I think Fijians have a quota to reach with saying Bula each day! Bula is to Fiji what Aloha is to Hawaii. Except used way more often! For anyone who may be groaning at reading our rave reviews of basking in the sunshine while lying in hammocks along the beaches in the Yasawa Islands of Fiji, read on! And don't worry, our Fiji experience was definitely not stereotypical! We'd been watching the weather in Fiji before leaving Vancouver and unlike typical Vancouver weather reports, those in Fiji were bang-on - torrential downpours over a low-pressure system, with Cyclone warnings left right and center. At least it dulled the culture shock- despite the warmer temperatures, the rain made us feel right at home!! Except of course that it was way more intense and combined with strong, stormy winds! First impressions? What the hell are we going to do here?! Even the travel agent advised against doing anything for at least the first two days we were there.
After laying low for the first day, we tagged along with a mish-mash group of five girls from different ends of the globe to hit up the mud pools of Fiji. Although the cyclone didn't hit, the weather was still crap, so soaking in wet mud seemed like the only thing to do. Chris was in his glory, packed into a van full of six lovely ladies! The road was washed out so bad we had to get out and ford the muddy river running through it- quite the sight with seven tourists thigh-high in muddy waters being escorted across by local Fijian kids. The mud pool in the rain was pretty fun, we all had quite the time having warm mud spread all over our bodies by the Fijian man working there. After our rejuvenating, natural, skin treatment, we headed back to our hostel for a traditional Fiji fire and dance show and I tried Rou Rou, a green taro-based soup that was delish!! Chris and I lamed out by packing it in before 10, we were feeling the jet lag big time!
We struggled to come up with a gameplan as to what to do in the weather, which didn't seem to be letting up until at least Saturday, at which point we would be on a plane to NZ. We decided horseback riding up to some waterfalls in the south of Viti Levu (main island of Fiji) would be a cool experience even soaking wet. No such luck! Once we checked into our hostel just off the Coral Coast down south, we were informed it was way too dangerous because of risk of landslides... awesome. The three of us (we picked up a cool Alaskan chick named Jess on the way) decided to make friends with a Fijian to help pass the time and steer us clear of tourist traps and high prices instead. We met Seru at the bar of a resort down the road, a happy-go-lucky young buck Fijian who bonded with Chris and gave him a sly heads up to a bar that was cheaper and more local-feeling than the $300/night resort we were currently have drinks at. He met up with us later and we tried the must-have Kokoda, like ceviche but with coconut milk.... I'm in LOVE with this meal! It's sooo good. Although I'm not surprised, I love anything that has a coconut milk base to it, and Fiji has meals like that in spades! Seru was awesome to hang out with and he arranged to take us to the sand dunes the next morning. Luckily, it stopped raining for a couple of hours, long enough for us to get some cool pictures on the dunes and run around and enjoy the scenery. Afterwards we headed back to watch some of the Rugby Sevens Tournament (shout out to Canada for doing pretty damn well and NZ for winning the whole thing!). We said goodbye to Seru and had one last swim in the pool at the resort. Just to clarify, we didn't even have a single dip in the ocean at any point during our Fijian experience, can you believe it?! Chris and I completed our near cyclone experience by getting caught in a downpour on our walk home from dinner on our last night and getting drenched through!
Now we're in Auckland, NZ drying out and the sun has come out for the last four days straight! More updates to come. Here's to more adventures, and here's hoping most of them are sun-kissed memories!!!
Hope all is well back home,
Lots of love,
Lauren (and Chris too!!)
PS Stay tuned for pictures... :)
PPS Through the rain you can still picture how absolutely beautiful Fiji must be ten months out of the year.. quite the tropical rainforest! Maybe we'll go back for a visit during the dry season.
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| Our first day in Fiji, all hopes of sunshine and hammocks pretty much let go after reading the paper. |
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| Finally escaping the tourist trap for dirt cheap coconuts and pineapples at a local market near Nadi! |
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| A sample of the beautiful weather we experienced for the majority of our time in Fiji. Nice! |
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| This was the first time we'd seen the "sun"... funny, it seemed a lot sunnier at the time than it does now looking back at the photo!! |
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| Jess the Alaskan and Seru the local, at the Sand Dunes of Sigatoka. Thanks to Seru and Chris for making the giant Bula! |
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| Screwing around with the timer function on the camera! |
