Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Fiji, South Pacific pt.2
After that brunch we, Brad & I, moved on to our Bure (another name for Cabin) which was a short walk down the path toward the beach. We enjoyed it very much as it had a decidedly rustic look and feel to it as they designed it with hardwoods a-plenty. The beds were very comfortable and the patio was great too, though it would have been nice to have a more unobstructed view of the ocean from there (too many palm trees in the way). I enjoyed sitting out there smoking my pipe, feeling the breeze from open water and listening to the sea birds chirp at each other! The pool had a small but fairly tall waterfall and some boulders afixed in the pool at the shallow end, I brought a few books to read through and it was great to sit by the pool and read with the waterfall in the background. The locals were nicer to us than I was prepared for and alot of fun as well! The amount of down-time or re-covery time that you have after diving allows for alot of relaxation even though for many, it all may be needed after fighting and swimming against the ocean current for the better part of 45 minutes twice or more per day.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Fiji, South Pacific
It has surely been a while since my last post and I am wondering if I am disciplined enough to even be a 'blogger' in any sense of the word. Alas, I am here and I’m a typing none the less! We all went to Fiji last month for 2 weeks and it surely was something amazing to experience! Quite a big change from our many times in the warm and sometimes seemingly lifeless Caribbean. The flight from LAX was ~11 hours to Nadi, Fiji (Viti Levu); that, after a 6 hour flight from BWI. Some locals pronounce Nadi as Nandi, but either way is acceptable over there. The flight was the longest I have ever been on personally and it was a somewhat rough thing to handle as I am a 230 lb 6"2' strapping adult male, one who doesn’t exactly fit into tight spaces all that easily (a fact that has also slowed any purchase of exotic Italian sports cars as well...that fact and the money issue of course). Both flights to and fro were not full and we were able to expand our 'jurisdictions' to a few seats to allow for some leg room; this fact helped immensely in my surviving of the long journey.
Dram Bula to You, Adi's & Rati's!
Fiji is an island chain made up of over 322 separate islands, some large some small, some inhabited some isolated from civilization and therefore open to any and all solitary explorers (oh what fun that would be!). As I said earlier, we landed in Nadi, on the western coast of the big island called Viti Levu which means simply "Big Fiji". I found it interesting to note that Fiji is only a 3 hour flight from Brisbane, Australia. It was neat and also kind of sad to be so close to Aussie country and yet know that we wouldn’t be able to check the place out on this trip. As I have heard many times on cable "I have the travel bug" and indeed I do too! From Nadi we took a 2.5 hour long taxi ride to the Resort located on the northwestern corner of Viti Levu outside a town called Rakiraki. During the taxi ride, I spoke with our driver, Sai, for some time while we trucked through his beautiful home. I noted the range of terrains the big island boasted, everything from sandy and rocky coastline, to marsh and mangrove swamps, to open gently rolling plains and finally up to some fairly intimidating mountains which run along the spine of the Big Viti. I will be adding pictures to my facebook site sometime when I get around to it but alas for many of you, FB shrinks the pix to a smaller size with lower resolution so you might not get to fully appreciate the landscape as I was able to. For those of you not familiar with the 'rules' and procedures having to do with driving on an island, either in the Caribbean or in the South Pacific (as I came to discover that nothing really changes from island to island, no matter where it is located), I find it important to note that the concepts of #1) Lanes & #2) speed limits & #3) turn signals really do not apply accept when driving past the local police station and/or the local courthouse building(s). I, being a die hard fan of any and all fast + aggressive driving and road racing...no matter the type of auto being piloted, was thoroughly enjoying Sai's fast and jerky avoidance of the plethora of car-swallowing potholes located or should I say littered along the roads there, both highways and the smaller streets but the same could not necessarily be said for those in the back of the van (I was riding shotgun with Sai in the left-hand seat; yes, the steering column was on the right side of the van). I looked back at different times to find everyone holding some kind of handle to steady themselves as we bounced down the road. It really is cool to see how no one really gets hurt while passing through so many intersections with no stop lights or stop signs for that matter. Americans are so different, in a bad/worse way to boot!
So after a full 2.5 hours we arrived at "Wananavu Resort", the driveway to which was probably the bumpiest 1000 yards I’ve ever been over. It was a 'gravel' side road, but this gravel was mostly the size of large grapefruits (or slightly bigger) and as the van's tire passed over you could see them shoot off to the grassy shoulder as the weight of the van pushed down and bucked them out of the path of the next tire.
We got there and were greeted with a late breakfast on the patio with the sun shining brightly and the ocean breeze welcoming us all to paradise. That moment is one I always look forward to anxiously as the point where I can exhale fully and truly be at peace and certifiably AWAY from my mainland-troubles. The view of the lush, tree covered Malake Island from across the narrow channel was great. Given its proximity, the cloud cover would never get too thick so as to cover our view unless there was a rainstorm right over us. Even then, the ocean trade winds blow the weather systems along so strongly that a rain rarely lasts longer than a couple hours at most. Did I say I love the islands more than almost anything? God truly knew what He was doing when he had that idea!I haven’t really reached a stopping point yet but I’ve been writing for a while so ill pause here, no worries though, there will be more to come soon.
Dram Bula to You, Adi's & Rati's!
Fiji is an island chain made up of over 322 separate islands, some large some small, some inhabited some isolated from civilization and therefore open to any and all solitary explorers (oh what fun that would be!). As I said earlier, we landed in Nadi, on the western coast of the big island called Viti Levu which means simply "Big Fiji". I found it interesting to note that Fiji is only a 3 hour flight from Brisbane, Australia. It was neat and also kind of sad to be so close to Aussie country and yet know that we wouldn’t be able to check the place out on this trip. As I have heard many times on cable "I have the travel bug" and indeed I do too! From Nadi we took a 2.5 hour long taxi ride to the Resort located on the northwestern corner of Viti Levu outside a town called Rakiraki. During the taxi ride, I spoke with our driver, Sai, for some time while we trucked through his beautiful home. I noted the range of terrains the big island boasted, everything from sandy and rocky coastline, to marsh and mangrove swamps, to open gently rolling plains and finally up to some fairly intimidating mountains which run along the spine of the Big Viti. I will be adding pictures to my facebook site sometime when I get around to it but alas for many of you, FB shrinks the pix to a smaller size with lower resolution so you might not get to fully appreciate the landscape as I was able to. For those of you not familiar with the 'rules' and procedures having to do with driving on an island, either in the Caribbean or in the South Pacific (as I came to discover that nothing really changes from island to island, no matter where it is located), I find it important to note that the concepts of #1) Lanes & #2) speed limits & #3) turn signals really do not apply accept when driving past the local police station and/or the local courthouse building(s). I, being a die hard fan of any and all fast + aggressive driving and road racing...no matter the type of auto being piloted, was thoroughly enjoying Sai's fast and jerky avoidance of the plethora of car-swallowing potholes located or should I say littered along the roads there, both highways and the smaller streets but the same could not necessarily be said for those in the back of the van (I was riding shotgun with Sai in the left-hand seat; yes, the steering column was on the right side of the van). I looked back at different times to find everyone holding some kind of handle to steady themselves as we bounced down the road. It really is cool to see how no one really gets hurt while passing through so many intersections with no stop lights or stop signs for that matter. Americans are so different, in a bad/worse way to boot!
So after a full 2.5 hours we arrived at "Wananavu Resort", the driveway to which was probably the bumpiest 1000 yards I’ve ever been over. It was a 'gravel' side road, but this gravel was mostly the size of large grapefruits (or slightly bigger) and as the van's tire passed over you could see them shoot off to the grassy shoulder as the weight of the van pushed down and bucked them out of the path of the next tire.
We got there and were greeted with a late breakfast on the patio with the sun shining brightly and the ocean breeze welcoming us all to paradise. That moment is one I always look forward to anxiously as the point where I can exhale fully and truly be at peace and certifiably AWAY from my mainland-troubles. The view of the lush, tree covered Malake Island from across the narrow channel was great. Given its proximity, the cloud cover would never get too thick so as to cover our view unless there was a rainstorm right over us. Even then, the ocean trade winds blow the weather systems along so strongly that a rain rarely lasts longer than a couple hours at most. Did I say I love the islands more than almost anything? God truly knew what He was doing when he had that idea!I haven’t really reached a stopping point yet but I’ve been writing for a while so ill pause here, no worries though, there will be more to come soon.
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