Around the Island

I know I'm a little behind on blogging, that's what happens when you travel and internet is not readily available all the time. oh well, life happens. 

One week while in Fiji, Filo and decided to travel around the island. It's a fairly small island, so you can drive all the way around in a day (roughly 10 hours). But I wanted to see more than the road, so we took about four days to do it. 

First bus ride was almost four hours. We were only stopping briefly in that town before heading to a small village on the beach. While waiting for a our bus, we had a little food so had us a mini picnic on a random cement picnic table near the river. Only thing was it started to rain, so we tried eating our food without it getting soggy and keeping our possessions dry. It didn't rain long thankfully; we had a taxi driver next to us that kept talking to us, he offered to let us sit in his car out of the rain if it got bad. Ha. 

When we arrived at the village, it was pretty quiet. Everyone was at work still, so after greeting the old grandfathers we went for a swim. It was raining lightly, but hey we can swim in the rain too! That was only my 2nd time swimming in an ocean. We also went swimming the next morning in the beautiful, bright, HOT sunshine. We ate fish (go figure) for dinner and there was octopus soup for appetizer, but after one bite, I determined I wasn't hungry. ;) 

The sunset was spectacular. We sat on the big rocks overlooking the ocean and watched the sky change colors until it settled into a deep blue. So cool to sleep at night with the ocean roaring and crashing in the background. 

after swimming in the rain

eating fish Fijian style 

3rd time swimming in the ocean!

sunset at the beach

the village near the beach

traditional Fijian hut

The next day we traveled on. Stopped on the west side of the island for two nights. Went into the big town of Nadi (pronounced Nandi) to look around and do some shopping. Don't think I bought anything though. I didn't realize that they sell Ugg boots in Fiji! Yep, they sure do. Have no idea why you would want to wear winter boots in a tropic climate. crazy. (shaking my head)

day two of traveling (at a bus stop)

look like a tourist, eh? 

traveling by bus 

I had a great time! The last day we traveled by taxi, since others were going our direction and they already had a taxi reserved. It saved us money, but no a/c in the car, so rode with our windows down. My hair was blown to frizziness, I was hot and sticky and the sun burned the top of my knee. Yep, the only sun burn from that week was the top of my knee. Weird. Both Filo and I were so glad to get home that night. 

We had  a lot of fun.... I enjoyed swimming in the ocean and she liked the small green friend in her purse. Ha!

last day of traveling (headed home!)