333 days since selling up, 75 days until the grand return. Paul Twocock and David Jones recording.
Fiji. Such an exotic sounding place: palm trees, white sand beaches, turquoise lagoons? Mmmn well there are palm trees, and white sand beaches on the outer islands apparently, but unfortunately our two week brush with Fiji has kind of broken our fantasy of these south pacific islands. In fairness, we'd just left New Zealand, which more than any country has echoes of England, and we arrived feeling a bit homesick. And what happened next just exacerbated that.
The journey to our first villa was long. Three hours of driving on a pot-holed and partly unmade road, only to get to the nearest town, Rakiraki, to find no decent supermarket. We back-tracked an hour to a town with a store and when we finally got back to the turn off to our villa things deteriorated. Well the road certainly did: up and down 1 in 4 hills on a rocky trail that almost marooned the car on an outcrop, and when we finally got the villa, it was dusk, a storm was blowing in and there were vampire bats flying overhead with two foot wing spans - and the villa was locked up.
It all got sorted quite quickly and actually (like often happens) things looked better in the morning: a sea view with some small islands dotted with palms, a pool and a hanging bed pitched in just the right spot to catch the refreshing breeze. But we still had to make the 7 hour round trip back to the airport to trade in the car with dodgy breaks for a 4x4 we hadn't budgeted for.
In the end we settled into Fiji life. Catering for ourselves with limited supplies, we were as inventive as possible, but probably eat a few too many cans of baked beans. The weather was good and the sun strong. We read, Paul caught up on the re-write of his book, and we relaxed. Well admittedly we got a bit nervous at nights when the tremendous thunderstorms blew in. They sounded worse than they probably were on the tin roof, but the crack of lighting metres away that shakes the house is still pretty scary, particularly when you're marooned in the middle of nowhere at the bottom of a precipitous road. All part of the fun of the South Pacific!
The Fijians are a puzzle: really friendly at one moment (almost everyone stopped to wave to us as we passed on our three our drive to Rakiraki) and then suspicious at the next (the people in Tavua for the Saturday market couldn't stop staring at these two English guys trying to find their way around the grocery stores desperately looking for baked beans). The island itself looks a bit like rural India partly because of all the hindi, sikh and muslim temples, and even more so because of sacred bulls every 500m, drowsily grazing by the side of the road.
On the second week we changed villa. Based at the other side of the island, nearer the airport and the only decent supermarket, things got even better. Another lovely sea view and an infinity pool this time surrounded by a deck, has made relaxing easy. And after a few attempts we reconnected with the world via the villa's wifi - you don't realise just how much you rely on it!
No vampire bats here, but we do have a band of big yellow frogs that congregate on the deck in the evening under the veranda lights. They sit in a circle like a religious community and wait for the insects attracted by the lights to fly lazily toward their mouths. Somehow one got in the villa the other night and seemed reluctant to leave. Just like the cockroaches who appear in the dark. Eight dispatched and counting. There's a spooky pic of the frogs in the album.
Anyhoo, tomorrow we get back on Air New Zealand and fly onto Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. We're hoping that our next South Pacific adventure is a bit nearer the fantasy. White sand beaches and turquoise lagoons, here we come! Cin cin everyone.
Glad you are back on line... I was beginning to think you had gone native.
Love the frog picture... Word of warning... don't let a frog get near your watering can. We had one last summer stuck in the spout of ours. Des spent an age making an implement to poke the frog back down without injuring him (piece of bamboo with a bit of kitchen sponge attached... in case you are curious)
Keep up the commentary...I am thoroughly enjoying travelling without leaving my desk!
Jill
Posted by: Jill | 03/26/2011 at 01:04 PM
Jill, glad you're enjoying our round the world exploits - not surprised at your frog story, one of our tribe in Fiji got in somehow overnight and didn't seem that bothered about leaving the lounge no matter how much time we spent cajoling him with a magazine. New blog and photos up on the Cook Islands - animal antics with dogs, cucumbers and humuhumunukunukupua'a fish: should be right up your street! Enjoy. First Tahiti blog by end of the weekend - promise! Love Paul xx
Posted by: Paul Twocock | 04/08/2011 at 08:24 AM