4.21.8 - Monday - Day 10 (White Water Rafting and Horseback Riding)

Click here for the complete photo album for Day 10

We got up at 5:30 am to get ready for rafting. The report from Rea's tent was that a tent on a packed dirt floor with no pads is not comfortable.

When we got to the Pearl, which was where the Rivers Fiji offices were located, we were told that there was no room on the rafting trip because they had already sent out the food for the day. We sulked and ended up speaking with the head river guide, Moses. He spoke to the manager and we were allowed to bring our own food and go!

At that point we discovered that there were some scheduling issues (the manager had taken a reservation while at the bar the night before and forgotten to write it down) and we had an hour to kill before we headed out. We took the time to go buy some food to take with us.

Eventualy we climbed on the bus and headed down the coast. We hit our turn off and waited a bit to collect the almost forgotten people who were coming from the other direction. I got a great picture of Todd and Chris under a HUGE banyon tree.

Todd and Chris are a good 50ft in front of the tree so it's even bigger than it looks!

The road through the rain-forest covered mountians was amazing. The views and the forrest were beautiful. We went through Mahogany groves (well not so much groves as jungle infested with mahogany trees). They are not native and cause problems with some of the local food plants. That is they kill the taro root and other traditional staples because they make the soil too acidic. But on the other hand they are a good source om income, the guides were conflicted about it. We gave a ride to a half a dozen local guys to the village that was near the head of the river. They bounced around in the back of the buss but were somehow unhurt. We arrived at the put in point and then hiked around the first rapid while the guides went down it alont, it was a class 4.

Our Guides took the boats through that alone

We got in in the pool below the rapids and were off. Chris and a woman from the Soloman Islands (who had shared our dorm the previous night) were in front and Todd and I were in the back. Moses was our guide. Rae and Meadow skiped the rafting due to money and fear of death, though as we would find out their day was at least as exciting as ours.

Our Entry: Less Excitement AND Less Death!

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves but... we went through canyons and waterfalls with mild rapids and eventualy we got to a swimming hole. We had lunch there then swam in the poole where a tributary joined the river. I hiked up half a dozen falls and explored. I came back in sight of the rest of the party just as people were prepairing to leave, one of the guides gestured to me, motioning for me to come back. I gave the OK sign a half a second before remembering that that is the sign for 'ass hole' in fijian. The guide looked shocked and then another guide gestured furiously to him giving the thumbs up signal and explaining that I was a stupid tourist. The other guide was mullified and the international peace was maintained.

What the rapids lacked in thrills they made up for in beauty.

A bit further down the river was the 'free massage waterfall' which you could either lay or stand under...wonderfull! Todd, Chris and I all ended up laying under it. The water was coming down so hard you could bearly force yourself back up to your knees to crawl out from under it.

Ooh, the first waterfall that we passed fell onto jagged rocks and was called the 'Push Each other" waterfall. The story was that in pre-western Fiji a man's two wives went up to do laundry and after a long argumentended up pushing each other off. Moses insisted that he had been up to the top hunting boar and had seen the remains of their washing pottery.

Thanks to Moses for the photo.

On the flat water there was a lot of horse play, Moses kept trying to knock one of the other guides into the water. He had me try to hook him with the T of my paddle but he hung on. A few minutes later we came up behind his boat again and I grabed him by his lifejacket. I pulled and he fell backwards flailing in the ier for a few seconds before loosing his balance and falling into the river. It was funny but Moses completely lost it, laughing so hard he had tears running down his face.

And this is Moses!

Chris: "Are you fresh and full of life?"

Meadow: "Yes...except when I'm not...then I'm stale and full of dead."

We took out at a small interior village, some cynder block buildings but a lot of traditional burries too. Just north of the village there was a guy in a loin cloth with a cane knife and all his clothes held above his head wadeing and then swimming across the river. We used the rafts to ferry a few people across the river.

Oh, further up the river we passed a guy building a bili bili, a traditional bamboo raft. Although he was making it out of the larger imported bamboo rather than the smaller native bamboo.

Two more shots of the canyon

The ride back was breathtaking and spine jarring but uneventful. We dropped our things at the dorm and walked down to the beach to find Rae and Meadow.

They came galloping, or at least cantering, down the beach just as we arived. I'll leave the story of their cyninatic and equine adventures for one of them to detail:

Rae's horse was named 'Treason'!

We went to the uprising bar for dinner. By the end of the meal I had a splitting headache. The rest of the crew drove down to the Perl for drinks while I turned in early. It was raining. Again I'll leave their adventure or lack there of for them to describe:

Meadow: "I have a tan and two dollars Fijian.

Another sunset, because every day ended like that!

LINKS:

Rivers Fiji


Profesional Video of Rafting on the Upper Nevaru


Amature video, but it has Moses

4.20.8 - Sunday - Day 9 (Drive to the Coral Coast)

Click here for the complete photo album for Day 9





We had done some packing the night before but after a weeks spreading out we had some work to do...things were looking grim. (Note the remains of the Jackfruit above) I decided to buy everyone breakfast before any blood was spilled. And yes, I got up early and went for my run on the beach! In any case the packing went more smoothly after a tasty meal on the patio of the pool bar.

Meadow: "I went diving...I am entitled to my sultananess!."

We got out of the resort in the early afternoon and st oped at the port for meat pies and to exchange money. Shortly after leaving Rae missed her wallet. It was feared that she had left it at the money exchanging place (there is a word for that that is escaping me...) It was not until we unpacked the van for the final time days later that we found it wedged underneath a seat.

Rae: I was missing it, but had the gut feeling it was in the van. And... it was, so no harm done.

From a graveyard near Denerau

The drive was long but scenic. We passed a turnoff that lead to a waterfall we had been told about but it eas further from Pacific Harbor than we had thought so we doubted we would be able to make it back... next time.





It was late afternoon when we got to pacific Harbor so we stopped for a late lunch/early dinner at the cultural center. It has a nice feel. It is sort of a tourist thing but feels nothing like the port at Denerau, which is the apotheosis of timeshares.





We took some photos and had lunch sitting on a deck overlooking a lilly pond. We used their Internet to make reservations at 'Uprising" resort. It was too late to contact the rafting place but we got their number and address for the next morning.





We arrived at Uprising at dusk. It's a beautiful place, all traditional architecture, grass palm fronds and wood. The dorm building was a lot like an African safari lodge. (See photos) The grounds were awesome and the bar open and friendly, all in rich wood.





Rae set up her tent next to the dorm to save money and she, Chris and I decided to go for a walk on the beach. It was full dark at this point but there was a moon and the beach was beautiful. We walked down the beach playing in the water a bit.

Meadow: "Dead tourists are bad juju."

Re falling off the mountain above Octopus resort on Waya

We spotted a cluster of lights flickering in the distance down the beach, at least a mile away. I made the joking comment that we should walk all the way there. We speculated that the lights might be 'The Pearl" a near by resort with a reputation for being very posh. (We later found out that it is one of the few five star resorts in the south pacific.)





After a long walk and a number of handstands by Chris we arrived at the lights. They were indeed the Pearl, and it was indeed posh! Everything was lit by torches and candle light. There was a large horseshoe of broad benches with cream colored sued cushons. They were too deep to sit in, you had to recline back onto the pellows. They had a slate platform behind them to rest your drinks on. Inside the bar which resembled a Japanese tea house and a sultans plesure chamber silmoultaniously there were brightly colored silk beanbags and tables made from slices of local hardwoods.

Our Dorm at the Uprising

We wondered into the totaly empty bar and a bartender drifted out of the shadows and handed us menues. I ordered a passionfruit mojito... it was without question the best drink I have ever had, layer after layer of taste...sooo good. After tasting mine Rae ordered one too. It cost more than her night stay at uprising! (ok, so she was sleeping in a tent)

Rae: That drink was orgasmically, mind-blowingly good. I am building a shrine to it when I return.

Flower from the lily pond at the cultural center in Pacific Harbor

Meadow: "I don't think even Fijian food comes in blue..."

We wondered back to the uprising avoiding being attacked by beach guard dogs by walking in the surf and then watched Chris do many more handstands.

Rae: Wait...when was the skinny-dipping?

Chris B: The skinny dipping was the next day, keep your pants on :)

The friendly open bar at Uprising

We found Todd and Meadow playing pool in the uprising's dining room/bar. We joined them for a couple of games, drank some "Fiji Gold" and "Fiji Bitter" and then headed back to the dorm to crash. In the 25 bed dorm there were two other guests. There were fans but no air conditioning, it was fine. And, yay, our first mosquito nets!

LINKS:

Arts Village


Uprising Resort


The Pearl


Video of Uprising


Map of Pacific Harbor

4.19.8 - Saturday - Day 8 (Sigatoka Sand Dunes)

Click here for the complete photo album for Day 8

I went for my run then went down and picked up the van we had reserved, much bigger than our mini, and with great clearance, no more bottoming out on every pothole. While I was running and getting the van Rae and Chris rode the Bula Bus over to some of the other resorts to take pictures.





We drove south to Sigatoka and stopped at the Catholic Hospital there to pick up another Peace Corps volunteer that Rae was friendly with. She gave us cinnamon rolls and showed us the back way to the sand dunes that we had come to see, thus avoiding the normal tourist fee for visiting them.

Todd, you can be the Pirate Jesus and I'll be the Ninja Jesus."

-Chris B en-route to the Waya Ferry

We parked on the local rugby field and scrambled up the sand dunes, they were HUGE! It was a hundred or so feet up the first dune and then several more levels of 10 or 20 feet above that. When we got to the top I handed off my camera in case I felt the uncontrollable urge to throw myself off a dune...which I of course did. I really want to have a snow board there. We crossed the dunes until we could see the ocean. The view of the beach hundreds of feet below was spectacular. A storm blew in and we got some great photos.





We drove back to Sigatoka and Jess showed us a great little curry house up an unmarked stairwell on the second story of an indistinct building. We sat and drank masala tea while the storm let loose around us. This is one of my favorite moments of the trip, you just can't buy that kind of thing. It was a real place, not something built like Denerau, and it had magic in it. It's places like that that make me want to pick up and travel.





On the way back we decided to find Natadola beach. We had seen the turn off on our way down and found it without any trouble. We went down the increasingly exciting road. The rain stopped and there was a terrific double rainbow. We could actually see the spot where it hit the ground! The road continued to get worse and we were about to decide we were lost when we came upon a guy who seemed to tell us that we were going in the right direction. We persevered and after almost getting stuck in the mud three or four times we found the beach. They are in the process of building a resort at one end!!!! Meh! It looks like a nice enough resort but I hate to see the beach 'discovered'. I mean they will have to pave the road and that will make it more accessible and thus less special. Still it was as beautiful as I remembered it. We got there just in time for sunset. It was a little dark for great pictures, but we took them anyway as it was too late to go snorkeling. On the way back we stopped to take a picture of a particularly treacherous bridge we had had to cross. Crossing it in the dark was an interesting experience!

Rae: "You were like a sultan!"
Chris B: Mmm...a sultan with itty bitty living space."

-In regards to my tent at pennsic last year.

Rae: Was that in regards to the Pennsic tent.. or the one under Uprising with the pillows? I forget.

Chris B: Might have been the Uprising tent...when I was napping with that headache while you all went back to therPerl... humm...

Chris S: I think it was about the tent at Uprising with the pillows.

Chris B: In any case...

We made it back to the resort without incident and stopped at the port for dinner. We ran into a Pan Pacific dance performance at the port. The dancers were gorgeous and their fire work was excellent. They had batons and poi and they did group work with stacking...kind of like flaming cheerleaders... It was universally agreed that we should take them all home with us. Dinner was delicious meat pies. I love those things!!!!





LINKS:


UNESCO Site for the Sigatoka Sand Dunes


Evil resort on my beach


Our trip to Natadola was just like this.

4.18.8 - Friday - Day 7 (Garden of the Sleeping Giant)

Click here for the complete photo album for Day 7

Got up and ran again with Rae. There were little fishes on the beach and a group of Fijians had stopped a ways down the beach to net fish for bait. Rae stopped to watch and talked with another guest while I did the rest of my run. We came back and had a late breakfast and then set out for the 'Garden of the Sleeping Giant' .

"We've escaped the jaws of luxury!"

-Chris B on leaving Denarau Island

After finding that the taxis lingering by the resort wanted to charge us $80 roundtrip to get to the garden, we took the Bula bus to the front gate and then got lucky and caught a resort shuttle that was running to the airport. the driver charged us $1 each, it was spacious and had air-conditioning. Then we caught a taxi to the garden. As soon as we got into the taxi Rae realised she had left the camera in the resort shuttle so we had a 'Follow that car' moment and rushed to the airport. We found the resort shuttle with no problem and recovered the camera. Good thing that Rae had chatted with the driver. So, then we really headed to the garden.





We passed from the semi-arid landscape of the coast into a pocket of rainforest in a canyon and found the garden. The first part of the walk was through a display of potted orchids. It was a quarter of a mile long and was amazing! I can't remember for sure if we came here with Mom on the last trip but she would have loved it.





The second part of the walk entered the rainforest. There was a wooden walkway that lead across a pond to a trail we wandered up a bit splitting up taking photos and exploring. Eventually we met up at the top of the valley where we found a trail leading up to the ridge above the rainforest. The view was spectacular, though the last few hundred yards were extremely steep. We saw a herd of goats clinging to the cliff face. The top of the ridge had a fence and the grass on the top was indeed greener. It was blazing hot in the sun and we enjoyed sitting at the top for a bit of a rest enjoying what slight breeze there was, watching storm clouds roll in from a distance.

"...that's a bad place to sit licking your balls!"

-Chris B on seeing a puppy sitting in the middle of the road doing his business

We climbed back down and enjoyed our complimentary juice...real juice this time, and on ice even! We caught a ride down to the main road in the back of the caretakers' truck, they were just closing up and were heading down anyway. We caught our cab that we had arranged to come back for us at the entrance and headed back to Denarau.





We planned on going out dancing but were all kind of beat. Meadow turned in early and the rest of us made Bounty-heavy Pina coladas and poured them into water bottles and went into the ocean to drink them. We stopped by the spa for a bit before turning in.

LINKS:


Garden of the Sleeping Giant Info



More Garden of the sleeping giant photos (not ours)

4.17.8 - Thursday - Day 6 (Beach and Windsurfing)

Click here for the complete photo album for Day 6

I got up for a longer run, I went both ways on the beach and Rae and Chris went and did yoga on the grass above the beach. We came back and had a lazy brekfast and then went down to the beach. Meadow and I played in the water whie Chris and Rae learned to windsurf. There wasn't much wind which made it more difficult to figure out what you were doing, but they had a great time trying, eventualy they both got going pretty well. Todd gave it a try and his size was an advantage though with the light wind the result was much the same. I ran up and grabed indian leftovers and ate on the beach while Meadow took pictures. Eventualy I went down to try. I had been hoping that I would remember how it was done from trying it in Cancun and I did! But the wind was so light that I had the same result as everyone else, though Ididn't fall at all.







Rae, Chris and I grabed messae oil and ran down to the hot tub and then to the grass above the beach for messages. Can't say that sucked. By the tine we got back we were in no mood to cook so we went to the poolside bar and got dinner. Lots of interesting food even my hamburger had an egg on it. Rae was a pain trying to get what she wanted but insisted "I'm Simple!" ...We were like, yes, yes Rae you are. ;)

Rae: Hey! What I wanted was simple.. it was a really simple meal. Just because asking for it was complicated doesn't make the meal any less simple. :P

4.16.8 - Wednesday - Day 5 (Ba and Laotoka)

Click here for the complete photo album for Day 5

Rae and I got up early so that we would have time to go for our run and still be ready in time to pick up the car we rented to go to Ba. Ba is the town where Rae is stationed, it is in the northeast of Viti Levu.





Our car was too cute, really so cute that it was not suited for Fiji. It looked like a mini but had the clearence of a doxin. We headed north on the costal road which like most of fiji was ocianic.





Ba is a cute village, primarily indian the houses are well kept and the yards gated. The gates and the dogs are to prevent theft which Rae says has been a problem since the first coup (just before my firt visit here). We stoped at the Senior Center where Rae works but they were having a dental health presentation so we went to her house to drop off the things we bought for Rae and to visit her host family...

Nandi Taxi
6722619

Rae's 'uncle' reminded me a bit of Papa Mac my maternal grandfather, he showed us his garden...turns out that gardening in Fiji works really well. Her 'Auntie' reminded me of an excited bird. There was alot of face touching. They offered us 'juce' which in Fiji means soda, in this case kind of Lemonata but sweeter. Thre dog was cute, huge not quite floppy ears and a little stubby tail. Rae's cat chote was also cute and afectionate. We distributed the gifts we bought, Jhonny Walker for uncle and silk flowers for auntie.






We drove back to the senior center, it was full of very sweet afectionate indian grandmothers! They were sweet, we had 'Cha' ie 'Chai' and Badgi which are little chickpea and spinich fritters, delicious. The two younger woemen who ran the center were interesting. Dorthy who has had both her hips replaced, looks to be late 20's and Ravi who is a bit older and irrepressable. She has the most inapropriate conversations with Rae. She invited us to come see her village next week, it is a historical colonial settlement near the mill that was the primary source of industry near the turn of the century.





We stoped on our way back to try to get to a beach that Rae had seen the sign for. The car couldn't handle it but we got half a mile down a beautiful dirt road and took some great pictures. We also snuck off into a cane field to pee.





In Laotoks we stoped to drop off the alchohol that we had bought for Tim, Rae's peice corps friend. He went out to dinner with us. On the way Chris finaly tried to drive on the wrong side of the road :) We ate at a little indian resturaunt that had the spiciest best samosas and these sausages wraped in roti with cheese and carrots and a yougure sauce that were amazing! The owner was making an order of 25 for the prime minister who was passing through town and always gets them for his whole family... they were that good.





It was late when we got back and we pretty much crashed.

4.15.8 - Tuesday - Day 4 (Scooters and Icecream)

Click here for the complete photo album for Day 4

I got up early again and ran the other way on the beach, past the neighboring resorts and then back the way I went the first day a bit. Shakes again for breakfast, I used the yummy rich yogurt from the plane.





I decided that it would be fun to rent scooters from the resort and ride to Natadola beach. While the rental paperwork was being completed, Chris & Rae met two Americans making their living as stewardess and pilot for a private jet who were just returning their rental scooters. During their morning expedition, the stewardess, Lisa,'s jaw got whacked by a traffic barrier arm. It was painful but she seemed alright overall. They were thankful for Rae's insider advice on local medical care. We rented scooters for three. Rae and I on one, Chris and Todd on the second and Meadow on the third. Meadow was a little nervous starting out but did OK... then we hit traffic and things got more difficult. When we saw that the highway was going to be even worse we stopped, took some photos of the local school and a very artsy building and headed back. This time with the Chris's on one and Todd and Meadow on the other.





Chris instigated my riding the scooter onto the golf course... everyone and hilarity followed. By the end I was feeling pretty comfortable riding and am really looking forward to my class when I get back.





We were a bit hungry and stopped by the Sheraton on the way back to eat the Tuna fish sandwich picnic launch we had packed for the beach and watched the rain clouds move in over the ocean. Another pretty resort, we took photos of their lilly ponds.





We got back and headed directly to the port to pick up some food. We went by the ice cream shop, I had a delicious Mango Sorbet! They even had no-sugar-added chocolate ice cream for Chris.

Earlier that morning Meadow and I had walked down the road to a little coffee shop and had breakfast. We stopped by the corner store and picked up ground beef. So that night for dinner, Rae made Roti, aka tortillas, and we had a reasonable facsimile of tacos using the little peppers that we'd bought at the outdoor market. They were pretty spicy and I used too many, but everyone liked the result. Rae's auntie would've been proud of how well she made roti, especially since she had to use a glass for a rolling pin. What a fine Indian housewife she'd make! :)





There was more sitting about on our veranda and eventually sleep.