Nadi Hotels
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Beachcomber Island
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Yesterday morning, Kristin and I woke up at 6:30am for the 3rd time, hoping to be able to get on a boat to go out to one of the smaller islands. We were told a bus was coming to take us to the boat-woohoo! Unfortunately, it wasn't going to be easy. Since we had had to cancel our previous trip, we didn't have the boat trip or the hostel booked. When we got to the pier, we were told not to get tickets yet, and just to ride "standby" on the boat going out. After waiting for about half an hour, we were told we couldn't get on the boat because we hadn't bought tickets! It seems there was a lack of communication. After buying tickets and waiting for the next boat out, we finally took the half hour trip out to Beachcomber Island. I think both of us were surprised by the size of the island-it was tiny! There was one hostel on the island, which consisted of different "Bures," or huts, throughout the island. All the activities, food, bar, etc. on the island was through the hostel. It took about 5 minutes to walk from one end of the island to the other. Although it was still a little rainy and gray, it was definitely still gorgeous. Everything was so green and lush! I felt like we were in the middle of "The Jungle Book," and Kristin kept saying she felt like she was in Never Never Land, just waiting for the lost boys to pop out from their hiding spaces. After being assigned our bunks, numbers 144 & 145, we were led by a staff member to our bure. Consistent with the lack of organization in Fiji and our luck (or lack thereof), our bunk numbers were not present in the bure (although the staff member continued to look around at the 4 or 5 bunk beds for about 5 minutes, reading the numbers over and over and not understanding why she couldn't find ours). Finally, after a few trips back to the main office and a few more staff members coming in to look, we were led to a pair of unmarked beds in a different bure, and told they would be back to number them. After a quick look around, we were definitely more than happy to stay where we were. This bure was much nicer than the first one, and Kristin and I had our own little part of them room sectioned off. It was a gorgeous structure, made completely out of natural materials (wood, straw, etc). There was a small sink in the room, but the toilets and showers were out the back door. There were 6 other beds in the other part of the room, but we didn't really meet the other people because we went to bed early. Even though Beachcomber is advertised as the "party island," Kristin and I were tired and decided that we were content staying in our bure and going to sleep early instead of partying. Earlier in the day, we had looked around the island (which didn't take long!), had a great Fijian buffet lunch, laid out on the beach (even though it was cloudy and a little rainy, I still got some color), played cards with some other visitors, had a mediocre buffet dinner, and headed back to our bure to rest. The night before at our hostel in Nadi, we had met some really great British and Australian guys, and had stayed up late playing cards and laughing. We hope to meet up with them in New Zealand and Australia, since we're pretty sure they would be great to travel with. So, since we had been up late the night before and were up early that morning, we were exhausted and happy to just rest and enjoy the serenity of the island. Most other people did not feel the same, and the rest of our bure-mates came in between 2 and 4 in the morning. Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up with a start when I heard Kristin yell, "HEY!" I sat up and saw a figure in the dark standing in front of our closet. I was still half asleep and didn't really know what was going on, but wondered if maybe someone was stealing our stuff? Kristin jumped out of bed and said "What are you doing?!" to which the figure replied, "I'm using the toilet." As you may remember, the toilet was outside our bure, and definitely not in our closet. Coincidentally, my bag happened to be in the closet. Kristin responded, "NO, that's the CLOSET!" and pushed him out. Kristin and I then spent the next 15 minutes cracking up and telling late night pee horror stories (such as when my friend had a guy sleep over and he got up in the middle of the night and peed in her closet all over all of her shoes). In the morning, we got up and checked my bag, but everything seemed dry-it looked as though we had caught him in time. Phew!
Unfortunately, because of the weather only one boat was leaving Beachcomber the next day and so we had to leave the island at 9:45am. We would have liked to stay longer, but as it turned out it all worked out for the best. In the cab ride on the way home, Kristin asked our cab driver where the nearest village was. He said it was about a mile away from our hostel, and that they welcomed visitors as long as you got permission from the chief first. We asked our cab driver to take us there instead of our hostel, and he was very helpful. When we got there, he found out where the head of the community lived, and went in to ask permission for us. We later found out that he was the go-between between the chief and the rest of the community-he delivered any news from the chief to the rest of the village. His wife offered to show us around the village. She could not have been nicer. After a brief tour in one direction, she invited us in for tea before the second half of our tour. Over tea, we talked and asked her lots of questions about their community. She was extremely nice and answered all of our questions, as well as asking us about ourselves. After tea we walked around the rest of the village, and saw the church, the Chief's Graveyard, the pig pens, and many other houses. She told us about the village, people, and customs. Everyone was very friendly, and wherever we went we heard "Bula!" which means "hello," or "welcome." Apart from all of the people sitting outside, there were so many animals! Everywhere you looked there were chickens, roosters, dogs, and pigs, all running free. Along the way, we accumulated a swarm of little boys. They were very cute and kept running up and grabbing our hands and running away laughing. It seemed like they just wanted to touch us. They were very friendly and very excited to take a picture with us. After showing us around, the woman told us we would have to come back and stay with her. She gave us her address and we promised we would write and send copies of the picture for the boys. It was a great experience and I am so glad we were able to see this part of Fiji.
Coming back to our hostel in Nadi almost felt like coming "home." After a much needed shower and a good dinner, we headed to the back porch of the hostel for a traditional Fijian fire show. It was great to watch the dancing, and the leader of the group especially was so enthusiastic and friendly. Today was a great end to our stay in Fiji.
I should mention a bit of bad luck I have had while here. A few days ago, when we were stuck on Nadi, we decided to go for a walk to ease some of the stir-craziness we'd started to experience. The cyclone had done some serious damage, though, and many branches were down across the paths. I tried to step over a palm branch that had fallen but caught my tow on one of the spikes. I didn't even know that palm trees had spikes, but apparently they do. Below the leaves are 6" long thorn like spikes coming out of the branch. It just pricked the side of my big toe, but I was afraid I had a splinter. After walking back to our hostel, I determined that there was no splinter in my foot, but my toe still stung intensely. The next day it was not better, and had turned red and a bit swollen. I asked the hostel staff and they said it would be like that for a while, but that it would go away. When we went to Beachcomber yesterday, it was feeling worse, and I now could not really bend my toe at all. Back at our hostel in Nadi today, I once more asked the hostel staff if I should be worried. They looked at my toe and confirmed that there was no splinter in it. They said it was just the sap of the palm tree, and that it would be like this for a while. They said how they usually got it out was to put salt on it and hold a match to it. Because it had been a somewhat painful last couple days, I was willing to try what they suggested. I had no idea how painful that would be. One of the older men who works at the hostel offered to do it for me, and he was very nice about it. He put a pinch of salt on my toe and held a match to it until it went out. I don't know if I have ever experienced this kind of main before. Imagine having a burning match held on your skin until it goes out. He repeated this with 4 matches. Inside I was screaming in pain, and I'm pretty sure the man could tell. Each time, though, some of the salt turned yellow, and he told me that was the sap coming out. I was glad that if I was suffering through this pain, at least it was doing something. Now, however, I have a blister from the burn and my toe hurts even worse. I still can't bend it, either. I feel sorry for Kristin, since she has to put up with me whining about my toe every two minutes. I'm hoping that it was get better eventually, and if not I'm afraid I'll have to go to a doctor in New Zealand. Wish me luck.
Latest Comments (1)
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your toe (reply)
Feb 5, 2008 22:32 EST by amira.des
I hope your lil tootsie gets better! I know you have 10, but the big ones are important. Annd if you keep going at this rate we won't be able to dance these next four months! Or you may just become much more fall-over-able :)
but seriously.. I hope you get well soon, and I enjoyed reading about your already memorable times! Keep having fun, be safe, and I'll see you guys soon!
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| 2. | Beachcomber Island - Nadi, Fiji Feb 01, 2008 (  1 ) |
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