For the long Easter weekend (4 days, something I've never been blessed with at home) a group of us went up north to Nananu-i-ra, a small island just off of Viti Levu. We had an interesting 4 hour long bus ride, followed by a slow boat ride to the island, where there were no cars and the only power came from an electric generator that was turned on from 730 in the morning until 10 at night. There were crab holes and large crabs everywhere, some friendly dogs, and a few battles between crabs and dogs. We lived off of instant noodles for the weekend. There was supposedly clean drinking water gathered in large drums from rainwater, but ours had mosquito larvae in it and tasted terrible even after being boiled, so we were restricted to buying $5 bottles of Fiji water from the front desk. The sunny weather turned to rain as soon as we showed up and didn't break until the day that we left (although we had most of the day to sit around and enjoy it), but the place was still beautiful and I got to do a ton of stuff while I was there. I wish that the weather had been nicer while we were there, and that there were more seashells on the beach, but all around I really liked the island.
This photo's actually from the drive back, where the road was flooded, but I wanted to show the conditions of the road that we took to get there. The beginning and the end were paved, but there was a rough section in the middle where the road was all red clay or gravel. Needless to say this didn't do well with all the rain over the weekend...on the way back there was a legitimate waterfall taking over the road that we had to ford.
The boat ride there. The island was shaped with lots of projections, so on most sides of the island it seemed like we were in a lagoon with very calm water and mountains on all sides.
My friend Cliff and I snorkeling on the Rainbow Reef. Earlier that day I went diving twice! It was a little scary for the first five minutes of the first one (the instructor, Papu, had to hold my hand) but I had a great time once I was down there. I went with my friend Will, who was getting certified over the weekend. On the way out it was pouring torrential rain, but Papu took us out on his boat to the barrier reef in the middle of the ocean where there were huge waves that was making the boat bounce all over the place. I was freaking out pretty badly, and of course Papu's main concern was that we throw out fishing lines to try and catch tuna. His wife and son were scampering around on top of the boat and on the bow without a problem. He decided that we shouldn't dive there that day, and instead took us to a couple of different sites on the reef closer to shore where it was calmer. I had a lot of fun - I definitely hope to do some more diving while I'm here since the water is great and there are a ton of beautiful places to do it.
A sea snake. We did the logical thing and tried to coax it into an empty beer bottle. They can swim forwards and backwards.
Some of the many fish - these were just right off the end of a pier by our beach. There were lots of different types of fish right there, but way more on the reefs: lots of soft corals, giant clams, sea cucumbers, starfish, anemones, nudibranchs, and even a couple of blue spotted stingrays.
One side of the beach. This place was gorgeous - it looked like this just about all around the island. It's a little cloudy in the picture so it doesn't look too great but it really was ridiculous.
The pier extending from the beach outside of our hostel. There was coral out near the end, with tons of colorful fish that you could feed or go hang out with while snorkeling. We did a lot of hanging out on the pier over the weekend.
Frangipani flowers!
Green mountains on the boat ride over.
It seems like every time I think I've been to the most beautiful place on earth, we end up going somewhere else the next weekend that is even better. This country is just full of amazing places, it's sad that I can't take pictures that do any of it justice but it really is ridiculous. I clearly didn't get any work done this weekend, but I've still got tomorrow off to start with my much studying for the week so I'll get things done then. I'm really happy that I decided to go somewhere this weekend rather than stay in and study.
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