Fiji

From Tonga, the others went home and Sam and I continued on to Fiji, about an hours flight away. For some reason I had thought they would be similar, but the two countries are drastically different. Tonga is flat and small with dirt roads. Fiji is much larger, hilly, covered in rain forest, and has some very developed cities (including Suva, where we landed, and Nadi, where we departed).

Day 1. When we arrived in Suva it was love at first sight. We arrived with absolutely no plans and booked a hotel based on the advice of our super friendly taxi driver. The city is big, crowded, loud, totally unsafe after dark, and there is Indian food everywhere. I loved it. We also happened to arrive the weekend of a big soccer game so the city was jam packed with crazy fans from all over Fiji. The gigantic marketplace was my favorite. I had pineapple slices, kumquat juice, and we got a big papaya...they were all SO good!

View from our balcony.

The insanely huge market which dominates the city center. It has a two-story indoor section and two huge outdoor areas.

Suva Harbor.

Day 2. Today, after finally figuring out how and when (there's no visitor info center in this city even though its the capital), we headed over to Ovalau Island. We got on a 1.5 hour bus at the craziest bus station I've ever seen. Then the bus boarded a ferry to Ovalau Island (another hour). Finally the buses drove around the island dropping various riders off at their villages which were nestled in the islands thick rainforest. Finally we got to Levuka and luckily they had a beautiful (and incredibly cheap) room for us at the hotel!

Ovalau from the ferry.

Riding past small villages.

Day 3. We spent the next day lounging about and walking around Levuka, the original capital city of Fiji.
Day 4-5 Today we made the 4 hour return journey to Suva (bus, ferry, bus) with a group of thirty 7th graders returning from a school trip who kept us very entertained the entire way. After arriving in Suva at 3, we found a bus to take us to the Coral Coast along the south side, the more touristy area which was on our way to Nadi. We soon found out why it was so touristy. As opposed to the clouds we'd been seeing, the Coral Coast was sunny, clear, and the water at the beach was soooo warm! We stayed at a resort and spent most of day 5 on their amazing white sand beach swimming in the clear warm waters.

(That's me!)

Day 6. Our last day was spent in Nadi which was much more touristy than Suva and much more humid (which also meant we spent our last day getting devoured by mosquitoes).