Bula! (The Fijian word for hello, goodbye, and just about everything else)

 

 

View Larger Map

 

March 21

 

At 5:30 am we landed on the beautiful island of Fiji. Having absolutely no plans made, and having done limited research, we went straight to the travel agency to get some information about our options on how to spend the next 11 days.  It was hard for us to miss, too, as the lady from the travel agency, who we would soon know as “Lucy” called us over right after we left the customs desk. We knew there was a large backpacking community in Fiji, we just had no idea where it was, and how it was possible to experience on the cheap. Lucy informed us that our best option was, of course, to book a 10 day/3 island cruise with her company.  As it was now 6:30 in the morning, and we were still groggy from our 3 day airline adventure, we decided to bite the bullet, and pay a little extra for her services.

 

We missed the free shuttle to the ferry port, so we had to take a cab ride there. It was our first experience with “left-side-of-the-road driving”, and it was a bit weird at first. The ride itself was 25 Fiji dollars, and we had no change, so the cab driver was kind enough to go get change for us.  He came back and gave us $20 change (from a $50 bill) and said “I took $5 for myself”.  Again, we were pretty tired, and he seemed to be a nice guy, so we didn't argue.  The boat left almost immediately as we got there, and we finally had some time to relax and enjoy what was a beautiful sunny day in Fiji, for the 4 hour trip to our first island.  As we cruised through the many Yasawa islands on our way to our first “resort”, we were treated to some Ukulele and singing from an American guy who we had met on the boat. 

 

Long Beach Resort, Nacuna Lai Lai Island.

 

This was our first stop, and we had booked 4 nights here.  The island was quite large with a long beautiful beach that stretched along the resort. It was tucked away behind another island that was right across from us (which rumor had it cost $1000 a night for accommodation). The first day was gorgeous and sunny, and we were greeted to the “Bula welcome song” and a nice lunch upon arrival.  After that we started doing what we would spend the next 5 days doing; Lying on the beach.  We retired to our private bungalow after that and had a nap before dinner. 

 

 

The resort, along with many of the others, offered an array of activities from snorkeling, fishing at sunset, swimming with the sharks, basket weaving, coconut tastings and trips to the village.  In the interest of efficiency, we can tell you that everyday went a little like this; Wake up to the sound of the drums (signalling meal time) at 7:30.  Eat breakfast.  Go back to our bungalow, change into bathing suits, and suntan/swim until the drums sounded for lunch.  Eat.  Suntan for another few hours.  Swim.  Go back to the bungalow.  Read and nap.  Wake up to the dinner drum.  Eat.  Spend about 15 minutes socializing with the other backpackers.  Movie for about 10 minutes in bed until we quickly fell asleep.  Sleep.  Repeat. This was perfect for us, though, as we had spent the last 3 months running around like crazy, and welcomed the relaxation.

 

We did, however, deviate from the norm a few times;  One day we took a nice long walk down the beach with a girl we became friendly with from England.  Another day we walked through the water from our island to the island just across the narrow inlet.  The tide here went in and out quite dramatically, and as such, we were able to walk the whole kilometer or so.  However, the tide had come in by the time we were ready to go back and we had to swim almost the whole way.  This wouldn't have been a problem if our “waterproof dry-sac'” that we had been keeping our camera in didn't have a leak in it.  The camera was completely soaked, and despite our best efforts, (putting it in a bag of rice overnight) we were unable to save the camera.  Do not fret, though, as this was our “emergency back up camera”, so we were willing to part with it.  One night, we tried “cava” which is a local social drink made of some kind of root, and on the same night, Fiji happened to be playing Canada in the ‘Hong Kong 7’ rugby (national sport of Fiji) test. So, we stayed up late and watched the fuzzy little black and white tube with the locals.  Fiji won pretty convincingly.  We also played volleyball, once, where an unfortunate consequence was the breaking of one of our fellow travellers’ sunglasses.

 

All in all we really enjoyed our first island.  The weather was hot and sunny (for the most part), the people (staff and fellow travellers) were great, the beach was sandy, and the water was possibly the most crystal blue that we’d ever seen.  The food, on the other hand, was pretty poor, and the portions were small, but we were enjoying our time too much to worry about that.

 

White Sandy Beach Resort: Naviti Island

 

Our second island hop led us to “White Sandy Beach” on our 5th afternoon in Fiji. It was the first day that the sun was struggling to come out, besides a few crazy overnight rain storms we had had previously. We were once again greeted to a welcoming Bula song and dance and then invited to tea time after we settled in. We were assigned  another super cute bungalow on the beach, close enough that we could see and hear the crashing of the waves right outside our window. This island was smaller than the first, but it was true to it’s name, as it had beautiful white sand stretched across the beach. The resort was small, with one main house which held the bar and dining, a few small bungalows like ours stretched across the beachfront and a volleyball court that separated the tourist area from the staff lodging.

 

One the first day, we were all gathered by the staff to the volleyball court for an intense game, where we got eaten by mosquitos and attacked by flies. That night, we were treated to a shockingly exquisite meal followed by some nightly entertainment by the Bula girls and Bula boys. They later made us all stand up to participate, while they taught us the famous Bula dance.

 

In the middle of the night, Dave woke up in a sweat with a bad fever and feeling extremely nauseous. Coincidentally, earlier that day we were sharing stories with some people that we met about their previous experiences with Dengue fever and Malaria. We didn’t want to say it, but we were both thinking the same thing, ’Oh goodness, we’re stuck on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with NO hospital, NO doctor, and no way of getting to the mainland until 4 o’clock the next day!’ Alice quickly got out of bed and took out a Tylenol Cold & Flu from our travel pharmacy and the bottle of rain water we had filled up at the last island, and got Dave to chug as much water as he possibly could. Still hoping it wasn’t anything too serious, we waited up until Dave’s fever broke and he was able to fall back asleep.

 

The next morning, we were woken up by the sound of the drums indicating breakfast was ready, and Dave’s fever was back to full steam. He was sweating and shivering all at the same time, barely able to lift his head up off the pillow. Alice spent the day reading on the front porch, taking breaks switching cold compresses, getting tea, cold fruit and Tylenols for Dave while he slept off whatever it was he was suffering from. Thankfully, his fever broke with every Tylenol and by late that night, it broke for the last time. Unfortunately, his upset stomach didn’t, and only got worse as the hours went by. Back into the pharmacy we went, switching Tylenols for the ‘just-in-case’ stomach antibiotics that were pre-emptively given to us by our travel doctor before we left.

 

For obvious reasons we enjoyed our second resort about 50% of the time.  The volleyball game was great, and the food was gourmet (when we were feeling well enough to eat it).  The weather great the day that Dave was sick, and pretty sick the day Dave wasn't.. Go figure..

 

Kuata Resort: Kuata Island

 

It took 3 days for Dave’s stomach to get better and by this point we had taken the short boat ride over to the Island of Kuata. This one was the smallest one we had stayed on yet, but was the most beautiful. The beach stretched out enough that you could get a 20 minute return walk ending at a tall rock mountain. The other side of the beach had low standing rocks that you could walk out to, looking out to an extravagant view of the ocean and some of the other islands near by. On the complete other side of the island was another separate beach (one that we took a courageous walk to one day, disturbed a nest of mosquitos, and got eaten alive AGAIN) with a great view of the rock mountain where scenes of the movie “Castaway” were filmed.

 

The grounds on Kuata were about the same as the previous island, with a main house for dining, a small bar hut with a gazebo overlooking the beach and ocean and a few lodging huts for us tourists. There were only 6 of us tourists staying on the island for most of our stay and we spent most of our (rainy) days getting to know them. One couple was from Italy and the other from England both previously coming from Australia on working visas. 

 

One rainy night on the island in the attempt to avoid another Bula dance, we hooked up our lap top to the main speakers, and invited all the locals for a big movie night. Despite the fact that it is just a small screen, everyone was very excited, as if it were one of the only movies they’d ever seen, and all applauded as the movie “The Avengers” finished.

 

Mainland: Nadi Island

 

By five in the afternoon on Saturday, March 30th our island hop was over and we were headed back to the main island. A great big coach bus was waiting for us and took us to ‘Bamboo Hostel’s’ sister property on the backpackers side of town. We were finally back to civilization and the internet and as such, spent most of our night checking emails and looking for flights out of New Zealand (our next destination).

 

In the middle of the night, we woke up yet again with another scare as Dave broke out into a million hives all over his body! Our personal pharmacy was lacking Benadryl, and at 1am,  the only shop in town was closed for the night. We went around asking everyone we saw if they had any form of an antihistamine, but were unsuccessful. So, Dave took a cold shower hoping whatever it was that he was allergic too would be washed away.

 

By morning, that scare was gone. We figured it may have been a late reaction to the 30 mosquito bites he had gotten earlier that day on our courageous walk to the hidden beach on Naviti, but we’ll probably never know what the true culprit was.

 

The sun was finally blazing on our last day in Fiji (go figure, again) and we enjoyed it by having breakfast, lunch, and coffee out on various patios with our new friend Peter from England. And, at 8 that evening, as we flew towards Auckland, New Zealand we said BULA! and goodbye to the beautiful islands of Fiji.

 

 

Thanx for keeping up with us,

See you in NZ,

With love from the plane (again)

D’Alice

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The End of the Gringo Days

Saturday March, 16
Happy 30th Birthday Dave!!!



View Larger Map

We arrived in a city called Banos, 3 hours outside of Quito, at 2 in the morning. A little bit of a rough way to wake up on your birthday, but a small price to pay for being at the bottom of an active volcano with a chance to see it smoke and hear it rumble!

 

Banos is a small city located in a valley between mountains and crawling with tourists for the purpose of the volcano, waterfalls, hiking, white water rafting and many other extreme activities. Arriving in the middle of the night, we didn’t feel like we were anywhere special at all. The streets were deserted except for the people getting off our bus scurrying in different directions, and drunk gringos walking around late Friday night.  It didn't help the deserted feeling that all the stores and restaurants were boarded up. We walked with our jungle friends Hugo and Vidar to the hostel where they'd made a reservation in hopes they had room for us as well. Luckily enough, they had a private double room waiting for us.

 

When we woke up in the morning we went upstairs to the roof top café for breakfast and realized

Our view from the rooftop
 

exactly where we were. We were surrounded by green mountains with a waterfall right in front of us. We couldn’t see the volcano from where we were, and the skies were completely clouded over, but it was still a remarkable sight. Dave ordered a "big-man-birthday" breakfast and Alice stole half of the block of cheese that came with it, and we spent the morning up on the patio enjoying the view (and skyping family).

 

We took a walk around the now busy streets of the town filled with tour agencies and hand crafts. We went into every single electronic store looking for the present Dave already knew he wanted, Nintendo DS or Sony’s PS Vita (yes, he is a 30 year old child). However, every store we went into was quite old fashioned with the technology they carried and we soon realized Dave’s birthday present was going to have to wait.

 

We checked out a crafts market where we were able to find a shark tooth necklace that Dave has been looking for since we left on our adventure. The store owner was even nice enough to take two different necklaces and put them together to customize it into almost exactly what Dave was looking for.

 

After the market we rushed to the bakery beside our hostel and made it just in time to get a slice of cake before they closed. Unfortunately they didn’t have any whole cakes, and definitely didn’t have any Loblaw’s cake, but we made do and enjoyed it almost just as much.

 

The cake, the chill and the clouds put us straight back to our room for a long nap. It just didn’t feel like a day for a hike or exerting too much energy, so made into a lazy day.  After our nap we found a cute café owned by a mean German lady where Dave chose a cheese plate and coffee over another slice of cake. We then found ourselves back at our favorite spot on the rooftop to meet up with another friend from the jungle named Harro from the Netherlands. Harro was in another group and stayed at a different lodge in the jungle, so we spent some time sharing jungle stories and comparing photos.

 

Around 9pm we took a walk down the main street and David picked out a cute Italian restaurant called Pappadelle’s for his birthday dinner. The restaurant had dimmed candle lighting with a big screen TV showing the UFC in the back. He couldn’t have picked a better romantic/manly place. We shared a gourmet pizza and lasagna while we watched the fight and then headed to a BBQ party that we were invited to by Vidar and Hugo, for drinks.

 

 

Sunday, March 17

 

After another cloudy rooftop breakfast, we packed up, checked out and caught an early afternoon bus back to Quito. We were unfortunate and never got to see the active volcano in Banos. It was our second chance at missing the awe of the rumble and lava since the recently dormant volcano back in Costa Rica. Now, it’s become our mission to find another one along our travels, and we WILL see or hear a volcano somewhere!

 

Our ride back to the big city was quiet and rainy. We passed through a few small towns and as we got closer to the city we were able to see the big snow capped (inactive) volcano called Cotopaxi. We shared a taxi with the Argentinian couple sitting beside us, back to the same hostel we stayed at in Mariscal Foch in the popular touristy centre. As had been the case with the last Argentinian couple we'd met, we had a tough time communicating, but as our Spanish was a bit better this time, managed to have most of a real conversation.  We barely settled in, and headed straight to the north Quicentro (mall) with our new Spanish speaking friends to continue our mission of finding Dave a birthday present.

 

There was only one store in the entire mall that sold normal electronics (the SONY store)  and when Dave put his eye on the prize, we realized it was more than DOUBLE the price it would have been back home, a whopping $649! Because all electronics get shipped here from America (or Asia), the transfer and tax make them almost unaffordable. In fact, we were told by one of the sales people that you can't even find Nintendo products in the country! Sadly, Dave would have to wait just a little bit longer until we were back in the real world, for his big-boy present.

 

 

Monday, March 18

 

We woke up early along with our friends from Argentina and some new friends from Venezuela as we had a big day planned ahead of us. We were going to take series of local busses for over an hour to El Mitre Del Mundo (the middle of the world) Museum. The city of Quito, in its high altitude lies on the map at 0 degrees latitude and 0 degrees longitude, hence on the equator.

 

They built 2 museums in honor of the authentic location. The first of the two was built around a tall (and most likely very expensive) monument standing on the “equator line” that separated the north and south hemispheres of the world. Within the museum you could find mini-museums like the insect museum, the hand crafts museum, that further related the Ecuadorian culture to the site. Years later they found out through the wonder of GPS that the museum was actually NOT built on the equator, and the real line was actually almost a half km west of it. So naturally, they built another museum around the corner, that officially marked the spot.

 

At the first museum we took a few silly pictures and walked around. The place was packed with tourists and we had to basically line up to wait for a good picture. We didn’t stay long before we got our appetites rolling and sat down for a true authentic Ecuadorian lunch with all of our new Spanish friends. 

 

It wasn’t until the REAL (and much smaller) museum that we were actually in awe. We had a guided tour that took us around and explained the history of Ecuador at first. We then conducted a few experiments together that centred around the gravity of the equator. They had a yellow line marking the separation between hemispheres, our first experiment was try to walk a straight line on it with our eyes closed.  None of us could do it because the gravitational pull is off in the centre and therefore pulls you straight down instead of evenly sideways and therefore plays tricks on your vertigo. The second experiment was with a sink of water. On one side of the line, if you pour a tub of water in the sink, the water turns clockwise. Two meters away, on the other side of the line, a tub of water in the very same sink will turn counter clockwise, also due to the gravitational pull.  Finally, they poured the water down the sink ON the equator, and it funneled straight down without turning clockwise or counter clockwise. In the last experiment we had to try to balance an egg on a nail (in which we were victorious!) which is easier on the equator, due to the fact that the gravitational forces were, for the most part, pulling straight down.

 

By 5pm, we were back at the hostel on another cold and rainy day. Pavla and Ivan picked us up an hour later and took us to one of there favorite cafe’s to try a “Wind Empanada” (Empanadas are the Spanish version of a panzerotti ). The size of the empanada’s were big enough to be a pillow and the biggest one’s we’ve ever seen. Instead of filling it with cheese and sauce or meat they had a small layer of cheese on the bottom and the rest was filled with air and sprinkled with sugar. They were gigantic and delicious.

 

We spent the next couple of hours filling Pavla and Ivan in our jungle tour, our trip to the Banos, and the museums, and then thanked them for everything they had done for us since we got to Quito. They wished us safe travels and at 11:15 we headed to the new and very modern Quito airport for our final night living as Gringos in South America.

 

Tuesday, March 19.

 

After getting no sleep at all while waiting for our 6am flight, we were able to check our bags in with United Airlines and go through security at 3:30am.  By 11:30am we were back on American soil at the Houston Airport for a 2 hour layover. We spent almost the entire time waiting in line at customs and then jumped on another plane to Los Angeles for another 6 hour layover.

 

When we landed at LAX we new we had time to venture off the airport grounds for a few hours, so we headed to the Westfield Mall to see if we could finally score Dave his long overdue birthday present. It was a grand success and he had his brand new shiny PS VITA in hand with over 3 hours to spare!

 

It was so nice to be back on American ground and in an English speaking country. We were able to easily ask for directions and we were even able to eat at our favorite burger joint called Five Guys Burgers and Fries.

 

When we got back to the airport we sat down at a WIFI hot spot so Dave to download one of the 4 free games that came with his PSVita system, but he had to wait an hour to charge the system before he could turn it on, and the internet was super slow. So, even though it was a successful buy, it was still a mission unaccomplished as it was, for the moment, unplayable.

 

We went through security an hour before our 11:30 pm flight to Fiji, and waited at our gate while an alarm wailed almost the whole time, as a stupid employee opened the gate doors without the code.  When we finally boarded our plane, we were pretty exhausted from all the travelling, and fell asleep almost immediately. 

 

Wednesday, March 20.

This day didn't actually exist for us, as we flew across the international date line!  So as we slept literally through the entire day (or lack thereof) we knew we'd be waking up on Thursday in Fiji!

 

Thanks for keeping up!

With love from the plane,

D'Alice