Fiji

We flew with Fiji Airways to Nadi, on the west side on main land Fiji. From this side you can easily take boats to all the islands which are scattered up and beyond the west coastline. When we arrived at the airport, we were greeted by three Fijian men singing and playing guitars in funky shirts which was quite entertaining! A woman took us into a travel agents as she was advertising for places to go and what to do in Fiji. We hadn't researched what to do and we're planning on sorting it that evening, so we thought why not?! It paid off because we we realised you could haggle for anything here. She was called Ita and she told us about Mana Island. We told her we'd call her as we wanted to have a research ourselves. We took a taxi to Bluewater Lodge and booked Mana Island after the manager said she could organise that price. It was more convenient this way, so we paid £100 for all food, accommodation and transport to and from Mana Island for the week and we were being picked up the following morning. Pretty good I'd say! That evening we sat outside for a little while and were offered some Kava, dirty water, which is drunk here in Fiji. I had a sip and didn't like it at all, but the family was happy we'd tried it. We walked over to Smuggler's Cove, another hostel to grab some food and afterwards went to sleep.

In the morning we were picked up by a car, eventhough we were picking the boat up from 100m away... We needed cash so we drove 10mins away to an ATM that didn't charge. They then took us to a market and told us to buy fruit for the week. We were a bit confused, but went along with it and bought some mangoes and oranges. We then got dropped off at the supermarket. They told us, buy some rum for the island... we didn't. But bought a few other toiletries instead. We were quite grateful in the end because when we arrived at Mana island we realised it was practically a deserted island, with two hostels, one main resort and a small honeymoon resort. There weren't any shops apart from a tiny shop in our hostel selling a few things which were quite expensive in comparison to what you'd pay on the mainland.

Once we arrived at our hostel, Mana Lagoon, the staff sang us the welcome song, which was really sweet and they all came and shook our hands. We had arrived at the island on the boat with a guy called Jonas, who we came to learn was a very intelligent guy from Italy and spent some time with him over the next few days. In the evening we walked to sunset beach on the opposite side of the island (the island is small) and watched the sunset, which was beautiful. Back at the hostel, we met Pierre and Killian, from France and Germany respectively and we had a bit of fun with the other guests by getting involved in crab racing. All the crabs started in the middle and had to race to the outer circle. After a few rounds, my crab eventually won- lucky crab number three!

The following day we still had a lot of energy and were restless so we walked up to the lookout (the highest point on the island) where we could get an idea of how big it actually was (not that big). After lunch we walked around the island to North beach with Pierre and Killian. The walk was over rocks and sand and we didn't bump into a single person. We were probably walking for about an hour when we decided to sit down and chill on the deserted beach. It was amazing- it's not often you can sit on a deserted beach in Fiji! That evening we watched Castaway in preparation for our trip to the island the next day.

In the morning Killian was going diving, which he did everyday and was kind enough to let us go on the boat with him for free and go snorkelling. We snorkelled near some islands for about 45 minutes and watched the guy we were with catch some fish with a long sharp rod. Once we were back we haggled for the Castaway trip and made our way on the boat to the island. It wasn't far away, you can see it in the distance from Mana Island. We went there with a Danish couple and trekked up to the lookout at the top. We recognised a few landmarks from the film, which was pretty weird! We did some snorkeling afterwards too. I felt a bit scared in the water so got out- maybe it was the waves or knowing there were sharks in the water. Anyway, once I saw a swordfish I got out and watched Jen for a bit. The ride back was so bumpy it really hurt out bums, so it killed for the remainder of our Fiji trip. We had to think of new ways to sit on the beach and dug holes in the sand to sit against. In the evening we played some cards with Killian and chilled.

The last couple of days were spent just realxing on the beach. We had been so lucky with the weather, considering it was rainy season and everyone we'd talked to said it had been raining before we'd arrived. We walked to sunset beach and saw an even better view of the sunset than what we had done previously. The sky was lovely and once everyone from the resort had left the beach it just left me and Jens there. How romantic, haha! On our final evening we packed up and watched the stars from the beach. Our hostel had been pretty quiet all week, but it turned out to be great! It also had very basic facilities, but it gave us an insight into how the Fijian people lived as we felt like we got involved with the staff and got to know them a bit more.

After we took the boat back to mainland we hung around the backpackers area for about six hours in Bluewater Lodge. It was really nice of the owner to offer to let us come back and stay there for the day use the wifi and have a shower. It was her birthday as well- she was in a great mood :)

We boarded our 10pm flight- bye Fiji, hello USA!