk around in 15 minutes, or probably less.  The 4 of us were showed to our bures (a traditional style accommodation).
                  After settling in, the lunch horn rang.  Everyone came out from their bures to the center of the resort.  We were served a toasted tuna and vegetable sandwich.  Anna was in heaven with the lunch, but Doug was not impressed (all of those vegetables can’t be good for you).  When lunch was over we set out to explore the island.  The tide was out and there was much to see.
                We began walking around looking at the sea urchins hanging out in the water in the cracks left by the tide.  There were rainbow crabs and black crabs with red eyes.  We saw some small starfish and many various hermit crabs.  Coming back around the island we saw a large black and white striped sea snake that was about 5 feet long.  These snakes are supposed to be poisonous, but they are very gentle with very small mouths.  It is supposedly very hard to get bitten by one.  Then we wandered back to the resort, meeting up with Brunwin and Urse. 
                The 4 of us starting chatting about the previous day and what we adventures had occurred.  After about an hour we decided to go snorkeling.  We all got our gear and walked to the other side of the island.  The tide was just now coming in and the sun was out.  It was nice to do our own exploring, looking at the different fish. 
                After snorkeling we all went back to the resort to clean up.  The showers were cold, but not as cold as they were at Bobo’s.  Here the showers were more refreshing. 
                The dinner horn went off at 7:00.  Everyone came out from their Bures or off the beach.  By now there were a lot of people.  There were a couple of families with children, including a Japanese couple.  Dinner included a bunch of various options including: rice, chicken, bread fruit, baked eggplant, oysters, fruit, and a few others options.
                After dinner Brunwin and Urse, joined us for some card playing.  They also brought along a bottle of rum they had purchased at the duty free store.  There was a small bar at the resort.  Anna bought a can of coke, sprite, and pineapple fanta.  We all made our drink of choice for our card game.  We sat playing cards and enjoying different conversations for a couple of hours.  As usual we said our goodnights first and went to bed.   Neither of us had had hard alcohol in a couple of months and the rum was making us quite sleepy.

23 March 2008
Leleuvia, Fiji
                The breakfast horn sounded just shortly after we were up.  Breakfast consisted of 2 pieces of toast with butter and jelly, a cinnamon sugar donut and some pineapple.  We chit chatted with some of the others and then went to grab the computer to start catching up on our journal entries.  Just as we were setting up Brunwin and Urs said their final farewells to us and boarded the boat headed back to the main land. 
                Back at the computer we spent the next 4 hours doing journals.  We put everything away in time for lunch.
                Lunch was a chicken stir fry with carrots, something green and rice…it was quite good (even Doug thought so).  Next we grabbed the camera and headed out to the north end of the island where the low tide had exposed a couple hundred meters of sea floor.  The next couple hours were spent playing “junior marine biologist.”  We saw thousands of little spider looking sea urchins that would occasionally wave their arms around which would cause Doug to say, “Discoteca!!  Discoteca!!”  There were a bunch of white eels, lots of little fish, even more hermit crabs, rainbow crabs, black grabs and we even saw a large clam (about 8 inches wide).
                Back at our bure we grabbed our snorkel gear and headed over to the snorkel spot.  Doug spotted another sea snake on the way and pointed it out to some other visitors we had just passed.  Just as we were done talking with the other guests, we turned around and Anna nearly stepped on a baby sea snake. 
                Snorkeling was pretty good until Doug got drilled by a jelly fish on the inside of his left elbow, right wrist, belly button and left foot.  That was enough to bring us out of the water and in search of some vinegar to stop the stinging.  Thankfully the kitchen had plenty and gave him a small cup. 
                The showers seemed a bit colder today.  After some relaxing and bit of reading we headed to dinner.  Dinner was almost the same as lunch except the sauce was more of a “sweet and sour” sauce.  We then played cards until bed time.

24 March 2008
Leleuvia, Fiji
                After waking up we wandered about a little until the breakfast horn was sounded.  Breakfast was about the same, toast, donut and fruit.  Then it was back to journal entries, so we grabbed the computer.  We chatted with some other guests for a bit before getting started.  One girl had just got back from shooting some film for a documentary about the coral reefs here.  She was running around with nice underwater HDTV video camera (which probably cost more than we will spend on our entire trip).
                While doing journal entries Doug managed to figure out the phone and got a call into his parents.  Then we cleaned everything up for lunch.  Today we had fish, chips and salad which was also quite good.  Then it was back out for our third day of “junior marine biologist.”  Today our goal was to recapture some photos we lost due to a technical malfunction.
                Back at our bure we grabbed the snorkel gear again and headed out.  Our snorkeling today was jelly fish free so we stayed out about twice as long and got to go out further than we have had a chance during the last two days.
                Back in the showers we were greeted with warm water (our first warm shower since Suva about a week ago).  Then back at the room we wrapped up our journal entries (we were about two weeks behind when we started yesterday).
Before dinner we went out to socialize with some of the other guests.  A new guest dazzled us all with a card trick where after a lot of narrowing down he guessed Anna’s card.  For dinner we had curry (not Doug’s favorite), however they had tortillas with the meal (they call them “rotiyas” though {spelling?}).  Afterwards we broke the cards back out and taught everyone a card game we learned back in Ecuador.  That card game was a big hit and we played for a long time before turning in for the night.

25 March 2008
Leleuvia, Fiji
                Time to leave the island.  We were up early and started putting things together.  The breakfast horn sounded and we had our usual, toast, fruit and a new addition today, silver dollar pancakes.  Once we cleared out of the room we settled our bill and got ready to leave on one of the little boats.  After they had covered our bags with a tarp Anna noticed that our friend Jonathan (from Melbourne) wasn’t up yet.  Since he was leaving with us we made sure the staff knew and went looking for him.  A few minutes later he came racing out.  We said our goodbyes to a lot of new friends and loaded up into the boat for the boat ride back to the main land.
                On the way back we took a nice little ride up a river to a bridge where they dropped us off.  From here we had to wait until a bus/truck/anybody would stop for us and bring us to Suva.  Thankfully one of the workers who shot into a nearby town for fuel got a hold of van and sent it our way.  It arrived and brought us to a little town where we caught a bus to Suva.  In Suva we had time to go confirm our flight with Air Pacific and Anna even got a chance to check email for about 5 minutes before we were walking back to the bus station.
                The bus ride back was long but we did get a couple movies which was nice (although barely audible because of the noise).  Arriving in Nadi we walked around a bit, did some souvenir shopping and found a little place to eat some fried rice.  Then we had to find a taxi to take us back to the Travelers Beach Resort (where we stayed our first night in Fiji).  The big draw there was that they had a reasonable price, hot water, electricity, free transportation to the airport and laundry.
                We settled in and finished all our website stuff while eating microwave popcorn (we’ve been looking for a microwave since our first day in Suva).

26 March 2008
Nadi, Fiji
                The morning began really rough for both of us.  It was 6:50am.  The lady at the front desk said to bring our laundry up front at 7:00am.  We needed to have it done by 10:00.  Our flight to go back to Auckland was at 1:00pm. 
                Doug walked all of Anna’s clothes (except for a sports bra, and long sleeve shirt), and the majority of his clothes next door to the office.  Anna did not want to get out of bed.  Shortly after Doug’s return she threw up.  We were slowly recognizing dinner was affecting us in a very bad way.  All either of us could do was lie on the bed and moan. 
                It was 9:30, and Doug went to check on the clothes.  The lady told him they had put the clothes back in the “dryer”.  10:00 came along and Doug went back to check on the clothes.  What the woman at the desk told him was the clothes were previously put back in the dryer.  What she mistakenly meant to say was she put the clothes back in the “washer” on spin cycle.  Doug returned to the room with the good news (sarcasm).  The woman doing our laundry was in the process of folding our clean “WET” clothes and would bring them to our room shortly.  This was not a good start to the day.  We were both feeling awful.  To add to this we now had a bag full of wet clothes.  Not to mention Anna didn’t have any clothes to wear to the airport. 
                Doug ended up putting the bag full of wet clothes in his bag, being it is the bigger of the two bags.  Then Anna put all the remains of Doug’s bag into hers.   Anna ended up wearing the sports bra, long sleeve shirt that she had, and a pair of Doug’s shorts to the airport. 
                After packing everything up, we went to the front desk to check out.  The lady at the front desk still wanted to charge us $20.00 for the laundry.  We both tried very hard and nicely to explain to her the laundry was not complete, it was very wet.  She proceeded to tell us there was a dryer.  Then we said no, no dryer, only spin cycle.  She then dropped the price $5.00.  We were both steaming by now, but what could we do?  She then called us a taxi to take us to the airport. 
                We checked in for our flight, went right through customs.  It was now 11:00am.  It was another hour and a half before the flight would be boarding.  Anna went to make a couple of phone calls, while Doug laid his head down.  Neither of us had eaten anything all day.  We did get a sprite, just to have some liquids in our stomach.  Soon enough 12:30 came.  We boarded the flight, and took off on time.

New Zealand Part II

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