There's no sense in going to New Zealand for a conference without checking out that part of the world at least a little. For most other people I talked to at ICCB 2011, that meant other parts of NZ. I would love to travel NZ, but Fiji had more going for it:
1) It is no less cool than NZ. Cool as in awesome. Definitely not cool as in temperature. I don't think I ever stopped sweating in Fiji.
2) Some of my favorite people in the world live there. Namely my sister, brother-in-law and 2 nephews.
3) It costs no extra money to fly there if you go with Air Pacific. I paid less than the conference discount with Air NZ. Although apparently part of the low rate at Air Pacific seems to due to a lower budget for sick bags.
With the approval of a very understanding wife*, I tacked on an extra week and a half after my conference to go to Fiji. So Bula Fiji!
*Once I have a real job, she can just come and not have to be so understanding. As long as I take dramamine.
The Lowrys were local pros and spent the week taking me around to the good spots. Thanks, guys! Even those not in this picture!
Fiji, as a south Pacific island, is a Land of Milk and Honey... Well, not so much milk - it's kind of expensive. Maybe fruit juice instead. Or just water. The place is like a steam room. And not so much honey as sugarcane. But you get the idea. How about "Land of Fruit and Mosquitoes."
Fruit is everywhere. The Lowrys had all kinds of fruit trees in their yard, including bananas, coconuts, kumquats, papayas, breadfruit, tangerines, and I'm sure a few others.
We also had the adventure of figuring out how to dig up cassava*. We mangled a few of them before the Lowrys' very nice neighbor came over and kindly spent a half an hour showing us proper technique. That was my first experience of many, in which Fijians were very kind and went out of their way to help us out.
*If you like tapioca or boba pearls, this is where it comes from.
It was also my first adventure with a bush knife, an indispensable tool to Fijians. It's basically a thin-gauge machete shaped a little bit like a stretched-out cleaver, with a long handle. No, I didn't cut any toes off. Don't rule out that possibility in the future, though.
We had picked the wrong cassava plants to dig up, and we ended up having to dig up several other plants, since their roots were intertwined. Due to some other miscalculations, we ended up not needing the cassava at all for what we had intended, so we ended up donating the whole pile of loot to various folks who could use it. Good times.
Fiji is also "Land of Super Cute Geckos." I think it's great to have these little guys cruising around the walls and ceiling, keeping the house relatively bug-free. Bugs are a part of life, and I think that's good. But you can get too much of a good thing, and geckos keep the bug numbers down. If you want your dwelling to be totally bug-free, move to the Arctic. But I digress. Cute gecko:
Fiji also happens to be home to some of the awesomest of natural pools, and the awesomest of rope swings I've ever seen: Colo-i-Suva.
It was so frightening to me to use this rope swing that I refused to do it on my first time there. The second time there I finally got the guts to do it, and it was truly amazing. I don't know if you can tell from these pics how high it is. Well, it's really high. Some of the Fijians climb up the tree itself and dive in. Wow. I'm not much of a swimmer, but I'm definitely not a diver.
Tons of fun and best hosts ever. Thanks so much John, Brenda, Toby, Sam, and Wilson!
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