Nananu-I-Ra Weekend Getaway

Sorry everyone! Computer malfuctions...many walks to both the Mac store and ITS services. Thank goodness for warranties and thank goodness that the only Mac store in all of Fiji is only a 15-20 minute walk away. Internet here is still shaky, doesn't seem like that will get any better while we're here. Last weekend we visited an island off the northern coast of the main island. I haven't really talked about the geography or layout of the country, so below are a few maps that explain where I am and where I've been.

We've only been off the main island of Viti Levu once or twice. USP is situated in the middle of Suva along the east coast. Nadi is the main airport where connecting flights from LAX or Australia fly through. Pacific Harbour has been an attraction for us, that's located in between Sigatoka and Navua along the southern shore. As you can see from the picture below, the island of Nananu-I-Ra is an island just off the coast of Rakiraki. 

MacDonald's Cottages were right next to Betham's Beach Cottages where we stayed for the weekend. This island had no internet and only had the generators on for a few hours in the morning and a few hours in the afternoon...there was obviously no need to plug in our computers so that didn't bother us. I've never felt so secluded in my life, it was so peaceful and quiet at night. It didn't take long to walk around the island but there was a village on the island too. Between the three resorts, there were only around 20 people visiting.

Fun 4 hour bus trip...

I don't really have anything nice to say about the bus ride up. Definitely makes me grateful for the space I got during those famous Bisket road trips because there was absolutely no space on this bus. People were standing in the isles and our knees touched the seat in front of us. It was blazing hot and super bumpy. Oh Fiji...

Off the bus! Where's the island?!?!

I wanted to kiss the ground when I finally got off the bus. We made arrangements with Betham's to pick us up so we had a speedboat waiting for us to take us across the water.

Matt and Shawn ready to depart

 Including both the bus and the boat, it was a five hour trip and we didn't arrive until after 6.

Being the only girl I got ridiculed for how "cute" our housing setup was.  Like always, we had asked to stay in their dormitory style housing. I was not expecting the actual cottage that we were led to!

Our cottage :)

Kitchen area

Shawn, Andrew, Matt, and I

Unfortunately it rained quite a bit on Friday night so we stayed in. In good American fashion we celebrated St. Patty's Day by playing cards and drinking. (Shout-out to Chip and Trish...my whole program has now learned the card game hockey and we play it all the time). Saturday we spent snorkeling a good portion of the day. Shawn and Andrew took out the kayaks and wanted to kayak around the island. They got about halfway and came back because they weren't sure they were gonna make it. Haha if only they had kept going! We explored the island and the other resorts, talked to some of the other guests that were there.

My Saturday :)

Just sitting in the water, fish would come up and nibble at your toes. I expected the minnows to, but there were some 3 in. and 4 in. fish that would come up to! It was amazing having a pier, the water was so clear you could see the coral and the fish without even getting in. 

View from the pier

They called this day a murky day so I can't believe what it'd look like on a clear day! They also called the edge of the pier a fish sanctuary. People sometimes feed the fish so often there are large gatherings of fish in that one specific area. Below are some of the pictures we got from snorkeling. 

Fish everywhereeee

 I wish I could describe how it feels to just have fish swarming all around you. It's so beautiful underwater and it seems like such an undiscovered world to me. I don't regret getting my scuba license one bit, in fact, I was lucky enough to do my first real dive on Sunday. It was absolutely incredible...the reefs were so colorful and there are always so many different kinds of fish, I love always have something pretty to look at! We even practiced doing some swim-throughs, where you swim between huge rock crevices or through rock formations.

Matt and I ready for our dive on Sunday

Matt is actually getting his license this weekend so he just joined us on the boat and snorkeled above in the open water last weekend. 

First dive descent!

Matt's view from the surface

One of the sharks we saw! (It was a baby one though, roughly only 2 meters)

I'm alive!

 We actually did a two-tank dive so we had a surface interval of about an hour and hopped back in the water at a different reef. The first spot was called Magic Mountain, the second Nemo's Playground. The people from the resort were so sweet, the wife had made banana bread and chocolate cake as a snack between dives. They also had coffee and tea for us. Our group consisted of our Dive Master Steve, Ken and April (worldly travelers), Tim (Diplomat from the UK), Matt, one other random snorkeler, and I. So it was fun getting to know them on the boat and asking about other dive spots that were a must before I leave in June.

View of the island

It was a fantastic weekend. Food was a bit of an issue, it was pretty much a steady diet of cereal in the morning, peanut butter sandwich for lunch, and pasta and sauce for dinner. Overload on carbs there haha but it was the easiest to bring along with us. Plus we had Pringles and cookies for snacks. I'm glad to be back to fruit and meat here in Suva. 

Family photo

 The journey back to Suva was a little less planned than the journey to Nananu-i-Ra. In fact, this is pretty much what it looked like:

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step"

Haha, no not that extreme. But we did catch the boat back to the main island and looked around when we got there saying "what's next?" We flagged down a taxi and asked him to take us to the closest town that the bus would pick us up from. This "town" consisted of a store on the side of the road. So we had a bit of down time (3 hours) waiting for the bus to pass. There were some kids playing in the water across the street from the shop as well as some locals just hanging around everywhere. I ended up playing around with some of the kids while we waited too. They were big goofballs, many of them are very shy and won't say much. But once you get them started to talk they laugh at everything too!

Andrew and I waiting for the bus

 Bus trip was another 4 hours again, we finally got back to Suva around 10 pm. It was a looong day considering I had done a two tank dive just 10 hours earlier. This week has been pretty busy, had my first midterm and my first literature paper is due Monday so classes are in full swing. We're looking at doing some kind of day trip this weekend to get out of Suva so I'll keep you posted! As always, hope everyone's doing well back home.

Can't get enough of this beautiful place!!