Despite The Rain, I 'Lovo' Caqalai Island...

Another blog post, another exceptionally bad pun. All will be revealed...

But let me start by wishing you all a happy belated Fiji Day! The 10th October is the 31st anniversary of Fiji gaining their independence from us thieving Brits...and subsequently, a day off from work! To take advantage of this long weekend, we decided to join the Rucksack Club on their trip to Caqalai Island, about 2 hours east of Suva. The first hour was in a minibus, taking us to Waidalice Crossing...a blink-and-you-miss-it bridge, and the 'port' (a loose term- see picture below!) for Caqalai Island.

The Waidalice Crossing 'port', and an example of our 'wooden dingy'.

The next hour was spent winding through a tree-lined river, waving to colourfully-clad Fijians on the waterside, before hitting open water and bombing our way across to Caqalai. We probably could have walked to the island if we wanted to; our boatman jumped out of the boat a few times to push us through shallow water!!

Caqalai Island.

A nice welcome as we approached Caqalai.

Heading further east in Fiji is always a big risk; it is widely known that the western side is usually drier. Sadly, this weekend proved this stereotype. Rain, rain, RAIN for almost the whole time. Not such a bad thing for my progress through 'The Count Of Monte Cristo'; quite a bad thing for my progress in Fiji-based snorkelling. The rain wouldn't have stopped us in the latter, of course...but our lack of warm clothes (caused by my misplaced optimism when packing) put us off, the wussies that we are...

Ah well- as we proved with Colleen and Bob in Thailand, you don't need good weather to have a good time! Here's some other highlights from this weekend:

1)  BOUNTY RUM- When I first got this out at dinner and asked if any of the group would like any, an Australian-Canadian lady called Bran looked at it in shock and said 'Do you know how strong that is?' 'Um...no,' I replied, looking at the bottle...'overproof dark rum. 58% alcohol.' 58%?!? After reading that, I soon turned my measure into a small splash instead! We all learned never to drink Bounty straight after Noah, an American ex-pat, lost his voice for a whole day after just a few glasses.
2) KAVA AND SINGALONGS- To cap off Saturday, around 10 of us sat in a circle drinking kava and singing tunes played by the guitar. Enrique would be proud of the version of 'Hero' that Miki (Noah's wife) and I performed. Each of us were asked what kava levels we wanted in the wooden cup- 'high tide', 'low tide' or even 'tsunami'...nobody was brave enough the latter option! We were drinking with experts too...the staff on the island were able to drink 50 cups or more a day...making them very, VERY chilled. 

One of the staff playing the guitar for us; the kava bowl just in front of him.

3) EUKER- That's right, our favourite rainy-day game came out again on Sunday night. Patrick and I turned out to be a pretty good team...think I've learned a tactic or two since last time!
4)  LOVO LUNCH- Our first experience of lovo, a traditional Fijian lunch. 'Lovo' means 'earth oven' in Fijian, and that's literally how it is cooked- wrapped and placed under ground-laden leaves for a few hours, left to cook and develop delicious smoky flavours. Although the fish and chicken were flavourful and succulent, my favourite part was probably the talo lolo (talo leaves cooked in coconut milk).

Talo lolo...yummy!

The whole feast.

Smoky lemon fish...delish.

5) WALKING AND EXPLORING- Although we didn't go snorkelling, we still managed to see some beach creatures on our 20-minute walking trips around the whole island (yep, it really is that small!). Tiny crabs hiding in hermit shells, bigger crabs sniffed and dug out of the sand by the island's pet dogs, many snails that got Patrick dreaming of escargots (apart from the lovo, the island's food was, unfortunately, not great...)

Our beachfront 'bure' (hut).

Crab-hunting doggies.

Patrick found this pretty quick...

Despite our bad luck with the weather, we'll certainly be back. Caqalai is the haven we always searched for in South East Asia...beachfront rustic huts, hardly any tourists (it was only our group on the whole island), crystal clear sea. If the weather had been better (and if we'd had more snacks), it might even have been up there with Sihanoukville in Cambodia. Still, I hugely enjoyed chatting to a variety of ex-pats, and learning about the different paths that had brought everybody to Suva. Some were librarians for USP, others worked at Pacific Theological College, some had been here for 2 months, others 2 years...all of them were interesting to chat to and learn from. I look forward to joining the next Rucksack Outing very soon!

 

This weekend will probably be a chilled one to save some money. But who knows, we might be able to fit in a cheeky day trip somewhere- though I think we'll be heading West this time...