Fiji

I had a good start to my trip to Fiji with a beautiful sun rise out of the plane window and a glass of wine (courtesy of Air New Zealand) in my hand.
I arrived at the airport on Viti Levu Island in Fiji and was picked up by one of the many people working at the hostel I was to stay at. It wasn't the best hostel I've ever stayed in but it did have some interesting things happening. There were more staff per guest than any place I've seen before. All of them wanted you to book a package through them to one of the little islands off the main land. One guy was so keen that I booked through him and not anyone else that he came up to my room to discuss it with me. I was happily catching up on a bit of sleep when he knocked on the door and came in. He sat down on a bed opposite me then asked if I was sleeping. After establishing that I was he continued to try and persuade me to book my trip through him. Unsurprisingly he didn't succeed. A couple of other things the hostel offered were free internet (when it worked) and free breakfast – two pieces of toast and jam handed to you ready spread, may be on a plate or may be not.
Conny, my bungy jump partner in New Zealand flew to Fiji on the same day as me and the following day we set off to an island called Waya. It was an hour and a half boat ride passed lots of other islands, some so small that it looked like you could get from one side to the other in just a few minutes. Waya was bigger with four villages and volcanic rocks / hills inland from the beaches which surrounded its edge. There were no roads at all so everyone just got around on foot or by boat. We stayed in two different places, one where we had a few hours of electricity in the evenings and the other where there was no electricity at all. It was so peaceful. Our time was spent reading and lying in hammocks, eating, swimming and snorkeling and exploring the island. We tried Kava, the local alternative to alcohol. It's made from the roots of the Kava plant which are wrapped in cloth and squashed in water against the side of a bowl making a drink that looks (and tastes) like mud. It's supposed to have a relaxing effect although we're not really sure that it worked for us.
There were hardly any other tourists on the island so we really got to see how the local Fijians lived their lives. We met some of the men from our local village who had just come in from a mornings fishing. They were spearing their fish through the gills and mouths with strips of palm tree leaves so they could be carried easily back to the village. They then planned to smoke them before taking them over to the main land to sell. A lot of the men carried around huge machetes one of which came in very useful when we were struggling to open a coconut. The guy held the coconut in the palm of one of his hands and repeatedly chopped at it with the other until it opened, amazingly managing not to loose any of his fingers in the process. If any of us had tried it, we no doubt would have lost our whole hand. We also passed a group of ladies sitting down eating paw paw. They’d been out collecting fruits from their plantations which you could find by following little paths into the jungle where a clearing had been made and their fruit trees grew.
We spent an afternoon snorkeling around the reef with the constant fear in the backs of our minds of being eaten by a shark or killed by the killer snakes. We survived though and although it wasn’t quite the amazing colours I was expecting we did see lots of different fish, lovely blue star fish, many sea cucumbers and lots of coral.
There was a boarding school on the island with a huge sports field where one afternoon a rugby match between the team from our village and a team from another island took place. It was really good to watch. Although my cousin Jack and Uncle Ian both tried to teach me a few of the rugby rules when I was with them I still was none the wiser to what was going on or what the score was. I did find out that our team won though so that was good. We were told that the winning team gets $100 (Fiji) which is put together by the village of the losing team. We were also told that the last match our team played ended early in a big fight. I was very pleased that in the match we watched everyone seemed quite happy and friendly towards both each other and us.
After our week of complete relaxation Conny and I set off for Los Angeles.