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| The Museum of Fiji |
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| Our divers and the raging Pacific |
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| Waidroka Bay Resort |
Chapter Four: Fiji
The Fiji experience began at the Nadi airport, where we were
met by Ali (or Ili, not sure which). He put our luggage and us in a Waidroka
Bay Resort van and began a three-hour nighttime drive to the resort. We stopped in the town of Nadi for dinner, then got
into the driving on the mostly paved Queen’s Road, which follows the coast,
mostly, to Suva. Thirty years ago it was all gravel.
This is not the
India/Bangladesh driving that we had become accustomed to, but pretty
developing-world in its own way. Lots of speed limits in villages, speed bumps and the occasional broken down car. Few people and fewer lights between villages.
After a couple hours of steady rain, Ali pulled off the
main road into a gravel lane, up and over dark hills for several kilometers
until the road ended at the almost completely dark “resort”. No one was present to greet us. Ali jumped out and found a note in the
key box, grabbed the key and we climbed a long set of stairs, with our luggage,
in the rain, up to our room.
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| Our bure away from home |
The room had only beds for three, the air conditioner remote
could not be found and there was no one to complain to. While we each swore and complained to each other, Gail read the note, looked at the hotel
information and realized we were in the wrong room. Ali, of course, was long gone, and it was still
raining. Millie and I grabbed an
umbrella and flashlights and went off to explore. We found our way back to the main building and located the correct note
and key in the key box, and stumbled through the rain until we found the deluxe
family ‘bure’ (Fijian for house),
with beds for four, that we had booked.
So we brought the luggage back down the steps, through the rain, to our
new little bungalow.
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| Scuba Lessons |
The next day we booked the girls into SCUBA certification
lessons and found there really wasn’t much for Gail and I to do. Even though the place is located in a sort of arc of a cove, there was no beach, just rocks and mud when the tide was out.
But we weren’t driving an SUV anymore, and
there was a pool.
The place focuses strictly on SCUBA and surfing, and everyday takes
guests off shore to places for both. The other guests were mostly surfers plus a father and son from Denver who had maxed out on SCUBA.
Gail and I caught a ride the next day to Suva, Fiji's capital, and wandered around the
city, checked out the museum, bought some souvenirs and had a nice lunch. The girls are hard at the book-learning
part of the SCUBA experience.
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| Almost Sunny |
Two days into SCUBA and the girls were out at sea for their
last two dives to be certified.
The weather all week had been cloudy and rainy, but Wednesday,
July 11, had a higher sky with occasional sunshine and still lots of wind. The resort faces a lagoon with waves breaking on the reef far out to sea.
Inside that reef the wind was blowing hard enough to produce
whitecaps. So we had to hang by
the pool instead of snorkeling yet again.
At the last minute we decided to brave the waves and head out with three
surfers and their mom to the “Pipes” a good place, about a mile offshore, for both snorkeling and
surfing. Fiji apparently is the
home of world championships for surfing and one of the most popular places
in the world for surfers. The
“Pipes” is one of the best places. The waves break out in front of some reef
and it’s safe to surf. The resort
has a mooring place to tie up the boat nearby. The surfers took their boards and swam a hundred yards or so to the Pipes while the grown-ups stayed on the boat and bobbed around. The weather got worse and we never got to
snorkel, but I did eventually get seasick. We came back in during a pouring rain and got wet that way.
The girls, meanwhile, were seeing a shark, a turtle and lots
of fish and coral. Late that afternoon, the local employees invited the guests to a kava ceremony. Kava is a root that is ground, pounded in this case, and then mixed with water in a kava bowl to a consistency of muddy water. In Samoa, the ceremony is a very
tradition-laden event, only done by a village princess and with specific
sequence of events. (We have a bowl from Samoa at home.)
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| Making Kava |
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| Delicious |
Here it was more of an endurance test—how much can we get
the tourists to drink? The drink
makes your tongue numb and generally induces a calm, restive state. It’s also a diuretic. As easily the oldest person there, I was designated the “chief” and had to
start each round. I stayed for the
entire 2.5 hours—about a 12 pack; Gail and the girls bailed early.
We gave it one more shot: waited for the weather to clear and maybe try to snorkel one more time. In the meantime, the girls passed their written tests
and are now certified to 18 meters of open water. But the rain and clouds continued.
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| On the Way to the Airport |
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| Finally a Sunny Day for a walk in the Dunes |
The next day, the only sunny day of the week, we left early
for the airport. We had asked to stop
for some shopping, lunch, and a sand dunes national park on the way. We wanted to make it to the airport early
so Abby could find an internet connection and send off another assignment for
her on-line course. We did it all,
and everything worked out.
Looking back, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't paradise yet. We would have to wait a couple more days. On to
Samoa!
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