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Today we decided to try and walk to Nadi town. We wanted to get some exercise so we had to turn down all the offers from every passing car for a lift, and most cars stopped to offer. AS we wandered along Vincent spotted the plant with sensitive leaves that folds up when you touch it so I found each one in the verge and stoked one leaf until it closed up. Magic! Then we went over a little stream and as we looked down we saw mud skippers bouncing along the surface of the water and sitting in the mud, some of them must have been about 6 inches long. In the water there were silver fish with long pointy noses that you could spot a quick glimpse of if you watched.
After nearly an hour of walking and resting and walking again I decided I couldn’t make it, but we saw another back packing couple coming down the road and they pointed out a supermarket that was only a little further. We made it there and were able to get some bread and peanut butter for Vincent’s lunches (we could only afford one meal per day by now in the hostel) and a couple of things of orange juice as we were sorely lacking in vitamins. We also got a can of coke to share so we could sit on a step outside and prepare ourselves for the way home.
During the walk home one of the many cars that pulled up had a German girl in it who rapidly got out and ran over to us asking if she could walk with us. It seems she had been offered lifts by everyone too and in the end had agreed, but had second thoughts as she was in an unlicensed car with a group of guys and she was on her own. We quickly found she was staying in Horizon next door to us so we were happy to have someone to chat to. She had been teaching in a school for the blind in south America before here and intended to go on to Australia after so we swapped many stories and the journey home was fine.
As we had got on so well with Eva and it was nice to have someone other than each other to talk to we popped over to her resort for dinner, also Mama had no cheese for pizza and we had decided that was what we wanted for dinner (at $18 for a large between us it was by far the cheapest meal, £1 = $3.3) unfortunately we didn’t find Eva but when we sat down next to a group of lad I overheard them say ‘Cambridge’ so I leaned over to their table and said ‘hey guys are you from Cambridge?’ they said they were and asked where we were from and when we sad Cottenham chaos ensued as one of them also lived in Cottenham and knew boys that went to CRC, then they knew Trafford Gordon one of my old favourite students from Initial Studies. It was so nice to hear from people at home so we spent the rest of dinner chatting. They were called Tommy and Richard.
As we were finishing dinner a guy came in and asked us if we wanted to join in the traditional Fiji Kava ceremony. We said of course and the 5 of us sat down with 4 Fijians and 3 guitars and a big bowl of what looked slightly like dirty washing up water! WE were told that there had to be a chief, Tommy from Cambridge was the obvious choice as he was the loudest, and then instructed that when the chief says ‘Taki’ we all have to drink. You clap once then are handed a half coconut shell filled with the drink, you down it to whoops and hollers then pass the bowl back and clap 3 times. You have the choice of high/medium/low tide or tsunami, which designates how much of the stuff you drink each go. After every round the guys picked up their guitars and sang Bob Marley songs, then did requests and were very good with modern British music even managing Californication, although nobody knew all the words! Kava is made from the ground up root of a plant and is non alcoholic. It tastes bitter and at first is not pleasant, but you get used to it as your mouth goes slightly numb from it and it is very relaxing – you sleep well after a kava night. In the end we sat with the Fijians until the hotel owner called time and chucked us out, by which time we had drunk a lot of kava!
We went through to listen to the music at smugglers, the hostel on the other side of ours that was linked to Horizon, and chatted the night away with the guys from Cambridge and the Fijians.
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