I got up early and went for a run on the beach with Rae. We went about a mile before I hit the end where the sand ran hard into an almost impenetrable wall of mangrove trees. The whole of the 'island' of Denarau used to be a mangrove swamp, they cleared sections of the shoreline for the resort beaches but in between the mangroves are intact. The sand was artificially brought in...the effect is interesting in that you have what seems like white coral beaches but the water is not the clear blue you would expect but instead the nutrient rich water that you would find in a mangrove swamp. It's not nasty just not clear coral reef kind of water. I was tempted to crawl back into the trees but I was running barefoot and thought the better of it. There was a palm tree spring that we played on for a bit, (see illustration) and then we headed back. We made coffee and shakes for the others who were just getting up.
We wanted to go into Nadi to buy fruit and groceries. We caught a cab into town and Rae chatted up the driver who talked about how the local villages own the land of Denarau and benefit from the tourism. This was a regular cab not a 'running cab.' In fiji since cabs are often taken between towns it is cheeper to take a cab that is making it's return trip, since the cab would have to drive there anyway. So a $3 ride might cost $.50 if you cought a running cab. Nadi looks much the same as it did twenty years ago but the atmosphere has become hugely predatory to tourists. There are more shops dedicated to tourist kitch, much of which is unrelated to Fiji. We were headed into a "Fiji Shop" with relatively high quality carved goods and ushered to the back to a kava ceremony. It was somewhat sketchy and Todd and Rae were a bit uncomfortable but it turned out to be relatively benign. They were just using the ceremony to get people into the shop and in the mood to buy. The smell of the Kava was familiar and it still tastes like muddy water with pepper. Kava is the traditional drink in Fiji, kind of like alchohol though cava is usualy drank during a kava ceremony used to welcome visitors. On my first visit to Fiji we had to present kava root to the cheif of a remote village on an island to get permission to stay on the island. Kava is mildly narcotic and not what one would call a performance enhancing drug.
We found the local open air market and had another language lesson from Rae as she explained the Fijian names for the fruits and vegetables we wanted. We got some of the best papaya. Todd and Meadow found a Jackfruit. And we discovered moli, which we renamed mystery fruit, an odd fruit that's a kind of generic citrus. Fruits from the same tree may taste different-some more like oranges, some like limes, etc. There's no way to tell until you bite into it what exactly it'll taste like.
We went to the post office and the local outdoor craft market where Rae met a shop keeper who knew the family in Ba that she was staying with. (This would become a theme, Fiji as it turns out is a small country.) Then we loaded up our taxi and headed back to the resort.
Oh, public restrooms there are scary and had the Indian reversed swastika symbol, which is unrelated to the Nazi symbol, and other poorly spelled graffiti.
We made a dahl (chickpea gravy) for dinner and sat on our porch drinking and chatting for a bit...but it turns out that we were a bit tired at this point and all ended up in bead by 10.
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