A short, rushed note from the road…I will actually be motorcycling in Fiji at some point but for now I’ve been running around with a group of journalists to see everything possible in as short as possible a time. Day 1 we were in Nadi airport and then at a hotel to freshen up go to the gym (nice 45 minute post-flight workout) and a swim in the pool and a shower and then breakfast of mango and banana and eggs and coffee and pineapple juice under a grass roof carefully constructed here in exotica to really look and feel like exotica, and then on a bus to a boat to an island where we were treated to a real true exotic experience, a really never seen kava kava ceremony where the 10 of us journalists got to do a very formal you are great thank you and you are great too and thank you and then drink six half coconut shells of kava kava which makes your mouth and lips numb and gets you quite relaxed.
This due to a famous surfer who owns the neigboring island who wants to make sure these people get to keep their traditions forever, very great material to write about from many angles. The men were in grass skirts and vines wrapped around their limbs and faces smeared with charcoal and coconut oil like the warriors they once were and are and they were very proud. We did ritual clapping and words BULA! and drank and then three claps (hands hollow claps) and then gave the empty bowl back with both hands.
Then the children sang and did traditional dances is traditional costumes and the women laughed and teased them, then the tide went out too low and we had to wade thru the muck to get to the boat — after a ceremonious lunch and etc. of fruit and gooky manioc root sweets and then to the surfer’s deserted island you can rent for 25 thousand dollars a week at the most famous surf spot in the world called Cloudbreak and nobody can surf there unless you’re staying there and its
where the competitions are filmed. There is a big tower built in the sea for the camera crews.
I’m now at the Tokoriki resort where I am going diving at 11 and getting a massage at 12 thank goodness or I’ll die from lugging camera and computer and stuff around, and then we’re packing up to go to another resort where the movie Castaway was filmed where we’ll stay for two days.
I can’t wait to slow down…so at least I can think and write. The others on this trip are fabulous and real pros from big mags and are fun and easy to be with not one whiner in the group and they’ve really put us to the test with that day 1 of no sleep and four changes of
location with luggage.
Many photos and website to come but not fora couple of days because real internet connections don’t happen here easily. The organizer says that the coconut wireless is working on getting me a bike on the island of Taveuni in a few days…keep your fingers crossed!
