Voli Voli Beach Resort, Fiji
Friday, November 25, 2005
I woke up in the morning thinking I wanted to finish the Feejee Experience with my group. I decided not to stay in
Suva and not to go to Savusavu or Taveuni. I wanted to take it easy and enjoy what was in front of me. We started out around 9AM and went to a town north of Suva to use the ATMs there. There was a Westpac there so that wasn't a problem and I ended up getting a big slice of pizza for lunch (FJ$1.5). Then we made another stop to get food for lunch :) I already had the pizza so I got a cheese and carrot sandwich (FJ$3.0). I would have never thought such a thing could exist but it does. Then we were off to the Kava ceremony. I was reminded that I would have to be the chief of the group since I was the only guy left. On the first day the Brit couple had stayed at The Beachhouse and today Todd and Stacey (Aussie couple) had stayed in
Suva. So it was up to me to do the ceremony as chief and spokesman. After exchanging of the gifts, I was signaled to get up from my spot right across the massive Kava bowl and move forward towards it; sit down and touch the bowl and say Bula Bula Bula and clap three times. Then I returned to my seat and waited for the first bowl of Kava to be served to me. At which point, I said Bula and downed the bowl of Kava and clapped three times. I had about four bowls before we had lunch. The chief was a nice guy and he had us go around the room telling him where we were from and what we did. Afterwards, we had a coconut scraping competition which was rather boring but we couldn't go rafting since the rain made it unsafe. We then went to the local school for which we had bought gifts for the children. I didn't know how many kids would be there so I bought 4 notebooks and 4 pencils. I figure if all of us did that, that would cover 40+ kids. But I underestimated the size of the school. There were definitely more then 40 kids. It was grades 1 through 8 there and we visited each class. They sang songs for us and introduced themselves. I liked the younger ones more then the older as their minds were less corrupt and truly enjoyed our visit. As they get older, these Feejee Experience visits probably became routine and they probably lost interest (not that I blame them). After the school visit we went straight to our accommodations at Voli Voli Beach Resort. I was rather disappointed about not being able to take pictures of some of the most amazing flowers I had ever seen in the wild as we traveled on the Kings Road today. At points I wanted to just scream "stop the bus" so I could get off and have a look. This road truly had some beautiful scenery. We got to Voli Voli early (around 3PM) so we had time to enjoy the "free" activities such as Kayaking and Snorkeling. I had never done either so I went for it. Kayaking was fun and relaxing but the snorkeling was amazing. I never thought I'd be able to see so many things without my glasses underwater. The snorkeling area there was shallow and crystal clear. The beach was divided into an inlet and the outer sea. The two currents meet right in front of this sandy beach which partly separated the two. One the right side the water was warm and on the left side the water was cooler but not cold. You could definitely just sit in the shallow water on the right side. The beach on the right side had mangroves after about a 100 meters of beach front. On the left side the beach followed the inlet with a slightly rocky shoreline. Great location for kayaking and snorkeling. I did get a few coral cuts on my hands and knees so its good to be careful. I took off my rings before I went snorkeling but being in a hurry I didn't secure them thinking I would know to get them before I left. I finished snorkeling just in time for the sunset and in a hurry I took off to the top of the adjacent hill to get a picture. From the top of the hill you could see the setting sun and also where the two currents meet. It was pretty amazing. I waited around a little while for the sky to change colors. Not the best sunset but not bad. I walked back down and grabbed my bag without thinking and forgot to grab the rings from the open pouch. I figure this is where I lost one of the rings. I lost the gold right with the topaz or yellow sapphire stone. I will have to get another when I go to India. Its weird I lost just that one. Almost seems like it was meant to be. As if a sort of sign for things to come. I didn't realize I had lost them until after dinner. It was too late by then to go looking. On the way back, I started talking to Christie (one of my roommates from room 3). It turned out Jane (another roommate) also had her first snorkeling experience today. I went to the room and got cleaned up before heading to dinner with Anna and Christie. When we got there, they had already started drinking Kava. I ordered my omelette sandwich (since they didn't have any vegetarian options) and sat down with the rest of the group. I got up to get a drink and ended up chatting with one of the owners. He was an elderly Kiwi who did development around Fiji and NZ. He and his son and another partner decided to start up this resort. He had a pretty good plot of land. The beach front around his land extended 700 meters around the inlet and 300 meters on the oceanfront. After enjoying my dinner with Anna, Christie, and Jane, we went back to the Kava. There were two other gals from the day before who joined us. One Brit and yet another Swede. After two hours of Kava, we finally headed off to bed around 10PM. This time, Jane tried out some Benadryll to see if it would help her bites. They still looked pretty nasty. I went to bed thinking I'd have a good nights sleep with all the Kava I drank. I was rudely awakened around 5AM with the sound of someone throwing up. I looked across to the other bunk, Jane starred back and we looked around, then went back to bed knowing it wasn't one of us.
