Week XX – XXI

Fiji – Nadi and Yasawa Islands

Walking barefoot through sand (and dead corals – ouch!), taking only cold showers (caused by the lack of hot water), a lot of fresh fruits like pawpaw (Papaya – more vitamin c than a couple of apples), pineapples and bananas, generator powered electricity that is sometimes down, snorkeling with reef sharks and manta rays – and cutting the feet on slippery paths. All that describes the island life quite well.
At first, it might seem as there is little to do in these small paradises, but there’s always more than just lying at the beach in the sun. Although, just relaxing in a most comfortable hammock with some ice cream and a bottle of water, a good book and the view below palm trees onto the sea is one of the most chilled out things I’ve ever done. So what else did I do? I learned card tricks, card games (I admit, most of them were drinking games), improved in kayaking, snorkeling, walking on almost anything barefoot, managed to read a book and to start a new one – come on, that’s a lot in two weeks. Further, I took part in social kava drinking, talking and making music with local people which is so much enjoyable and missing in most ‘modern’ cultures.

Chronological.. After arriving in Nadi, where I stayed two days to get used to the different environment, I booked a travel and accommodation pass and went on to the so called Yasawa island group in the West of the country. I stayed at Beachcomber island, went further up to Kuata, Korovou and the Coral View resort – in the northernmost part of the islands. Afterwards, I was heading down again with stops at Manta Ray Island and South Sea Island – the smallest, where it took about five minutes to walk around the island – at low-tide. Every island was quite different and since the meals are included in the accommodation (since there are no shops on the islands to buy stuff) and most of the resort offer some additional evening program like fire dances and local music, it is not that expensive as it may seem and well worth the value.

I’m back in Nadi and will do some stuff around here and most likely head over to the south of the mainland, the Coral Cost, for a few days before I’m going to leave Fiji and fly over to Hawaii in about a week. Take a look at the Yasawa Island life, sunsets and fire-dancing..