Day 5: Coral Coast, Fiji

So I'm currently chillin on the Coral Coast halfway between Nadi and Suva (the capital), on our way to catch a ferry to Taveuni. We were supposed to go today, but the ferry was cancelled so now we have to wait until Friday, which is kind of a bummer but it's all good cause the place we're staying right now is unbelievable. Before I get into that though I'm gonna back up a few days:

Mana Island (Jan. 22nd - 24th)
So the morning after I arrived in Nadi I departed for Mana Island, which is the second largest island (I think...) in the Mamanuca group. I caught the backpackers ferry out there, which turned out to be a pretty ordinary speedboat. It got the job done just fine though, and after stopping at a number of smaller islands in the group to drop off and pick up other passengers, I was there. The weather was absolutely spectacular, it's been in the 80s and sunny pretty much the whole trip thus far, with isolated pockets of rain (it is the rainy season after all). Since it's so warm though the rain isn't really that much of a bother; on the contrary it can actually be quite refreshing. Anyway, I stayed in the Ratu Kini hostel, which is one of a number of hostels and resorts on the island run by members of the local village. The price included three meals a day as well as a bed in 16 bed dorm. It was really a fantastic place to sit around and do nothing. I spent much of my time playing cards with a couple of fellows from Scotland by the names of James, Paul and Stuart, as well as two gals from Norway by the names of Helena and Anhelen, a guy from Switzerland and Tim from Germany, who I'd met at Bamboo. It seems that everyone that I've talked to is on some amazing adventure traveling all around the world. The Scots are taking a seven month trip, the Norwegians an eleven month trip and Tim is traveling on an around the world ticket. One of these days it's gonna happen....

Mana Island as seen from the ferry

Ratu Kini Hostel

In addition to playing cards I went snorkeling right off the beach, hand-line fishing around the backside of the island (I was the only one who didn't catch anything unfortunately, but I pretty much went to sit and drink beer anyway, so it's all good), and walked around the island to Survivor beach, which is where they filmed survivor Fiji, and Sunset beach, from which Monriki Island is visible, which is the island where they filmed Castaway. If only Tom Hanks knew that there was a village on the next island over.... There were a ton of crabs on sunset beach, as well as a sea cucumber, which was really cool.

Survivor Beach

The Scots, Norwegians and myself at the set of Survivor Fiji

Sam, one of the employees at the hostel, also taught me how to husk a coconut and weave a basket out of palm fronds, which I thought was pretty cool. Unfortunately I couldn't take the basket with me as you're not aloud to take it out of the country, so I left it on the island.

The basket that Sam helped me make.

After three days on Mana, I headed back to Nadi to meet Reid and Rachel at Bamboo, as they landed early that morning. It was nice to see everyone at Bamboo again. Mattias, the German who I met coconut John with, was still there, as were a number of other travelers, mostly European. We spent the day there and drank a lot of kava that night. I think I had a little too much because I woke up feeling very nauseous, but that eventually passed and we left for the Coral Coast, which is where we are now.

The Coral Coast

So right now we are staying on the Coral Coast of Fiji, which is on the southwest coast of the mainland of Viti Levu, in a beautiful hostel called the Beach House. This place is ridiculous! it's right on the beach but also has a pool, a pool table, a ping pong table, kayaks that can be used for free at high tide, hammocks, snorkeling gear, the whole 9 yards. All at a backpacking hostel! I feel more like I'm at a fancy resort. I was initially pretty bummed out that we were going to have to leave today, since the place is so nice, but then we woke up this morning and found out that the ferry to Taveuni was cancelled, so it turns out that we get to hang out here after all! I guess you can call it a blessing in disguise. We're sharing a dorm with two spaniards from Bilbao, Roberto and Juncal (spelling?), who are super cool. They've been through Southeast Asia and Australia already and are continuing for a number of months after they leave Fiji. We hung out with them last night, as well as some Aussies and some Danes, and played drinking games until the wee hours of the morning.

This morning I woke up to a beautiful blue sky and hung out for a while before going snorkeling. The snorkeling here is AMAZING!!! We saw every reef fish imaginable, and then some; it felt like diving in an aquarium. There were some clownfish, one of whom bit Rachel, schools of neon fish of every color, giant clams (one shell that we saw was about as big as my torso), anemones, brain corals, fan corals, eels, gigantic sea urchins, bright blue starfish, the list is endless. I unfortunately don't have any good pictures yet, but I will and I'll share them ASAP. The plan as of now is to stay here until Friday and then catch the ferry to Taveuni, but you never really know what will happen in Fiji, so we'll see what opportunities come our way.

Jesus that's a lot of writing! If you managed to make it this far then congratulations! because I can't say that I would have read all of that. More to come soon. Cheers!