Fiji = Paradise

After the chaos of Chile, I found myself spending one night in Auckland - in the nicest hotel I have stayed in up to this point...and imagine I will be staying in...before flying the very next morning to Fiji. It was a trip in more ways than one.

As we fell out of baggage collection at Nandi airport we were greeted with the traditional 'Fiji welcome song', flowers and shell necklaces - it was lovely. I found the tourist information desk, and arranged accomodation for the night - despite not being able to pay for the room or the 5 days accommodation I had booked, as I couldn't draw any cash out from the ATM machines (at the start of the trip this i the sort of thing that would have been a drama, but now only 3 months down the line, seemed nothing more than a minor inconvenience).

The following morning - up at 7am to be the first in the que for the bank - I boarded a speedboat and headed out to Mana Island. It was cloudy and overcast, and it was choppy to say the least, but this didn't stop the local Fijian boys from stopping half way across for a spot of deep sea fishing.

As soon as we set foot on Mana Island I knew I was going to love it - its a little pocket of paradise. Hopefully the pictures capture a small piece of that at least - the sand is white, the sea is clear, the sky quickly became blue and the locals and fellow travellers I met, sunbathed and partied with were the best. I was due to stay 5 days, I was there for 10 - even returning after heading to the mainland to buy (yet another) camera after one of the local kids dropped number 3 into the sea. There's not to much to tell about Mana, because everyday was pretty much the same - wake in the morning, head to a hammock and read a little, have breakfast, go for a swim, sunbathe, welcome more travellers with the Mana Island 'welcome song', say good bye with the 'farewell song', have lunch, sunbathe, snorkel, sleep, have dinner, watch the sunset, party on the beach. We stayed in very basic dorms - bunk beds in a shed - but nobody cared. The locals live in what we would consider abject poverty, but their life is rich because they live in this perfect little corner of the world - they wake each morning, they see that view, and they fish. A very simple, but in my opinion at least, great way to live life.

It was amazing, and I loved every single minute of it.