I am in love with Fiji. It is quite possibly the friendliest and most beautiful place in the world. The locals are happy to talk for hours about life in Fiji and the Fijian's we met of our own age had a thousand questions for us about life in England - mostly about the London Underground bizzarely!! The idea of so many people living in such a small place fascinates them, the 2 Figians I met who were going to visit friends in England we both wide eyed and quite scared about the whole thing. I think it will be a bit of a culture shock!
We spent a very happy and relaxing week on the Yasawa islands. If a film is made of a desert island they use these islands - Castaway, The Blue Lagoon etc. The water really is that colour and the sand really is that perfectly white! We spent the time lounging in hammocks, reading, swimming, sunbathing (until we both got burnt and retreated back to our hammocks!) and snorkling. We walked over one island to get to the beach where they filmed the blue lagoon, it was a blistering hot day and quite a walk but totally worth it. I took a snorkle and walked from the beach into the warm sea, there was live coral right there so close to shore and I saw fish that normally you could only see if you were scuba diving. I watched one big fish eat a hermit crab and then a large fish with a long spike protruding from it's 'nose' came straight for me - I made a hasty exit and decided that was enough snorkling for a while!!
We stayed at 'eco-resorts' on three different islands. We drank rainwater they caught in a water butt and there was only electricity for about 4 hours each evening. The second resort we stayed at didn't have any electricity and we were given a lantern to share between the two of us at dusk.
We arrived by small boat to the third island and were greeted by Bula dancing and singing on the sand, as we came ashore we were handed coconut water to drink with hibiscus flowers in. We attempted to bula dance that night, it didn't look quite the same when we did it!
We went on a day trip to some locals caves. The legend is that the spirits of the cave manifest themselves as a giant eel and a red fish and can been seen by the first visitors to the cave each day. Ben, a local guy, told us in all the visits he'd made there he'd never seen them. As we arrived we saw a huge eel in the water, apparently we are privileged, although I didn't really feel it when I was told to 'jump in'! Jo took some coaxing off the rocks into to water - she didn't fancy either the jump in over rocks or the eel round her legs! We swam underwater into the next cave, which was pitch black. Our guide 'Queen' had the only torch. There are a lot of men like Queen in Fiji, extremely effeminate men, openly gay. We asked Ben about how the locals viewed this, and apparently in the villages such men were revered as having the best qualities of both sexes, they could build houses and also look after children. Anyway, going into that cave took all my courage and I waited in the first cave after that, refusing to go into the third cave.
My bus is about to arrive and so I'd better leave this for now. I'll add more later!
