Well, folks....I am back from two weeks of bliss in Fiji. If you haven't been I highly recommend it. I basically went from pool to bar to ocean to hammock. Ahhhhh, all it was missing was a few good carnivores. I totally would have stayed and married a BEAUTIFUL Fijian man but they have no land mammals let alone any carnivores... I need predators to survive. The only native mammal is a fruit bat...... a frugivore...not even a vegetarian for pete's sake! Helen (a co-worker fro mthe Safari) and I mapped out a plan....all we need is a financial backer to buy us our own island then we can hire native Fijians for labour to build and operate our own zoo... brilliant! Sooo, any takers? HaHa!
I went scuba diving for the first time ever..... pretty adventurous of me since I don't really like the ocean. Don't get me wrong...I love the ocean, it's beautiful, the sounds are sooo soothing, I love boating, and I LOVE marine mammals..... but I don't want to be IN it. A couple of feet in is usually ok ...... until a barracuda came sneaking up on us while in only like 2 feet of water..... barracudas are nasty not-so-little buggars. But the good thing about Fiji ocean waters...they are crystal clear so you can see what's coming after you. *shudder* I know exactly what lies beneath thank you very much and I prefer not to interact with most of it. Anyways.... the dive was great actually (even though we did almost get attacked by a big trigger fish at one point...thankfully I was pretty oblivious until later). I had some trouble adjusting to the whole mouth only breathing thing in the practice session in the pool. I am a nose breather so when we practiced our masks filling up and learned how to empty them while still under water..... you lean back with your finger pressed to the top of your mask and blow out through your nose while still breathing in through your mouth..... I kept inhaling water through my nose after I blew out. argh! I was harder than I thought. I had to sit down there at the bottom of the pool for like 10 min and re-train myself to breath only through my mouth. I got it down, of course, and did excellent on my open water dive. Not looking forward to certification in oregon's very cold very murky water but i need it for work. It's a dirty job but somebody's got to do it ;-)
We did the zipline through the rain forest...wananavu!! (awesome) I usually don't like to take too many risks outside of work....I figure I'm already taking so many chances on a daily basis why increase my odds of serious harm by doing wild things like bungee jumping and skydiving outside of work? Especially since those are things I don't have much control over. The zipline I was able to keep in control since you are responsible for your own speed and direction. I prefer things where I have control...like driving and I want to learn to fly helicopters too! ;-)
There was an ecopark near our resort (Kula EcoPark)..... Fiji's version of a zoo I guess. It was all of their native species so lots of iguanas, parrots, sea turtles, fish, and bats. It was a beautiful park and I would highly suggest a visit when in Fiji. We got to feed the baby sea turtles in their breeding/reintroduction program and walked through dozens of aviaries full of the most beautiful, colorful birds. There were some bats to see up close as well which was nice since the bats out and about didn't come out until dusk and were really hard to photograph. The only wild bat shot I got was by accident while trying to get the sunset, lol.
All in all it was an amazing, breathtaking, unforgettable trip and I am already planning my return next year...wish I could go back sooner. I have tons of photos and video on my facebook page but here's a treat for those of you that aren't facebook friendlies......
"I'm covered in iguanas!!" (think Eddie Izzard's "I'm covered in bees!!")
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