Ah Beautiful Fiji

We had to leave the hostel at 3.30am to make the flight from Cairns to Sydney where we picked up the connecting flight to Nadi, Fiji!!!!!!
We were both ready to leave Oz, we’d had an amazing time but with the exchange rate and recently elevated shop prices oz was rediciulously expensive to live and travel and had hit the bank accounts hard!!
We landed in Fiji in the evening and Al the friendly taxi driving was there waiting with our names on his board- luxury travel, or so we thought he led us outside to his wheels, we were lightly surprised to find him loading our bags into the little old bangar. It was difficult to identify the car but Al told us it was a Toyota mark 2, probably 20-30 years old, with more rattles and knocks than a tin can full of stones!! Al turned out to be a really friendly guy and luckily his wheels didn’t reflect at all the quality of our hostel. We pulled into the gated property, to the friendly welcome from the Fijian staff and British owners. Jessie was playing his guitar and doing his version of singing in the back garden by the pool. We dumped our bags in our huge room and gave each other a high five. It was hotel quality rooms for hostel prices!! We went to the pool side where a few others were eating and joined them for an amazing restaurant quality meal for about 6 quid!! The beer was cheaper - we had a great nights sleep!!
The next day we awoke to sunshine and our nice complimentary breakfast. We finished this then took the local bus to the town centre. I wish we had a picture to show the bus it was a real classic with a bicycle bell to get the drivers attention when you wanted to get off!! We went to the market with Ferdinand and Holly, a Swede and a Brit. Ferdinand put our trip to shame having already travelled the trans Siberian railway through Russia, Mongolia etc and having spent time in China so we felt we were in the safe company of a seasoned traeller. The market was cool, we discovered the cultural mix of Fiji was so diverse for such a small country. Their was a mix of Indian and Fijian and just about every religion known to man practiced. The market was filled with roots sitting on the tables. We were a bit mythed as to what this was but as we got to know Fiji we discovered became very familiar with what turned out to be Kava the drink of choice in Fiji. We all had a taste in the market, it was a mouth numbing taste of muddy water but the Fijians are mad for it.
We brought loads of fruit and bread at the market and headed back to the hostel/ hotel and had a feast. In the afternoon we called Ali and agreed a price for him to take us to the hot springs for the day.
For 25 dollars Ali rattled and shook us all to the hot springs of Nadi. It was a bit of a surreal experience as we were taken to the second springs past the usual sign posted springs up a rough road into some land were their appeared to be a volleyball tournament. We pretty much drove right through the middle of the games and down to the bottom of the garden- I don’t think we were expected but after some discussion between Ali, our driver, and the apparent land owner we were introduced to a young girl who was to show us around. The first thing to do was climb down into a pit dug into the ground and cover ourselves in mud. Then we got out and dried the mud in the sun, while the locals all played volleyball right behind us!!
We then had to clean off and go over to the hot springs. The water at the source was too hot to sit in so they had channeled the springs to another “swimming pool” or pit as it really was to swim in the bath temperature waters.
The kids came and watched the tourists flap around and seemed a little intrigued by us. We dried off and Ali was ready and waiting to take us home via the supermarket, a nice but very random experience!!
That night we had another amazing meal and music and ‘singing’ by Jessie and lots of chat and beers.
The next day we were boarding the Yasawa flyer and heading out for our island experience!!