Today is the last day for Port Calls. Suva, Fiji was an interesting city. It’s the capital of Fiji and does not feel like a capital at all to me. There is no ‘political excitement’ and everyone looks like they are just going about their business. The only difference I noticed was a guard at the Presidential Mansion. The Parliament Building didn’t seem to have any activity, although probably due to it being New Year’s Eve today.
We all met for breakfast around 8:30 and decided that there wasn’t going to be any group activity off the ship today. Kevin decided to just go walking by himself and Gary wanted to do a short shuttle ride to the central shopping area. Joe and I opted for a private taxi tour of the area. We had a good driver, and an air conditioned car, important to us. We started around the harbor and then up to the top of the small mountain. We stopped to get a view of the Noordam and then it was a very interesting drive to an ecological hotel. This was designed to get us to eat or drink something, but we resisted. It was a lovely stop with a fresh water pool.
From there is was a drive to and through a couple of villages where we could see the locals in their environment. Lots of impoverished housing in between gated communities (mostly owned by Chinese). Once we got to the top there was lots to see. A major river, vendors on the street corners and along the road. They are putting in a 4 lane road and a new bridge. The existing infrastructure floods during heavy rains.
We then drove by the Presidential Mansion and Parliament Buildings. There is very little security, which surprised me since I am so used to seeing lots of guards and barricades.
Close to the Parliament Building is the Fuji Museum.. It’s a very small place, with only a few exhibits, consisting mainly of canoes in the main area. The other room housed the museum store and then another room had some artifacts and just a few items from the colonial periods of the islands. There was an interesting exhibit of the types of weaving for clothing, sleeping and floor mats. It was interesting to see, but obvious they don’t have the resources to do much more. I am sure that since most of the early items were made of wood that very little remain. They had only a few broken pieces of pottery in one small exhibit. I am sure that the British Museum and LA County Museum have more than the Fiji Museum.
The museum was our last stop so the driver headed back to the ship. He took us through the ‘downtown’ area, which is very crowded, due mainly because of the holiday. He dropped us off at the ship and we headed straight to our staterooms. Joe wanted to shower before lunch. We met in the Lido and luckily Kevin and gotten their a bit earlier and snagged a table.
After lunch, I joined Gary and a couple of people from the duplicate group for two hours of bridge. Then it was time for Happy Hour. The four of us enjoyed a quiet hour talking about our day…and some of the people we have met on this cruise. I then went down to take a nap before dinner.
Dinner was a special night at the Vista Dining Room. I had seafood starter, followed by butternut apple soup and my favorite entrée, duck breast. They had a fabulous Chocolate Decadence Cake for dessert. A very fun meal.
Since it was New Year’s Eve and we’re all ‘Men of a Certain Age’ we went down to our staterooms for bed…except Kevin. He was going to try to make it to 10:30.
