Fiji Islands – 14 - 22 July 2005

It is hard to believe that we are on the last leg of our trip, going from Australia to home through Fiji, where we are spending eight days. Although parts of Fiji look like the post cards, the economy of the islands is in very poor condition. Nadi City looked particularly grim. We spent most of our time in the tourist enclave of Denarau Island, about 15 minutes from the town of Nadi on the main island of Fiji. There are some 300 islands in Fiji and only a third of them inhabited.. Denarau Island is really more like a gated community of fancy resort hotels with a short bridge to the main island.

We spent seven days at a wonderful WorldMark timeshare on Denarau Island with a beautiful pool, beach and an open air restaurant done in a semi-Fijian style. The sunsets were beautiful accompanied by a group of singers serenading around the pool with traditional, very melodious Fijian songs. At sunset one of them, dressed in a grass skirt, lit the torches on the perimeter of the pool. It was very peaceful and beautiful. It was hard to believe that on the other side of the world in the Middle East war was raging on and people dying. We were able to follow the news on the Fox network.

The Denarau Island had a convenient boat terminal for access to the neighboring Islands, mainly the Mamanuca and Yasawa groups. We used the timeshare as a base and took a couple of shopping trips into Nadi were we bought food, some carved wooden masks and a cannibal fork (used by the chief to feast on his adversaries). We also took a tour of an orchid garden called the Garden of the Sleeping Giant. Generally the areas outside the tourist compound were rather depressing, however.

We enjoyed a day trip by fast catamaran to the Mana Island in the Mamanuca group. It has several resort hotels and some villages surrounded by beautiful clear blue water over a wonderful shallow coral reef. As a preview we took a glass bottomed mini-sub trip and had a great view of the reef and huge variety of fish and even a giant turtle. There were huge schools of fish coming beside the boat particularly when they were fed. In the afternoon we took a small motor boat to another part of the reef and spent 2-3 hours snorkeling at a less damaged part of the reef that extended all the way to the beach.. There were hundreds of colorful fish of all sizes and colorful corral. A real wonderland down there!!!

We spent our last night in Fiji at the “Treasure Island “(http://www.fiji-treasure.com/), where we stayed in a cute cabin, called “bure”, a modern adaptation of a Fiji native hut. It was steps from the beach, with hammocks outside and good facilities. We enjoyed two more great days of snorkeling on the reef right off the beach in front of our cabin.

At the end of a day of snorkeling and sunning, we got on a boat back to the main island and took a cab to the airport for our overnight trip back to Los Angeles.