Fiji has been absolutely wonderful. We’ve never seen any place so green with tropical jungles. The whole island is unspoiled lush land spotted with small villages.

It has been so hot and humid that we are actually used to being sweaty sticky all the time. The locals are all very friendly, and it’s pretty easy to get around (once you get the hang of it and are not lame tourists like we started out).

So far we’ve stayed on the Coral Coast at the Beachhouse, in Levuka on the island of Ovalau, and now we’re back on the Coral Coast just outside of Sigatoka. We have seen incredible tidepools, canoed, swam in waterfall pools, hiked through the jungle, eaten coconut and papaya right off the tree, had a Fijian lunch in the home of a village family in Lovoni, and had a traditional kava ceremony (tastes yuk but is relaxing).

Epi's Tour to the Village of Lovoni
Kava Ceremony

At one point we decided to go for a swim in the natural pools at the Colo-i-Suva (Tholo Ee SooVa) Forest. We took the local transport into Suva and could not for the life of us get our point across of where we were trying to go. It got very funny! We finally made swimming motions and they dropped us off at the public swimming pool. After asking many people, we finally found someone who knew about the pools and pointed us to the correct place to wait for another van to take us there. It turned out to be awesome! There was noone else there and we had a nice refreshing swim.It’s pretty cheap here,too. So far we seem to be sticking to our budget, still hoping the money lasts all year. Hotel is from 10 to 20 dollars for both of us, and food is from 25 cents to 4 dollars a meal. Using the internet seems to be a bit expensive at 1.5 dollars for 10 minutes which can add up when on a backpacker’s budget.

The backpacker hotels have all been different and each has its own character. We’re meeting a lot of other travelers (surprisingly few Americans), cooking our own food, and doing laundry by hand.

The Fiji history is fascinating. The entire place was once a huge volcano that has since sunk and is now traced out by the tiny islands and large underwater coral reefs. Once known as the cannibal isles, the people are actually very friendly and would only eat those they defeated in war or shipwrecked men whom they thought were cursed by the gods.

A very cool feature of the main island, Viti Levu is that even though the island has many hills, mountains, and valleys, there is a flat straight and level path all the way through, starting at Vuda Nadi.

So far we’re healthy and incredibly happy with no major mishaps other than Leslie leaving her towel at our first hotel. Oh, and we missed our flight to Aukland by a whole day. We’re truly on Fiji Time.