Having left Fiji at 10pm on Wednesday the 9th July, we quickly crossed the international date line and found ourselves arriving in L.A. 8 hours earlier at 1.20pm on Wednesday 9th July. This did have some advantages - the fact that I only had to stay awake for a few hours until I could respectably go to bed - but it did mean one ridiculously long day.
So, here we are on Hollywood Boulevard, walking along the paths of the rich and famous. No stars spotted as yet though. We had a quick wander yesterday afternoon and have been back today to take some rather uninspiring touristy photos of feet and hand prints. We have considered watching a film but it’s been my turn to have a cold and, coupled with the jet lag and the poor selection of movies, we’ve decided to give it a miss until we return - at which point Batman will be out - can’t wait!
Now for a slightly lengthier update on Fiji. We had been advised by many to get off the mainland as quickly as possible but, as we arrived late in the evening, we thought it would be wise to give ourselves a day there to do some planning for our week on the beautiful islands, so on day one we jumped on the bus to Nadi town and were pleasantly surprised by what we saw of the biggest island, Viti Levu. I guess if you had come to Fiji expecting paradise, the mainland is not the place to find it, but this place certainly has bags of character and was a little like a wealthier India. In town, we did a bit of shopping as we had used a variety of methods to dispose of our cold-weather gear when we left New Zealand and needed to stock back up on the flip-flops, sarongs etc. While perusing the main street, we got accosted by the local shop owners of one craft store, had to sit through a Kava welcoming ceremony (this is Fiji’s traditional drink and is a mild narcotic but basically it just makes you feel tired and your tongue go numb), got given a ‘gift’ of a necklace each and were then asked to make a ‘donation’ for the gift!!! Well, I guess that’s one sure-fire way of selling something.
The next morning we had to take the Yasawa Flyer boat to Manta Ray island. We had decided to start with the most northerly island we were visiting and then to make our way down so the boat journey took about 3 hours. We were welcomed onto Manta Ray, as with all the islands, by a welcoming song and were directed to our bure - this basically means traditional house and, in this case, it was a lovely cabin among the trees consisting of a bedroom and balcony. The afternoon was whiled away chilling out on the beach, reading and snorkelling though, sadly, there was no sign of the manta rays.
After dinner that night we found ourselves drinking with Dave the dive instructor who kindly put many of our drinks ‘on his tab’, Grace - a girl who was doing her open water course, her parents and one other guy called Andre. They were all great company and we spent the majority of our time with these guys on the island and only after Andre had left did we find out from the dive instructor that we’d been drinking and eating with the owner of North Face - it just goes to show money doesn’t affect everybody - Andre was staying in the dorm!The next morning we decided it was time for me to attempt diving again as my sinuses had shown significant signs of improvement. After a slow descent, just to make sure I could equalise, we swam around the site ‘Fantastic’ which had some impressive fan corals but sadly few fish. We spoke to the instructor afterwards and he said this was very common for Fiji as it is hugely over-fished and the fishermen sell everything they catch, even for scrap for as little as a dollar a kilo. This is such a shame as, when snorkelling, it was clear that there could be such a wonderful variety of fish here if only they were more abundant. We did a second dive on the day we were leaving the island and dived a site called ‘The garden of Eden’. This one was more spectacular and had a very wide variety of corals.
We then made our way South to our second island in the Yasawa group: Wayalailai. We had booked a beachside cottage so were somewhat disappointed when we got shown to the old converted schoolhouse which was about as far away from the beach as it was possible to be on this resort! It was particularly annoying as one couple, Ollie and Amy, had asked for an upgrade as they had booked a dorm and wanted a double and were given a beachside cottage just ahead of us checking in. However, our day perked up when Amy came up from her beachside cottage wanting to see the double rooms as her cottage was, quote “horrific”. Apparently she got used to it but the darkness of the bathroom was all a bit much for her!
We were going to hit the sack straight after dinner as we had planned to get up for the sunrise walk, however, the local villagers who run the resort were providing entertainment for the evening and we were treated to a number of songs and dances, including a fire dance, and then we joined in with a dance that was meant to bring sunshine. It failed.
The next morning we were awoken at 4.30 ready for our walk and, armed with torches, we climbed for about 1 1/4 hours in the dark to the top of the hill to watch the sun rise. Unfortunately, the sunrise itself was not that spectacular because the rain clouds were fast approaching but the walk was still a good adventure. We got back just in time for breakfast and the rain, the latter of which continued all day getting heavier and heavier.
The following day was much brighter and we were able to spend the day on the beach again. There were some good corals and fish around when I went snorkelling too. At the end of the day, we were once again picked up by the boat and headed to our final island, Bounty.
Bounty Island is the home to celebrity love island and we could vaguely recognise the poolside, and there was a demolished hut a bit further around the island that we think probably served as the love shack, but other than that and some photos of the celebs on the wall, you wouldn’t really notice. The first night was hilarious as 7 of us sat down to dinner, ordered and waited. Eventually 7 meals turned up, only 2 of which were actually what had been ordered. We tried again and all ended up with a completely different dish once again. Most of us just accepted what we’d been given at that point but Ollie took his back a 2nd time and when the 3rd dish arrived it was still wrong. In fact, 5 of us ended up having the same dinner in the end!
The next day we took a walk around the island, which took a grand total of 20 minutes, and soon enough it was time to head back to the mainland after 5 days of beaches, cocktails, snorkelling and diving.
We were welcomed back to Mama’s Tropic of Capricorn by the incredible 69 year old Mama who runs one very tight ship and treats everyone like they’re one of the family and just chilled out there for a couple of days, waiting to fly to L.A. - oh yeah, and trying to find accommodation in L.A. which was not as easy as you might think - after a week of trying we finally booked in to the Saharan Motor Hotel on Sunset Boulevard only to find they didn’t have a reservation for us when we got here! Fortunately they still had rooms so I’m about to head back there for a bit of trashy T.V. and to coax my voice into coming back to me soon as I’ve been without it for 2 days - and you all know how infuriating that is for me!!!!
