Once I spent a few minutes in the room getting settled, I made my way down to the restaurant so I could have some dinner. I had just opened my books to get started and a woman approached me and asked if she could join me. I was a bit shocked, not sure if that’s ever happened before (drunk guys often, but not women). She told me about how she had met her ex-husband in Canada (where she was from) and moved to Fiji to be with him. She raised two children here. It is a beautiful place, but I’m not quite sure I’d want to live here full-time. She gave me a suggestion of where to go to swim with dolphins. I NEED to make it there!!
And you know what? I made it happen. It took a few phone calls, a little bit of waiting, and a long, wild bumpy ride but I made it. I called Jay (the tourguide for the resort) a couple times before I could secure a room. At first, he told me I was going to have to take a local bus up to one of the towns and then find a taxi from the town to take me to the resort. I started thinking about how adventurous I was feeling. Then, luckily, another option came up. There was a bus picking some people up from the Nadi airport (3.5 hours away) and would be swinging by Suva because of the lack of road structure and could pick me up. Yes that would be perfect! So, I make absolutely sure to make it back to the hotel within plenty of time of the bus coming. I wait around for one, and then two hours. Jay the tour guide called me to ensure that the bus was still coming. Finally, it did. After picking me up at the hotel, we went right across the street to pick up another couple of people which turned out to be Jay himself and his fiancé, of whom I can’t remember her name, but she looks just like my friend Ashley so that’s what I’m going to call her. I was surprised, I didn’t think I would see Jay until I got to the resort. I’m sure he told me at some point that he was in Suva, but I couldn’t decipher his English well enough. He did mention that he comes to Suva often though to see friends because there is no nightlife in Takalana. His fiancé is French and previously worked in the French embassy in Suva, which is when she met Jay. After spending a year back in France, she quit life to move to where Jay was, all in the name of love. Anyways, I digress.
The ride to the resort was long, it was windy, the driver was nuts and couldn’t wait to make it there. I wouldn’t be able to wait either after driving a 12 hour or so day. We tossed and turned and held the seat for dear life, the gasps from the few passengers on the bus seemed to subside the longer we withstood the craziness, and I looked to Jay for reassurance. He seemed totally not bothered by the situation. This made me feel slightly better. Along the way we stopped, after long distances to talk to random people the driver knew, to pick up dinner along the way (some mussels) and finally for a pit stop for snacks, (or beer) before the last hour stretch on the dirt road on the way to the village.
Dirt roads, they sure were. We were now lurching out of our seats because of the lack of seatbelts, but at least we had slowed down a bit because the bus couldn’t stand the same speed on the dirt road. We passed by kids bathing in the streams, desperate to wave at us. We arrived just at nightfall and dropped the first couple off at their cabin. We continued down the road a little bit until we came to another village, and I was promptly shown to my cabin. It was small, there was a candle in the corner meant to keep away the mosquitoes as well as a mosquito net over the bed and a rustic and very outdoorsy (almost basement-like) bathroom which ran only cold water, but it was only mine. The bed was creaky and uncomfortable, but that was a decent price to pay for a night in a remote Fijian village.
I organized my things and then headed to dinner, gathered, prepared and cooked by the local village but unfortunately, it wasn’t all that appetizing. I picked at it, we all did (me, Ashley and Jay) but without speaking, none of us were too impressed. There was a camp staying in the local village this week, it was a mixture of local village children and international school children from Suva. They were putting on short skits for each other, and the variety between what the local kids were presenting versus the international school was striking. First off, the local Fijian teachers spoke to all the children in Fijian, whereas the international kids could not understand. When the international school children presented, they presented skits where the local kids’ were all about dance and song-related activity. Local kids were outgoing while many of the international kids were shy. It was quite interesting to observe them all.
Jay asked if we would like to have a bonfire, and why not? They put together one unlike I have ever seen, and much better than we make in Maine! The key seems to be to make a teepee with the wood before starting it up, because they came up with a raging fire. Jay broke out his guitar and if I closed my eyes I almost forgot where I was… I could imagine myself in any of the many locations close to home and the ones I love where I have had bonfires and sat on the beach taking in the heat of the fire and humidity of the air. But then, when they realized I hadn’t had the pleasure of trying it yet, they invited me to try cava, and I couldn’t really resist. I HAD to try it while in Fiji. Drinking cava, (grog) is a ritualistic ceremony which usually takes part on the weekends that was initially introduced to be somewhat of a peace treaty between tribes because it relaxes your senses. It’s like a drug, it is an aphrodisiac, it also helps as a sleep aid, it’s quite a calming substance and can really f*** you up if you have enough of it. It’s made of a plant that is dried and smooshed into a powder and then water is added to make it into a drink. I think it tastes like tea, other people will say dirty water. But it does numb the throat a bit. I didn’t notice a difference in my state of being, it didn’t hit me like a drug, and neither did a notice a difference in how I slept (besides being scared there were ants and spiders being on me which kept me awake). It had been a nice night, but I was excited to see some dolphins in the morning. It was time for bed.
After washing up with cold water, I made sure the candle (or was it an incense burner?) was all set up and I shut the lights and climbed under the mosquito net. I tossed and turned for hours, it was like sleeping outside – hearing the moos and the hees and haws and cockadoodledoos from the farm animals. I wanted to see the sunrise in the morning, but that didn’t happen because it was too cloudy. Bummer. While as usual I didn’t really want to get out of bed, it wasn’t particularly hard to want to after finding a few ants crawling around in my bed.
I soon found out that Fijian time is very similar to Caribbean time. My host didn’t join the breakfast table until well after an hour from when he said he would. Breakfast wasn’t all that much more appetizing than dinner had been, so I picked once again. Careful about anything that could possibly contain nuts since I was in such a remote location. One of the village boys I had met the night before at the bonfire seemed to take a liking to me and that morning asked me if I would like to be shown around his town. So we walked. I met all his brothers, the oldest woman in the village, I saw the house he lived in and some of his other siblings eating breakfast at their friend’s house. An Uncle was tending to the cattle, while another stocked wood. Life here was simple, but looked enjoyable; everything you needed was right in front of you. And they had the ocean just a 2 minute walk away, if that. I could potentially live there. And I had an opportunity for it to! Haha. So, Fijian boy asked me if I had a boyfriend. I said no, but that I was dating someone at home. So he asked me, what does it mean you are dating someone? So I told him, we have been out on dates - out to dinner, to the movies, etc. and we are trying to figure out if we like each other. If we like each other, then he will be my boyfriend. So, Fiji boy says to me – well can we go out on a date? Hmmmm… well, maybe we could but I’m leaving today. Well can we go on a date today? So I laugh, and say sure. How long does it take you to get here from your country, he asks – a week? No… about a full 24 hours. During the course of the day, I was asked many times whether I would be coming back to Fiji and if he could be my boyfriend. I tried to be nice, but towards the end I found myself trying to be more harsh with my answers because he just wasn’t getting it. Fiji is very far away from my home so no, I wouldn’t be coming back to Fiji and no he couldn’t be my boyfriend. Oh men, they’re the same everywhere aren’t they…...
Finally we left to go out to our dolphin excursion. It was pretty amazing, we went out into rough waters, but all of a sudden it calmed down. Everything suddenly seemed to get much brighter and the bottom of the ocean floor didn’t seem to be that far away. Suddenly… there they were. A large school of beautiful, large mammals were hopping in and out of the water, staying very close to the surface. It sure was an absolutely incredible sight to see. We were in the middle of the Moon Reef. After following the dolphins for an hour, we stopped in the middle of the reef to take a snorkeling trip. It was the most amazing snorkeling I think I have ever done. The water was a bit rough and I was a little nervous in the vast ocean after first jumping in. The coral was totally untouched and absolutely amazing in beauty – so many bright colors, and I saw huge purple starfish, about a foot long each amongst other underwater wildlife. I did see a turtle too! I snorkeled for an hour, despite that it was slightly cold and even raining out, but I had to do it. I was shivering by the time I was going to get out, and we were quite far away from the boat – well a 5 minute swim away. After returning to the boat, we went back to the village and packed up to go. I had a nice lunch with the French girl, it was actually the first nice-tasting meal since I had been in the village. Soon after we left in a taxi.
The ride back to the city felt a whole lot safer than the one we had taken out. We took a taxi to the city and then a friend of Jay’s drove us back the rest of the way to the city. They so graciously invited me to dinner that night at an Indian restaurant, I tried to eat the food which was delicious but I was just too nervous about my nut allergy, so instead when we went across the street for dessert, I ordered a nice, juicy burger there. But, it was really nice to hang out with some fun people, that really makes or breaks survey. Some of them worked for the French embassy, some were from Asia. All were really nice young people. What a weekend it was.
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