I peeled my face off the floor of the Sydney Airport. It was the first international airport in nine months that had closed the entirety of its facilities and herded all the overnight passengers to the train depot so they could vacuum and do garbage in the main terminal. First airport floor sleep in nine months. From the looks of the travellers who had unpacked their sleeping bags and were camped in the nook of an elevator door, we were some of the only newbies. Moozh and I wandered bleary eyed to the check in desk.
"Can I see your exit tickets for Fiji?"
"What?"
"You need to be able to prove that you're leaving."
"Ummm…"
The fact that we had to look at our passports to remember what our names were meant it was too early for this kind of conversation.
"You'll need the same leaving for New Zealand. When you fly out of Fiji you'll need to prove that you are leaving New Zealand for your next destination."
So we walked out of line. And booked $3000 worth of plane tickets in ten minutes.We had come to roll with those punches over the course of our trip. Things never really seem to go the way you expect them to, even if the task at hand seems really quite simple. Taxis, hotel check-ins, train connections, subway systems: I have had many a meltdown trying to manage my way through things not going as planned and realizing that traveling requires a certain degree of optimism and flexibility. This is why it has been invaluable to not only be traveling with my husband, who is a phlegmatic, think on his feet, fixer-type by nature but who also has a hefty amount of traveling and thinking on his feet already under his belt. He keeps me sane in the situations of real life.
Within hours, we were boarding a plane to Viti Levu. From a quick glance around the cabin, I would assume Fiji is the family vacation spot for Australians. It felt like we were the only people on the plane who were travelling without a set of water wings. We would have a night in Nadi, getting accustomed to 'island time' which means that everything has at least another half hour added to ETA.
The next morning, I learned what Twin Engine Otter meant. Moozh and I had flown in a Cessna when we went on a backcountry fishing trip with his folks a few years back. When it says it seats four, you really need to be prepared for the pilot to be literally sitting between your legs. No room for hand gestures for emphasis. The cabin isn't pressurized. It doesn't get high enough. While an Otter, though bigger than a Cessna, still only seats sixteen and belts get significantly tightened when you see the co-pilot give the latch on the door a wobbly check to make sure it's shut. Unless you're me and you had a righteously awful sleep the night before. You give a quick kiss to your husband and then fall into a head-lolling, mouth-agape, slobbery-lipped sleep before they've even finished the safety instructions. This has become a habit when I'm finally seated on a flight but it's considerably more conspicuous when you're literally sitting in front of the person doing the safety instruction.
About twenty minutes into what was feeling like the deepest sleep I had ever had, I got an undue snap of whiplash when the plane hit some turbulence. At that point, I was well awake. Moozh was leaned over my lap, camera lens pointed out onto the ocean.
"You're missing it."
Glancing out the window was the most flawless, and endless, turquoise I could have expected. Undulations of colour danced beneath the surface as the coral below painted the ocean floor like an elevation map. Coconut palms drooped low on the beach sides. Tiny tour boats dragged trails of froth as they coiled and danced in Savusavu Bay.
A landing strip about as long as a car driveway was nestled within a dense ring of tall palms. As we descended, it felt as if we were driving on the treetops, the occasional branch tipping and spinning the wheels on the landing gear. Within minutes of landing, we were wandering out onto the landing strip. They handed us our bags from the baggage compartment. No security, no baggage claim. Just "Welcome to Fiji".
Moozh and I stood looking at a map of Savusavu, glancing to our address and back to the map. The ladies selling pearls smiled at us. We were confused. They could tell. Glancing at our instructions, they exclaimed, 'Oh Korovesi. You need Korovesi. South of town."
A guy waiting for the next flight out walked over to us. "You looking for a cab?"
"Yes."
"Let me call one for you."
"Oh okay."Within minutes, a cabbie friend of his pulled into the driveway. He helped to explain our confusing directions and we were off, windows down, densely humid, warm air combing through our hair. The sidewalks were lined with people who watched us as we drove by. But everyone smiled. If they could see your face, they smiled. Some would wave. Some would even yell 'bula' at the moving car.
Our host, who was also vacationing, had arranged for a friend of hers to meet us and set us up at the beach house we were renting. Nestled in the hillside directly opposite a pebbly, quiet beach was a romantic, beach house with a wall of shutters to open wide and walls painted the same colour as the sea. Though our first day was blistering, bright blue sky and not a trace of a cloud, the next day we were acquainted with what cyclone season meant in the South Pacific. While we had hoped for a Thailand, where the end of 'rainy season' meant it rained lightly for maybe a few hours usually in the middle of the night, we got a Fiji, where the 'end' of cyclone season meant it rained torrentially from dawn until dusk, the gravel roads reduced to a slurry and the beaches full of cloudy runoff water. The first two weeks, we never saw the sun. Though the rain stopped, the sun remained behind the clouds. The first day of sun, Moozh and I went on a six hour walk during which we were brutally sunburnt.
Our third week, the sunny days increased in frequency and the beaches actually cleared up enough that we could snorkel in clear water. Stories of 3m tiger sharks and poisonous sea snakes made us wary, but cabin fever chased us out of the house and into the water. We were in Fiji. Grow some balls, I told myself. Kind of like a carpe diem pep talk.
Now, you don't live in a beach house in tropics that is enshrouded in the jungle and not encounter bugs. Our first few nights were filled with more encounters with insects of ALL shapes and sizes than we were prepared for. We saw spiders that Australia should have prepared us for. Anything that size is called a 'mammal' in Canada. We began to understand why there were so many holes in the screens because all the spiders are the size of the one that ate Frodo.
*I take no responsibility for the accuracy of any LOTR references.
One night while Moozh and I were tucked inside from the rain, watching a diving documentary that our host had left for us, something began to crawl over the back of the armchair on the otherside of the room like a hand. Finger by finger, it revealed itself to be much bigger than we originally thought, or hoped. My "Grow some balls" pep talk didn't work. Paralyzed, I stood still, inching towards it to get a better look out of some sort of morbid fascination, while Moozh manufactured a long-distance weapon capable of serious carnage, usually some combination of brooms tied to dust pans tied to flame throwers. There should have been a warrior cry. But with only a slight, "Whoo", Moozh whapped it with all his force and it fell to the floor, looking only vaguely stunned. Legs folded inwards, there was no gore, no permanence. That spider would wake up later with a splitting headache, we were sure of it. I have never felt so flimsy before. I am a human and I am trumped in the hardiness department by a spider. A Fijian spider, in my defence.
Savusavu is described as "the last hidden paradise of Fiji". For anyone looking for not the Fiji of all-inclusives, of trinkets made in China, of gimmicks. If you want 'real' Fiji, where you encounter real people and how they live, Savusavu is one of the last places left. Stores are still shut when it's too hot. People will come out of their house to the curb side just to say hi to you. If you walk by someone while they are eating, they will invite you to sit and offer food to you. Every conversation follows the format of 1) What is your name? 2) Where are you from? 3) Where are you staying? At first, someone from the banal, impersonal North American mindset, this immediately comes across as nosy. But it grows on you when you realize that they are asking because they want to know and they want to know because they don't know you. Within days, you become a familiar face to people at the corner store and in the market. Cabbies who have driven you once or twice honk when they drive by you, like a neighbour would.
From what we had heard, while the Mamanuca Chain of islands to the West of Viti Levu are nearly all resort slammed, the Yasawa Chain, which is further north, is known for the Savusavu-style charm we were being wooed by. Small villages, more of a local flavour, just on much smaller islands. There you find the endless white sand beaches of lore. Our little shack in the woods was nestled between Savusavu town on the north end, and the famous Jean-Michel Cousteau resort on the south side. Fiji, despite all of the promotional photos we've all seen, is not known for its white sand beaches. It's actually not common to find the flawless white sand beaches. There are beautiful swimming beaches with fine white sand and crystal clear water. But what Fiji is truly world famous for, and justifiably so, is their coral. It is a diving and snorkelling paradise. At low tide, the water line with suck out for half a mile, revealing a marbling of coral and the maze-like root work of the mangroves. At low tide, you can walk what is known as 'Long Beach', which is completely submerged at high tide. It is a beachcombers paradise and provided a four hour walk along the south side of Vanua Levu. In future, we would take a map with us, as we got a little turned around trying to get back to the road and got a heady slap of red on our shoulders and faces to show for it.
A late afternoon swim in Nagigi garnered us an invitation to learn how to night fish beyond the outer reef and to come make homemade bread with the Seventh Day Adventists. Life takes a different pace. While Moozh was talking to Prohn, the spear fisherman who was going to take him night diving, I was talking with his eight-year-old son, Melikah, who was regaling me with stories of the tiger sharks he had seen in the bay.
"I saw a 3m tiger shark last week."
"What?!"
"Yeah-" He grinned ear to ear. "-and she had her baby with her."
"We were you in the water?!"
"Yeah."
"Were you scared?!"
"Yeah." And it ended there. No histrionics. No proclamations to never enter the water again. He had embraced the encounters as part of his life and as a necessary part of the cycle his life took. He was more interested in showing me how far he could already throw his spear than talking about a shark he would likely see hundreds of times in his future as a fisherman.
Fiji was a wonderful change from the expensive beer and food of Australia. $1 CAD is about $3 Fijian dollars. We were back to $1 beers and chowing down on cassava chips and cheap fresh fish. Fiji is a fascinating melting pot of cultures. Fiji was colonized by Britain but then Indian workers were brought in to work the sugar cane fields. Fresh roti and curries are to be found everywhere but Fiji has firmly embraced Western dishes like burgers, pizza, and fish and chips. While there are few token "Fijian" dishes, such as kokoda or fish lolo, that involve some variation on fresh fish, lime and coconut cream, it's difficult to find traditional Fijian dishes. The only conclusion I can come to is that cannibalism didn't officially leave the Fijian islands until well into the 1900's and therefore the tourism-appropriate menu choices were significantly diminished. We figured we'd stick to the cassava chips.
Moozh made it his mission to discover the best burger in Savusavu, which he deemed was to be at Joseph's Decked Out Cafe, which also had the most unique veggie burger I've ever had. (In this circumstance, unique is not a passive aggressive jab.) I surrendered my vegetarianism for three weeks (though it's not the first time) in favour of fish that I could literally seen be carried off the boat and handed to the chef. Speaking of vegetarianism, Fiji has really utilized its cannibalistic history, especially for tourism purposes. There isn't a single handicraft shop that you go into that you can't pick up a hand carved cannibal fork, specially designed for eating brains. The clubs used by warriors to break the necks of their opponents feature prominently in everything from the decorations at the airport to patterned tablecloths and artwork. While it is a joke amongst the locals and they find a great deal of humour in it, it is not a history they are ashamed of.
Once our skies had cleared up, we filled them with snorkelling and the waters of Savusavu Bay as much as we could. The world famous Fijian pearl company, J.Hunter Pearls, is based out of Savusavu, their primary pearl farm nestled right in Savusavu Bay. While all of the South Pacific islands produce black and navy coloured pearls from Black Pearl shells (and places like the Philippines and Australia produce white and gold coloured pearls from white- or silver-lipped shells), what makes Fiji pearls, and notably J.Hunter pearls, so unique is they can produce a rainbow of colours in their pearls, each pearl colour dictated by the coloured band that occurs naturally inside the lip of the oyster shell. Everything from a rosy purple to a goldish-pistachio colour, their pearls run the gamut of colour choice. For $25 a person, you can hop in a glass bottomed boat and they'll take you out to the farm. If you bring your gear, you can even jump in and snorkel the lengths of rope from which the oysters hang in grates, a method that prevents their susceptibility to predators and disease. The workers that manage the farm dive and check each grate every day. They gossip and gab on a floating pontoon, shucking the shells to inspect for disease and maturity. The jump from the boat into Savusavu Bay is a jarring one. The bay is much deeper, and darker, than you would possibly guess from the surface. The ends of the ropes disappear into the distance underwater, and descend row by row deeper than you can see.
Fiji was a more insular time, filled with indoor activities, than we had planned on. While we had dreamed of endlessly hot days on the beach, snorkelling until our backs were chapped with sun, we did a lot more reading and writing. We got caught up on sleep. We mapped out the rest of our trip. We reminded ourselves to take a moment when you can get it. We listened to the rain on the roof.
Greet strangers. It will make you happier. You'll feel more connected. And you'll be amazed who you'll meet.
Things I learned in Fiji:
Fijians really know how to make a good pizza.
In cyclone season, even at the end, be prepared for rain.
Fijians were cannibals. Seriously.
Quote for Fiji:
Me: We are officially in Fiji in Cyclone season. Life is a mosquito's breeding ground
"Can I see your exit tickets for Fiji?"
"What?"
"You need to be able to prove that you're leaving."
"Ummm…"
The fact that we had to look at our passports to remember what our names were meant it was too early for this kind of conversation.
"You'll need the same leaving for New Zealand. When you fly out of Fiji you'll need to prove that you are leaving New Zealand for your next destination."
So we walked out of line. And booked $3000 worth of plane tickets in ten minutes.We had come to roll with those punches over the course of our trip. Things never really seem to go the way you expect them to, even if the task at hand seems really quite simple. Taxis, hotel check-ins, train connections, subway systems: I have had many a meltdown trying to manage my way through things not going as planned and realizing that traveling requires a certain degree of optimism and flexibility. This is why it has been invaluable to not only be traveling with my husband, who is a phlegmatic, think on his feet, fixer-type by nature but who also has a hefty amount of traveling and thinking on his feet already under his belt. He keeps me sane in the situations of real life.
Within hours, we were boarding a plane to Viti Levu. From a quick glance around the cabin, I would assume Fiji is the family vacation spot for Australians. It felt like we were the only people on the plane who were travelling without a set of water wings. We would have a night in Nadi, getting accustomed to 'island time' which means that everything has at least another half hour added to ETA.
The next morning, I learned what Twin Engine Otter meant. Moozh and I had flown in a Cessna when we went on a backcountry fishing trip with his folks a few years back. When it says it seats four, you really need to be prepared for the pilot to be literally sitting between your legs. No room for hand gestures for emphasis. The cabin isn't pressurized. It doesn't get high enough. While an Otter, though bigger than a Cessna, still only seats sixteen and belts get significantly tightened when you see the co-pilot give the latch on the door a wobbly check to make sure it's shut. Unless you're me and you had a righteously awful sleep the night before. You give a quick kiss to your husband and then fall into a head-lolling, mouth-agape, slobbery-lipped sleep before they've even finished the safety instructions. This has become a habit when I'm finally seated on a flight but it's considerably more conspicuous when you're literally sitting in front of the person doing the safety instruction.
About twenty minutes into what was feeling like the deepest sleep I had ever had, I got an undue snap of whiplash when the plane hit some turbulence. At that point, I was well awake. Moozh was leaned over my lap, camera lens pointed out onto the ocean.
"You're missing it."
Glancing out the window was the most flawless, and endless, turquoise I could have expected. Undulations of colour danced beneath the surface as the coral below painted the ocean floor like an elevation map. Coconut palms drooped low on the beach sides. Tiny tour boats dragged trails of froth as they coiled and danced in Savusavu Bay.
A landing strip about as long as a car driveway was nestled within a dense ring of tall palms. As we descended, it felt as if we were driving on the treetops, the occasional branch tipping and spinning the wheels on the landing gear. Within minutes of landing, we were wandering out onto the landing strip. They handed us our bags from the baggage compartment. No security, no baggage claim. Just "Welcome to Fiji".
Moozh and I stood looking at a map of Savusavu, glancing to our address and back to the map. The ladies selling pearls smiled at us. We were confused. They could tell. Glancing at our instructions, they exclaimed, 'Oh Korovesi. You need Korovesi. South of town."
A guy waiting for the next flight out walked over to us. "You looking for a cab?"
"Yes."
"Let me call one for you."
"Oh okay."Within minutes, a cabbie friend of his pulled into the driveway. He helped to explain our confusing directions and we were off, windows down, densely humid, warm air combing through our hair. The sidewalks were lined with people who watched us as we drove by. But everyone smiled. If they could see your face, they smiled. Some would wave. Some would even yell 'bula' at the moving car.
Our host, who was also vacationing, had arranged for a friend of hers to meet us and set us up at the beach house we were renting. Nestled in the hillside directly opposite a pebbly, quiet beach was a romantic, beach house with a wall of shutters to open wide and walls painted the same colour as the sea. Though our first day was blistering, bright blue sky and not a trace of a cloud, the next day we were acquainted with what cyclone season meant in the South Pacific. While we had hoped for a Thailand, where the end of 'rainy season' meant it rained lightly for maybe a few hours usually in the middle of the night, we got a Fiji, where the 'end' of cyclone season meant it rained torrentially from dawn until dusk, the gravel roads reduced to a slurry and the beaches full of cloudy runoff water. The first two weeks, we never saw the sun. Though the rain stopped, the sun remained behind the clouds. The first day of sun, Moozh and I went on a six hour walk during which we were brutally sunburnt.
Our third week, the sunny days increased in frequency and the beaches actually cleared up enough that we could snorkel in clear water. Stories of 3m tiger sharks and poisonous sea snakes made us wary, but cabin fever chased us out of the house and into the water. We were in Fiji. Grow some balls, I told myself. Kind of like a carpe diem pep talk.
Now, you don't live in a beach house in tropics that is enshrouded in the jungle and not encounter bugs. Our first few nights were filled with more encounters with insects of ALL shapes and sizes than we were prepared for. We saw spiders that Australia should have prepared us for. Anything that size is called a 'mammal' in Canada. We began to understand why there were so many holes in the screens because all the spiders are the size of the one that ate Frodo.
*I take no responsibility for the accuracy of any LOTR references.
One night while Moozh and I were tucked inside from the rain, watching a diving documentary that our host had left for us, something began to crawl over the back of the armchair on the otherside of the room like a hand. Finger by finger, it revealed itself to be much bigger than we originally thought, or hoped. My "Grow some balls" pep talk didn't work. Paralyzed, I stood still, inching towards it to get a better look out of some sort of morbid fascination, while Moozh manufactured a long-distance weapon capable of serious carnage, usually some combination of brooms tied to dust pans tied to flame throwers. There should have been a warrior cry. But with only a slight, "Whoo", Moozh whapped it with all his force and it fell to the floor, looking only vaguely stunned. Legs folded inwards, there was no gore, no permanence. That spider would wake up later with a splitting headache, we were sure of it. I have never felt so flimsy before. I am a human and I am trumped in the hardiness department by a spider. A Fijian spider, in my defence.
Savusavu is described as "the last hidden paradise of Fiji". For anyone looking for not the Fiji of all-inclusives, of trinkets made in China, of gimmicks. If you want 'real' Fiji, where you encounter real people and how they live, Savusavu is one of the last places left. Stores are still shut when it's too hot. People will come out of their house to the curb side just to say hi to you. If you walk by someone while they are eating, they will invite you to sit and offer food to you. Every conversation follows the format of 1) What is your name? 2) Where are you from? 3) Where are you staying? At first, someone from the banal, impersonal North American mindset, this immediately comes across as nosy. But it grows on you when you realize that they are asking because they want to know and they want to know because they don't know you. Within days, you become a familiar face to people at the corner store and in the market. Cabbies who have driven you once or twice honk when they drive by you, like a neighbour would.
From what we had heard, while the Mamanuca Chain of islands to the West of Viti Levu are nearly all resort slammed, the Yasawa Chain, which is further north, is known for the Savusavu-style charm we were being wooed by. Small villages, more of a local flavour, just on much smaller islands. There you find the endless white sand beaches of lore. Our little shack in the woods was nestled between Savusavu town on the north end, and the famous Jean-Michel Cousteau resort on the south side. Fiji, despite all of the promotional photos we've all seen, is not known for its white sand beaches. It's actually not common to find the flawless white sand beaches. There are beautiful swimming beaches with fine white sand and crystal clear water. But what Fiji is truly world famous for, and justifiably so, is their coral. It is a diving and snorkelling paradise. At low tide, the water line with suck out for half a mile, revealing a marbling of coral and the maze-like root work of the mangroves. At low tide, you can walk what is known as 'Long Beach', which is completely submerged at high tide. It is a beachcombers paradise and provided a four hour walk along the south side of Vanua Levu. In future, we would take a map with us, as we got a little turned around trying to get back to the road and got a heady slap of red on our shoulders and faces to show for it.
A late afternoon swim in Nagigi garnered us an invitation to learn how to night fish beyond the outer reef and to come make homemade bread with the Seventh Day Adventists. Life takes a different pace. While Moozh was talking to Prohn, the spear fisherman who was going to take him night diving, I was talking with his eight-year-old son, Melikah, who was regaling me with stories of the tiger sharks he had seen in the bay.
"I saw a 3m tiger shark last week."
"What?!"
"Yeah-" He grinned ear to ear. "-and she had her baby with her."
"We were you in the water?!"
"Yeah."
"Were you scared?!"
"Yeah." And it ended there. No histrionics. No proclamations to never enter the water again. He had embraced the encounters as part of his life and as a necessary part of the cycle his life took. He was more interested in showing me how far he could already throw his spear than talking about a shark he would likely see hundreds of times in his future as a fisherman.
Fiji was a wonderful change from the expensive beer and food of Australia. $1 CAD is about $3 Fijian dollars. We were back to $1 beers and chowing down on cassava chips and cheap fresh fish. Fiji is a fascinating melting pot of cultures. Fiji was colonized by Britain but then Indian workers were brought in to work the sugar cane fields. Fresh roti and curries are to be found everywhere but Fiji has firmly embraced Western dishes like burgers, pizza, and fish and chips. While there are few token "Fijian" dishes, such as kokoda or fish lolo, that involve some variation on fresh fish, lime and coconut cream, it's difficult to find traditional Fijian dishes. The only conclusion I can come to is that cannibalism didn't officially leave the Fijian islands until well into the 1900's and therefore the tourism-appropriate menu choices were significantly diminished. We figured we'd stick to the cassava chips.
Moozh made it his mission to discover the best burger in Savusavu, which he deemed was to be at Joseph's Decked Out Cafe, which also had the most unique veggie burger I've ever had. (In this circumstance, unique is not a passive aggressive jab.) I surrendered my vegetarianism for three weeks (though it's not the first time) in favour of fish that I could literally seen be carried off the boat and handed to the chef. Speaking of vegetarianism, Fiji has really utilized its cannibalistic history, especially for tourism purposes. There isn't a single handicraft shop that you go into that you can't pick up a hand carved cannibal fork, specially designed for eating brains. The clubs used by warriors to break the necks of their opponents feature prominently in everything from the decorations at the airport to patterned tablecloths and artwork. While it is a joke amongst the locals and they find a great deal of humour in it, it is not a history they are ashamed of.
Once our skies had cleared up, we filled them with snorkelling and the waters of Savusavu Bay as much as we could. The world famous Fijian pearl company, J.Hunter Pearls, is based out of Savusavu, their primary pearl farm nestled right in Savusavu Bay. While all of the South Pacific islands produce black and navy coloured pearls from Black Pearl shells (and places like the Philippines and Australia produce white and gold coloured pearls from white- or silver-lipped shells), what makes Fiji pearls, and notably J.Hunter pearls, so unique is they can produce a rainbow of colours in their pearls, each pearl colour dictated by the coloured band that occurs naturally inside the lip of the oyster shell. Everything from a rosy purple to a goldish-pistachio colour, their pearls run the gamut of colour choice. For $25 a person, you can hop in a glass bottomed boat and they'll take you out to the farm. If you bring your gear, you can even jump in and snorkel the lengths of rope from which the oysters hang in grates, a method that prevents their susceptibility to predators and disease. The workers that manage the farm dive and check each grate every day. They gossip and gab on a floating pontoon, shucking the shells to inspect for disease and maturity. The jump from the boat into Savusavu Bay is a jarring one. The bay is much deeper, and darker, than you would possibly guess from the surface. The ends of the ropes disappear into the distance underwater, and descend row by row deeper than you can see.
Fiji was a more insular time, filled with indoor activities, than we had planned on. While we had dreamed of endlessly hot days on the beach, snorkelling until our backs were chapped with sun, we did a lot more reading and writing. We got caught up on sleep. We mapped out the rest of our trip. We reminded ourselves to take a moment when you can get it. We listened to the rain on the roof.
Greet strangers. It will make you happier. You'll feel more connected. And you'll be amazed who you'll meet.
Things I learned in Fiji:
Fijians really know how to make a good pizza.
In cyclone season, even at the end, be prepared for rain.
Fijians were cannibals. Seriously.
Quote for Fiji:
Me: We are officially in Fiji in Cyclone season. Life is a mosquito's breeding ground