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Sorry for the delay in updating you on our travels - it's been a nightmare trying to find anywhere with decent access! We're cooking now though so be prepared for mass updates!
Fiji
After a 10hour flight, mostly sleeping, we arrived at Nadi Aiport, Fiji at 5am! The first impression was damn it's humid!
We spent an hour queuing to get through immigration and finally arrived at the carousel to wait for our luggage. And wait................and wait................and wait.........and then there was Hannah's bag....................and wait..........and wait.........and you get the picture! My bag hadn't arrived from Los Angeles, along with 30 other peoples! So another hour passed by while we sorted out the lost baggage forms etc etc! We finally emerged into the Fiji sunshine at about 7:30am, and got accosted by eager taxi drivers wanting our dollars! We fell into a taxi and were on our way to our first destination Smugglers Cove Backpackers.
Smugglers Cove was a real great place, we were met at reception by Asa who was soooooooo helpful. We told her about the lost bag and she just took the details and said we're on Fiji time now, chill out, i'll sort it out! Which she did, as well as some other small issues we had with our island booking! Our room overlooked the beach and out to sea, it was an amazing view. I borrowed some of Hannah's clothes, and we hit the beach! The bikini bottoms chaffed a bit, but the funny looks took my mind off that!
Our first Fiji encounter was a guy called Johnny. We had walked down the beach for literally 2mins before we bumped into him. He invited us to his stall, which consisted of a mat, a chopping block, a cleaver and some coconuts!! We sat down and he prepared two for us to drink, and then eat! They went on forever, but were very refreshing as it was now cooking hot, and only about 9am! We quickly realised that nothing is free, so we negotiated a price for our drink/snack and continued down the beach. The water was soooooo warm, it was like a warm bath!
I soon realised that it would be a while before i'd be reunited with my bag, so a trip into Nadi town was needed to by my own shorts, t-shirt and flip flops! We were advised to stick to the main street as it's quite easy to end up paying for things you didn't ask for! It was really busy, and quite a lot of hustle and bustle but within an hour i'd got swimming short, sunblock, flip flops, t-shirt and nearly stepped on the biggest spider i've ever seen in my life, ever, ever, ever (haven't got to Oz yet!) . The rest of the day was spent relaxing and shattered, we were in bed by about 9pm!
Our next destination was Long Beach resort in the Yasawa Islands. It involved a 4hr boat journey and it was to be our home for the next 7 days. We arrived just in time for lunch, but were just amazed at how beautiful the islands were! It was like being in a postcard, white sandy beaches, turqoise water and tiny little villages/resorts. Again, our accomodation was amazing, we were in a beach front bure with the most amazing view! It was so hot and humid, walking anywhere caused you to perspire prefusely! We quickly settled in to a life of lying on the beach, reading a book, eating when the drum banged, tea and cakes at 4pm and swimming in amazing surroundings! It was hard work, i'm sure you agree. There was a slight downside to paradise though. Ants and Mosquito's! We were bitten everywhere! A small price to pay though! We became good friends with one of the locals, Amouri, who introduced us to Cava. This isn't the cheap Champagne you buy from Tesco! It's from a local plant and it makes you pretty stoned after drinking a lot of it! Also, your mouth goes numb! It was great though seeing behind the scene's. My bag arrived on the 3 day, not before time either, i was stinking! I think i changed 4 times that day!
Valentine's day fell whilst we were on the island, it was amazing. We drank Champagne that we'd got at duty free and swam under the stars (amazing stars at that - the milky way was beaming above us)!! I'll never forget that!
On our final night we decided to have a party at our bure. We invited some people we'd become friends withL: Amouri, Laura, Jo, Steve and Lorna. After many rum and cokes we were all a bit wasted, but it was a great night to end a great few days in paradise!
We decided to go back to Smugglers Cove for our final night in Fiji. It was fully booked so we stayed next door. I managed to catch up with Asa and thank her for all of her help - amazing.
Next stop New Zealand.......................well we've been here for 3 weeks now! It's amazing, but i've rabbled on for ages now - so we'll update you soon!
PS - we've had trouble getting photo's uploaded, but i've added some from San Francisco to my Facebook account -
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=30558&l=edf9e&id=789700038
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=30555&l=96f4f&id=789700038
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