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BULA from Fiji..........
Well where to start with Fiji! Before we arrived at Fiji me and Sophie were very jubious about the weather as the forecast on the internet (which may i add is absolute crap!) said it was going to chuck it down constantly and have hurrendous storms. Well infact..... we saw two storms on the evening (which was an experience - never seen lightening like it!) and through the day it was an absolute scorcher. We fell in love with Fiji - The Yawawas Islands.
When we arrived in Nadi Airport we were greeted by a Fijian man who put shell necklaces round our necks and assisted us to the free shuttle. (Just as we imagined our welcoming to be like!) We got picked up by two of the staff working for the hostel we were staying at who were absolutly crazy!! They took away any nerves we had about fiji, as they were absolutly hilrious - shouting out the window to locals, singing etc.
The trip to our hostel was really interesting and an eye opener. We drove through little villages and Nadi Town - most of which was pretty run down and poverty looked low. However areas differed in such little distance. I wished now i had filmed going through the villages to give you an idea of what it was like. When we arrived at our hostel on the beachfront - 'Mamas Tropic of Capricorn' we were greeted by 'Mama' the owner who i am not kidding looked the spitting image of the grandma out of Nutty Professor!!! She acted just like her, looked like her and was such a good giggle. Our first impressions was good!
The hostel itself was pretty decent, we had only paid 5.50 so we couldnt expect much for our money. It had a pretty decent pool (however frogs swam around in it and dead flies), nice terrist to look out over the sea, and the rooms were not bad. I think the bathroom was the only let ondown, quite dirty but it had to be done - baby wipe washes!!! However there was one thing about the hostel which was a bit strange, animals roomed everywhere. Ha! There must of been 3 cats, 4 kittens, and 4 dogs!! Some of the cats were sleeping in our hostel room. One very much simular to Alf.
Our first night at Nadi Bay we spent sat with Mama getting to know her and family as it was family business which made the stay even better. Felt like we were at home in a way! We had some drinks with two girls the same age as us to from England which was nice. The second night was a little more eventful as we werent as tired. Mama had organised a BBQ and Cava Cermony which we were very intrigued by. The barby was amazing. No word of a lie - every meat you can imagine, fish, salad, potatoes, garlic bread... everything! The Cava however was not so good.
The Cava Cermony consisted of sitting on a mat surrounded by candles (electricity went off due to the storm over nadi) with 3 fijian men playing their guitars and singing well known songs, and drinking this horrible, muddy stuff called 'Cava'. It literally looked like muddy water and infact tasted like it too. It was very hard to leave the circle. You could drink a low, medium, high tide but peolpe chioce this for you. We had about 5 bowls of cava and had to depart! It was real good fun though and a very cultural thing to participate in! A memorial night.
The following day we had booked a boat trip called the Wanna taki Cruise which sailed around the Yawawas Islands. We had to take a main boat to the Wanna taki which cruised alongside the Yawawas Islands. This was really nice as you got to take a glimpse at some stunning bays and surroundings. Me and Sophie had such an awesome time on the Wannataki, met so many people on it as they were coming and leaving everyday and got really close to the wannataki crew. We did lots of activites, one main one being snorkling which was so good. Way better than snorkling the Great Barrier Reef! Was much clearer and sooo many fish, blue star fish and other strange creatures. Some even got to see small sharks.
We met a group of people from England who had formed throughout Fiji who were really nice. The first night we spent with them, and four of them including Sophie got extremely drunk off these FMU cocktails which il let you guess the abbreviation! The cocktails certainly did what they said they would do. Pole dancing and other crazy things were taking place. Very amusing to sit back and watch. This did result in however Sophie being extremely ill the day after, sick and in bed till 3pm!!!!
However she managed to recover and in the afternoon we went on a visit to a nearby village. This was one of the best experiences I have had, and great fun! We were taken around the village, viewing the little shacks and tin houses, school, church and market. This was not as wealthy as nadi. We watched the fijians do their tradional dances which were highly amusing! - i have some good videos. And..... we even got to participate in them! Great fun. We spoke to alot of the fijian people and children and made a friend called lady who we are going to keep in contact with. A really sweet little girl who spoke very fluent English!
To end the day, me and Soph and some other people we met on the boat played some ridiculously funny card games and chilled out.
The following day me and Sophie did some more snorkling, and helped catch a huge fish. Well slightly exaggerating here, we watched somebody catch it and pretend we did the hard work. The weather was an absolute scorcher so did as much sunbathing as we could squeeze in. The afternoon we took a smaller boat ride to a couple of islands around the bays with two guys (Willy and Jona!) from the boat. This was really nice as we got to see more of the little islands and say hello to some of the locals. Much more fun than a huge cruise boat! On the evening, me and Sophie sat drinking wine (which some of our friends left for us :) )and sat talking to Jona (crew member). This was really interesting, he was telling us about his life, the lifestyle he use to have and the one he has now. It made us realise how lucky we were! Really intriguing.
Me and Sophie the next day were up by 5.30am!! We decided to get up and watch the sun rise. This was really cool and so pretty. Really stunning as it was over the water and reflections were gorgeous from the sun and clouds. First sunrise we have seen since we have been travelling. (hence all the photographs) and.. Jona was up playing his guitar which was cool to listen to whilst waiting for the sun to appear. Once everybody else got up, me, soph and another girl got a small boat over to another island and spent the morning lazying about in the gorgeous clear sea, and sunbathing on the white sands... am i making you jealous? Really was beautiful though.
The afternoon we had to depart from the boat as our time was over and all the crew members sung us a fairwell song. This was dead nice! However we were not too sad to be leaving as we were moving on to Beachcomber - the party island. This was a really stunning island - a typical fiji island. Really beautiful, with great bar, accomodation, food and activites. We were soo impressed by the food here, was hotel standard - huge buffet! The room was pretty decent too - clean, but it was a 100 bed dorm. What an experience!
Our one night here was one i will not forget.. we met lots more people here and played some seriously funny drinking games consisting of the normals slaps to yeeeeharr! This had everybody in stiches. Mind you, everybody got quickly drunk from this game as you could easily mess up. Hilirious though! Wish i had filmed us playing this game - soo much effort by everybody was going in to it. After several games of this, everybody ended up dancing like loonies and we had a party in the island's pool. It was the smallest pool i have ever seen over the beachfront but funny squeezing everybody in! A really good night!
The final day in fiji we soaked up the sun until the heavens opened, which we cant really complain about as it only lasted an hour. We relaxed in the sea and 'took the moment in' as me and Sophie kept saying. Beachcomber was a really nice, 'young' resort and i would recommend it to anyone wanting to visit a party island, however you need a good crowd of people.
Our final night was back at mamas where we said our farewells to them (we got pretty close to the staff) and departed to the airport after having an unexpected amazing time in Fiji. It was a very remote country full of wonderful, friendly people, gorgeous surroundings, HOT weather and stunning beaches. I would recommend this to anyone wanting to get away for a rest....... thumbs up!!
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