A Few Reasons I Love Fiji

I have not posted a blog in ages, and unfortunately I’m way behind. If anyone is still reading you deserve a pat on the back. I had written most of this second post on Fiji two months ago, and I finally got around to finishing it after our second trip to Fiji. After this, however, I plan to write about things currently happening. That is, of course, if I don’t get derailed by procrastination and laziness.

After two trips to Fiji, I have compiled a short list of what I love most about Fiji.

1. Relaxation - Blake and I tend to spend our vacations running from one place to another and trying to see as much as we possibly can. While this makes for exciting journeys, it does not create a relaxing vacation. And then there is Fiji. Upon arrival at the outer islands, you have no choice but to take it easy. There are no cars, no roads, no condos, and no high-end beachfront homes. Unless you’re on one of the few islands with a Fijian village, there are generally no houses at all. Numerous islands are uninhabited, and the ones that are inhabited still feel deserted. Some islands have a handful of resorts, others have only one. Resorts are all inclusive out of necessity as you generally have nowhere else to go. If there are other hotels on the island, the only way to get there is a long hike or a boat ride. Not worth the effort when you can relax in an open-air sand-floor restaurant/bar footsteps from your bure. An ambitious day might be hiking to the top of the island for a breathtaking view, kayaking in shallow clear water, or taking a day trip to snorkeling paradise. Not exactly high stress.

2. Invalid Passport......No Problem - Just to set the record straight......I’m an idiot. About two weeks before Blake, Ross and I travelled to New Zealand I realized that one of the entry requirements is that your Passport is valid for three months after your planned departure. My Passport expired on Feb. 15 2011, and we were not planning to depart New Zealand until Dec. 12. This realization sent me spiraling into a heightened state of panic that one would only experience after.....say....dropping your keys in an elevator shaft or dropping your phone in a bucket of paint. I have done both. But those are different stories altogether. Anyway, after a couple days of researching and freaking out, I luckily discovered a loophole allowing me to enter New Zealand with my current Passport. So what does this have to do with Fiji? Well, less than two weeks after this terrible experience I booked two flights to Fiji from the United States without even checking the visa requirements. Who makes that mistake twice in one month? Within hours, it hit me that Fiji may have an entry requirement similar to that of New Zealand. And, they do. But worse. The loophole I found in New Zealand does not exist in Fiji. I looked at every, and I mean every, possible way to renew my passport before our trip to Fiji-I even considered flying to a Passport agency in Chicago while home for Christmas to have it renewed on the spot-but nothing was going to work. As a last resort I called the airport in Fiji, explained my situation, and begged for an exception. The lady on the phone proceeded to tell me that “it would not be a problem.” This should have brought a great sense of relief, but I was still worried that I would not be allowed to get on the plane in Los Angeles without meeting the proper travel requirements. My request for something in writing to present to the airline in LA was met with this response, “we cannot provide anything official in writing, but don’t worry. If there is a problem, just have the airline call us.” Right.....I can just picture myself at the front of a long line of chaos that is LAX telling the overworked, irritable, unsympathetic airline agent, “It’s cool, everything is ok, just call Fiji.” In the end, I managed to convince the Fijian Immigration to send me an email-and it was a very basic unofficial looking email-stating I would be allowed into the country. It wasn’t enough to put me at complete ease, but it was as good as it was going to get. We thought we were flying from LA to Fiji on Air New Zealand, but luckily for us, the flight was operated by Air Pacific (the Fijian airline). In typical Fijian fashion, they were laid back about the Passport issue, and the email was enough to get me on board. Upon arrival, I still could have been denied entry and forced to fly back to the US. Instead, I don’t even think they noticed the Passport issue. Just a quick swipe and a “Bula” and I was on my way.

3. An Air Pacific New Years - Fiji is on the way from the US to Australia, and it generally does not cost much more to stop there for a few days on the way. However, we were travelling around Christmas, and the only day that was affordable was December 30. Travel time is 24 hours and you cross the date line just east of Fiji. In our case, we reached the dateline at about 3:15am on December 31st, which meant that it instantly became 3:15am on January 1, which meant New Years Eve did not exist for us. We had hoped the airline would do something on the flight to celebrate, but our expectations were pretty low. Much, much lower than what actually ensued. It was announced when we boarded the plane that we were going to celebrate the New Year according to the time in Fiji (roughly midway through the 11-hour flight). So about halfway through the flight, when most people were sleeping, they flipped the lights on, turned on some music, began handing out wine to anyone who would take it, and started dancing down the aisles. The flight attendants were leading a Conga line while throwing baby powder everywhere. One of the male flight attendants even dressed in the traditional Fijian female attire* and had a dance off with one of the other flight attendants. The party went on for 45-minutes to an hour, and we were loving it. I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say that the same scene did not unfold on the United flight that night.

4. Snorkel heaven – When I have managed to put off relaxing long enough to venture out into the shallow waters of Fiji, I have had some amazing experiences. On both trips to Fiji, we took a quick boat ride out to the most beautiful snorkeling spot I have ever seen. A tiny sand spit comes out of the water and the surrounding area is extremely shallow and sandy. You could literally walk a few hundred yards in some directions and not even be up to your knees. The shallow area is fringed by a spectacular reef of snorkeling heaven. The first time we went, the place was fairly crowded with boats and other snorkelers, but on our second trip we were the only ones. This, of course, made me worry that there was some underlying reason for the absence of any other tourists….something along the lines of deadly animals spotted in the area. Go ahead…laugh at Mr. Cautious, but as mentioned above, safety is not really a concept understood by most Fijians. Nevertheless, the opportunity to be alone in such a pristine highly visited reef is not to be taken for granted so we jumped in, deadly animals or not. The scenery was as I had remembered excluding roughly 100 neon clad, flailing, underwater camera toting, soon to be disappointed there pictures didn’t turn out as good they had hoped tourists. I guess I probably shouldn’t make fun of other flailing tourists, as this seems to be my primary underwater behavior. At least according to my wife. At one point, while following Blake, I came to the conclusion that the coral she was swimming over was a bit too shallow for my liking. As I slowly turned back in the other direction, I suddenly found myself in a pants-ruining situation. A mere 10 feet away, and looking in my direction, was a reef shark. Thankfully, the snorkel prevented the highly effeminate scream that would have otherwise alerted anyone within a 17-mile radius that a pansy was in trouble. At this point, I should have watched the shark until it was out of sight enjoying the rare opportunity to see it up close. This is not, however, in any way, what I did. I turned and immediately fled as fast as I could over the coral I had previously decided was too shallow. It wasn’t, and I cleared it with relative ease-further proving my lack of underwater courage-before finding a sandy area to stand up in. The surrounding coral was very shallow on three sides, and the only path back to the boat was right back towards Mr. Shark. It was at this point, I decided to spend a few minutes freaking out. After some deep rhythmic breathing and reassuring myself that reef sharks are nothing to be afraid of, I managed to continue snorkeling with Blake before eventually making it back to the boat, where I of course boasted of my heroic encounter with the “giant man-eating shark.” What a badass!

5. Surf Breaks – On my first trip to Fiji, I spent the first few days with my friends Ap and John. John and Ap like to surf, and as a result, my first day in Fiji got off to a much earlier start than I would have liked. At roughly 7:30 am, after a quick breakfast and a rather long session of applying sunscreen, we hopped on an aging beat-up aluminum boat captained by a sparsely toothed local named Kini, who surprisingly spoke little English. The best surf breaks in Fiji are on the offshore coral reefs, and they are only accessible by boat. The good thing about a reef break is they produce consistent, and in Fiji’s case, massive waves. The bad news is that if you fall in the wrong spot, you have a great shot at “getting trapped on the inside” of the break and being repeatedly smashed by successive waves into the shallow and sharp reef below. Not a pretty site. Kini included, there were 10 of us on the boat, none of which seemed to be expert surfers. An agreement had been reached to surf one of the smaller breaks and avoid the notorious Cloudbreak, home to an annual professional surfing competition. John had impressively surfed-or at least dropped into a wave before quickly getting the hell out of there-Cloudbreak the day before, and he was not going back. An instruction to take the boat to one of the smaller breaks was met with a somewhat confused look from Kini and roughly this response, “You want big wave. Cloudbreak is best.” Seemingly unable to grasp the fact that nobody felt comfortable subjecting themselves to the fury that is Cloudbreak, Kini steered us in that direction.

Allow me to momentarily digress and note that danger, or rather safety, does not seem to be a part of the Fijian mindset. For example, the motor was generally left on when people were getting on and off the boat right next to the engine. Gas tanks on our boat-and on most small boats in Fiji-consist of two large plastic jugs in the back of boat with a tube siphoning fuel to the engine. What about life jackets you ask? No chance in hell.

Approaching the massive Cloudbreak from the rear would strike fear in all but the most expert of surfers, much less those on board our rickety boat. A giant viewing platform protrudes from the middle of the Ocean near the break. During professional competitions it is used by judges; however, on most days it simply serves as a reminder that this is one serious wave. If I could describe the immense power of the waves breaking in front of us, I would. I can’t. Underneath a transparent display of courage, there was a sense of fear amongst the surfers entering the water. As for me, my mind had long been made up that I would spend the day on the boat painfully attempting conversation with Kini. My only fear was getting a sunburn. John and Ap had planned to surf the smaller breaks but wanted no part of the big one, so at is turned out I had some company on the boat. One by one the rest of our group swam towards the edge of the break, where they gathered and waited for quite some time. The break shifted and we were unable to get a clear view our group in action, although I’m not sure there was a whole lot to see. As they drifted back to the boat some time later, it was reported that everyone had at least attempted to drop into a wave or two. Only one had been trapped on the inside, and although the most confident at the start of the day he was clearly rattled by the experience. He had only managed to reach safety after being pounded by several waves. Luckily, everyone returned without injury, and most importantly they could all claim to have surfed, or at least attempted, one of the world’s best surf breaks.

6. Fijians – Fiji is a gorgeous place, but by far the best part is the people. Their friendliness seems genuine and their pride in their culture and heritage is obvious. Enjoying life and keeping things simple definitely rank way ahead of material wealth. One great memory of the Fijians that I have was from our first trip. At 4:00, as was posted on the chalkboard, it was time for Volleyball. Most of the guests were doing their own thing, mainly lounging around and taking it easy and the only participants in the game were the staff. And I mean all the staff. If we had needed anything urgently (which you never do in Fiji), you would have had to pull somebody out of the game. You would think that “volleyball time” would become an annoyance for the staff that probably do it every day to entertain the tourists. In reality, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a group so excited about anything. So there we were; a bunch of tourists on vacation-a bunch of workers in their daily routine, and the people at work were having the most fun. Oh…to live the life of a Fijian. On our second trip we met our possible our favorite Fijian, Abbo. Abbo was our Kava Circle leader as well as our guide on an early morning hike to the top of Malolo Island, the biggest island in the Mamanucca chain (Abbo is pictured on the left at the top of the island). Throughout both activities, he told us all about life in his village, and I never got the feeling that it was just part of his job. It was this kind of sincerity that really made our time in Fiji so memorable.

* For some reason Fijians apparently like to dress up like the opposite sex. This was learned the hard way when Ap, John, and I were forced, and I mean forced....we didn’t go willingly, to put on traditional female attire and participate in the cross-dress party at our hostel on Mana Island. Good news is that everyone staying there had to do the same. Bad news is that we had to dance one-by-one down in front of everyone else there while being judged on our moves. And yes, it was as bad as you’re imagining.