Fun in Fiji

Well, I’ve spent the last week in Fiji and it’s been pretty nice, all things considered. My first five days I stayed on a small island called Tavewa at a resort called Coral View. It took about five hours by boat to get to it from the mainland, and the boat ride was not fun because there was no air-conditioning, I was still wearing jeans, and hadn’t showered in about two days. So, I really just wanted to get to my destination and finally relax…after a quick shower of course! Once I finally did get there it was pretty neat. It took a little longer to actually get to the island because our small motor boat decided to quit working out in the middle of the ocean reef, so I got to roast a little longer in the sun. But once arriving, the whole staff gathered around the shore and gave a big welcome shout of “Bula!” which is the word for basically any kind of greeting in Fiji and you hear it a lot!

The weather here has been pretty phenomenal. Sometimes it gets uncomfortably too hot, but I just think of how cold it is back in Indiana and then the heat isn’t so bad. Although, I think the heat may be to blame for getting me sick on my second day here. I had a very bad night that night and wasn’t too good the following day. Sadly, I ended up spending most of the rest of my time on the island recovering from whatever it was. I haven’t felt that bad since I got food poisoning many years ago, but no one else had any problems so I doubt it was because of something bad I ate. I was instructed to just take it slowly, stay out of the sun and drink lots of water.

I never really ate a good big meal again though. All the food here is quite different than what I’m used to, just like people were telling me before I left. I always seemed to get a stomach ache for awhile after each meal, but I think that can be attributed to recovering from my sickness. Once I got to my next destination, Nomads Skylodge in Nadi, I was able to eat much better and I was so happy to see some food that I’ve heard of on the menu! Things like burgers and spaghetti. And even though they seem just like what we have back in the US, they are actually very different. The burger came with a fried egg on top of it so instead of using ketchup on the burger, you had the egg yolk for flavoring. The ketchup is also much sweeter than it is back home. The spaghetti isn’t cooked for very long either I don’t think because it’s usually much harder than what I’m used to. So at least I’m getting a bit of a new taste from things yet it’s still somewhat familiar to me.

But back on Tavewa, I mostly did as instructed and took it easy, which is what Fiji is kind of known for anyway. The locals always talk about “Fiji time” meaning that even though they say dinner is at 7, it really might be 7:15 or just kind of whenever around 7. The locals always seem to take a good amount of time in the afternoon to just relax and do nothing as well. So, just relaxing wasn’t too bad, even though I wanted to get out and do some other things, I was going to do whatever Joe, the head boss of the property, said to prevent another night like that second night. I did get to participate in a lot of dancing on a couple nights and did pretty well learning some new Fijian dance moves. Some of the girls wanted me to dance like Michael Jackson for them and I just had to laugh at them. I really wish I could have! The music that people listen to hear is totally different than what I was expecting. There is some native music, but mostly you can expect to hear anything from Billy Idol to Backstreet Boys to 2Pac, no joke! They are really big into Jack Johson, too, which pleases me. I guess I was just really naïve to think that they would only have their traditional island music style and not be interested or even aware of anything else around the world. But I found out that they definitely know their music from around the world and they love it!

On Tavewa, I also took some pretty frequent treks through the jungle to another resort on the island with a much better beach. At Coral View the beach is loaded with coral rocks and it’s just not as good for swimming. It wasn’t a big deal because I enjoyed walking through the jungle and I almost always had company, so I got to learn a lot about some of the other travelers. I thought that I was a bit crazy for being gone from home for six months, but I met people who had been doing it for a year and one group of Scots had been at it for 15 months! I was surprised that there weren’t very many solo travelers, like myself. I only came across two other people who were traveling alone and the one had just recently parted ways with a friend. The other was on her way to Sydney for a few months, just like me.

Anyway, altogether I’ve met so many people from all over the place. It was funny because for almost everyone, Fiji was either their first or last stop on their trips. Everyone is trying to start off big or end big I guess. If I can remember correctly, so far in Fiji I’ve met 8 Americans, 5 Brits, 5 New Zealanders – including a family of 3 who were crazy about American sports and 2Pac, 4 Canadians, 3 Australians, 3 Scots, 2 Belgians, 2 Danes, 2 crazy Swedish girls, a German, and an Irishman. Not to mention the many extremely polite and chatty Fijians I’ve come across as well. So, it’s been very neat to experience meeting and talking to so many different people from so many different parts of the world.

But as great as Fiji is, I’ll admit, I’m ready for tomorrow to come so I can finally get to Australia!