On January 7th, I hugged my mom and dad goodbye and put my backpack into my Uncle Dorsey's sweet, tricked out Chrysler minivan. Joe and I left San Clemente and I cried at the separation from my parents. It was not a moment of I-am-too-weak-to-adventure-without-my-parents. Rather, it was a sad, sad cry at the end of another happy part of my life. Transitions tend to make me really sad. But I think you could count that as a happy cry.
We were caught in only a minor bit of traffic on the way to the airport. We parked, gathered our things, left a note, and headed into the international terminal. Checking in was smooth, except for a moment where I worried the man wasn't going to let us check in, but we flashed him our itineraries and New Zealand visas, and that seemed to appease him.
Our travels had started.
The plane was smooth sailing for the most part. We took mild sleeping pills to make sure we got enough sleep, but all it really ended up doing for me was make me wide awake once it had worn off. That and I ended up sleep-watching the one movie that interested me for selection. Once I was wide awake again, I decided to watch it again while I was conscious.
Also, apparently we flew through a thunderstorm. Joe woke up terrified because there was lightning all around the plane. I must have been asleep for this part.
When we arrived in Fiji, it was 6:00am January 9th. Having crossed the International Date Line, we had skipped January 8th entirely. We went through customs, got our baggage, pulled money from an ATM, and got our luggage scanned for bio-hazardous materials. Fiji, as islands and distinct ecosystems, is strict about animal, plant, and food products brought into the country. An innocent apple brought as a snack on the plane, could carry a disease that could ravage fruit production, vegetation, animal life, etc. We've heard New Zealand takes it even more seriously.
Ben from our hostel (Bamboo) was waiting for us. We hopped into his vehicle and got on our way (on the left side of the road, to be specific). He made a sales pitch for a package that took tourists out to his island where his village was. We would learn later that pretty much everyone would do the my village sales pitch thing. He also told us he thought the exchange rate was around USD$1 to FJ$1.
The hostel turn-around time didn't happen until at least 10am when guests were asked to check out, however, they had a couple of beds open in the room in which we were staying, so we locked up our valuables in one of the locking cupboards, stored our bags in their luggage room, and headed out walking.
Our hostel is located right on the beach, so we took off on the sand. Right off the bat, a man approached us and told us a story about meeting another couple just like us, for whom he had climbed the nearby coconut tree and retrieved a coconut. We smiled and talked and got pulled into following him toward the coconut tree, but before we got very far, Joe turned to me and muttered what I had already been thinking: this smells like a scam. Joe was able to politely decline, to which the man seemed deflated, but he backed off and we continued our beach walk. This man, we would later learn, scammed all the tourists by luring them into the coconut scam and then asking for money.
This walk opened our eyes quickly to some subjective opinions about the island. It was dirty. The trash was unnecessary and extensive. We were dodging pieces of glass, tires, and old clothing that was hanging around in the sand. There were scrappy, scraggly looking dogs trotting around. By the time we got to the river that met the ocean, which turned the water into a dull brownish-black color (an effect we would later learn was how that area of the island got its name--Wailoaloa, which means black water), we were both silently pondering the hour or two we had been in Fiji.
Our nerves were already running a little high with the stress of traveling, but the right-off-the-bat sales pitch, the almost instantaneous coconut scam, and the garbage and stray dogs were a sobering snap back to the reality of traveling. It's not all glamorous good times. We had both been away from traveling for a while and had come to view traveling as an ideal--a state of life were everything is beautiful, cultural, and inspirational.
The first walk down the beach was a heavy reminder of some of the experiences that lurk in the darker side of the nomadic life. At some point we were able to talk about these doubts we were having. What had we gotten ourselves into? It was comforting for me to know that Joe was having the same doubts and I could walk through feeling a little scared with him by my side. And I felt validated knowing that I wasn't alone in my fears. Were we just crazy to take advantage of the stopover in Fiji to stay a couple of weeks? Were we ready to handle all that for two weeks? And an even more important question—were we ready to handle the uglier side of youthful travel? This what-have-we-gotten-ourselves-into thought would become a thread weaved into the fabric of many of our traveling experiences.
Eventually we found a little dirt road (with plenty of trash) that wound behind the beach through a grove of palm trees. This led to a road that ran perpendicular to the beach. We walked up it and found the intersection where it met one of the main roads we had driven on to get to the hostel. We walked away from the hostel direction hoping to find a store where we could buy water. Nothing. We decided to walk up to a curve in the road to see if there was anything. There were few cars on the road because it was still early morning. We did not find a store and decided to turn back. We later discovered that around one more curve was an intersection with many stores on it.
On the way back to the hostel, we met a young man who was pouring sweat. He was very friendly, and plugged “his village” just a little, but didn't even tell us his name. The memorable take-away from the conversation was a phrase that we heard several times later in our trip: “Why drink and drive when you can smoke and fly?”
We went back to the hostel, asked about buses, and then walked out to the road we had just been on to wait for the bus. And we waited. And waited. Here we started to realize just how much the heat and humidity of Fiji stuck to you, smashing into your body and feeling inescapable, like a hot and dirty fog.
A taxi drove past several times, asking if we needed him. We said no and that we were waiting for a bus. After an hour or two with only a handful of cars and no bus, the taxi came back and said, okay, I will take you Nadi for $10. He said this as if he were offering us the service at a very discounted price, as though we should be grateful for his generosity. He proceeded to tell us how generous he was with tourists because he had a soft spot for them, and said he would give us a small tour of Nadi "on my tab"--again insinuating that we were getting the better deal out of the transaction because his tour was out of the kindness of his heart.
Ten dollars was a rip-off and we never paid that much again.
The taxi had introduced us to a restaurant that had a good deal on food--$2.50 for a small plate of a number of tasty items. I got Chilie Chicken, Joe got a curry plate. Mine was delicious, but very hot. I did my best to not let the heat show on my face, since I didn't want the Pakistani family to think Americans were pansies. I had tears in my eyes.
We started to walk in the direction the taxi driver had said the marina was. The sun was hot, but we saw very beautiful trees and cows and so we started to feel a little more comfortable with our travels, especially because our bellies were full.
Part way down the road to the marina, it started to get very hot. The sidewalks ceased, so we were walking on baking pavement going somewhere that we had no idea how far it was. At one intersection a man in a full size shuttle van waved us over. He told us he would take us to the marina. We didn't want to be scammed again, so we resisted and asked how much. He said he would takes us for free because we looked very hot and he was going that way anyway. We gladly hopped in to the air-conditioned vehicle and were glad we did when we realized our destination was 5-10 miles away and we would have been walking all day.
We were thankful and gave him a tip when he dropped us at the marina, just because it was so nice of him to offer assistance to us just because he could. He even told us which bus to catch to go back to Nadi.
The marina was an odd experience. We are budget travelers and everyone walking around at the marina were wealthy tourists who bought last-minute sunglasses and floppy hats at outrageous prices just because money was no object. Anyone who does marina or airport shopping probably has too much money.
While there, we got sucked into a sales pitch. An androgynous male/female called us over to tell us that they were running a special. The day cruise normally cost FJ$189 per person, but the special would be two people for FJ$20. What? How does that work? The salesperson joked that we would have to swim back, but then in all seriousness asked how old we were. When we said 25 and 26, s/he said, oh sorry, the deal is for people 28 and above. So s/he let us walk away without even trying to continue selling us something. We walked away very confused.
Then we hit the supermarket and the fruit market. We purchased a few fruits (star fruit, the ripest pineapple you ever saw, and a paupau (round papaya). The supermarket stressed us out when we realized bottled water (and everything else) was super expensive. As far as we knew, tourists drank only bottled water.
We found a bus that went back in the direction we needed it to go--the bus driver reacted positively when we told him where we needed to go. We were frustrated again when he dropped us off at an intersection that was still 2-3 miles away from our hostel. We were unreasonably hot and I was retaining water so that every step was just a bit painful on feet that felt swollen. We were pretty miserable, trying to carry the bottled water we had shelled out so much money for.
On one stretch, someone yelled the Fijian greeting "Bula!" and invited us to come up to their porch for a rest and some water. Joe, being sociable, agreed and started to walk that way. I, having had a few bad experiences during my travels in the past, thought the idea of walking into some unknown person's house was a risky and frightening idea. I muttered to Joe that I didn't like the situation, but he had already accepted the offer and was headed up a slight hill and toward the small house.
As it turned out, the experience was nothing but positive. Joe was able to ask about a number of things that had been bothering us--how to catch a bus, what we should pay for a taxi, how to get the best experience out of Fiji without getting trapped in a tourist trap or scam or paying a lot of money. Junior, our new-found friend, seemed to be very open and honest, one of the first people we encountered who was not hoping to make a buck off of us. He mentioned a couple of things that he might be able to help us do, but never pushed anything on us.
Junior and his wife Donna gave us water to drink from their tiny little metal home (we learned tap water is safe to drink), and we were introduced to their 17-year-old daughter Shahana, their 12-year-old son Fazar (whose older brother's name is Wazad--they are Fazi and Wazi), and their youngest (4-year-old) son Isaac, who was very cute, but very shy. (Side note: not sure on the spellings of names.)
We were even given food! Donna brought us each a plate of spinach mash (for lack of a better name) and cassava. Still feeling a little nervous about the whole situation, I shared Joe's plate and left the other for someone else, but no one else was eating, which at the time felt fishy.
We left feeling cautiously happy about the experience. We hiked in the hot sun back to our hostel by way of the beach again, only this time when we reached the river that met the ocean, the tide was at high tide and the river was up to our waists. Going the other way around the road would have meant adding a good 3-4 miles onto our walk at that point, so we had to just hike up our clothing (for me a skirt, for Joe shorts) and walk through the dirty river.
That night we ate a little dinner with a couple we met from Colorado (Ryan the female, and Elliott the male!). It was awesome to get to talk to them because they helped us understand Fiji a little better and helped us feel more secure in our travel plans. They too were headed to New Zealand from Fiji, though for a shorter time. They even had the same Fiji stories as us--spending time in Fiji because the plane stopped here anyway on the way to New Zealand, the coconut scam man on the beach, and the grocery store bargain shopping to stay alive.
Thankfully, they clued us in on the exchange rate! It wasn't the one to one ratio the cab driver had told us. Actually, it was closer to USD$1 to FJ$2, meaning everything we had spent money on that day was half price compared to what we had thought! We suddenly felt like the day had been much less stressful. The cab had actually only cost us USD$5 instead of 10, the water was USD$1.50 instead of 3, and all the food was much more reasonable. In fact, lunch had cost USD$3 for both of us!
The couple was leaving the next day, and promised to leave us their Fiji book. Joe and I took a round of kava (more info later) and got two and a half earfuls each about a Danish girl's glorious and most likely expensive cultural experience out on the island of Taveuni. We exchanged contact information Coloradans and went to bed feeling much better about our travels.
Stay tuned for the next leg. This has only been day one, but boy was it a long one! By the end of it, our heads were spinning.
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