Suva, Fiji 88f sunny followed by heavy showers
After a short hiatus, let's get back on track. The last Polynesian island will be Fiji. Suva is the capital of Fiji and is by far the most developed city in the islands we have stopped at.
Fiji is an archipelago of a little over 300 islands with only 1/3 of those islands permanently inhabited. Fiji’s population is under 1 million and 87% of the population live on 2 islands. Of the 87% living on 2 islands, 75% live in Suva. It was very busy with traffic and people.
Several private religious primary schools, multiple universities, embassies with very wealthy and very poor areas. Downtime Suva was filled with business, multi-story buildings, shopping malls and many street vendors selling a wide variety of goods. The high end resorts were generally outside of town in private areas.
Stopping at many of the Polynesian islands, we were greeted by cultural song, dance, costumes on the pier with flowers being handed to every passenger. It took a little to realize that Fiji greeted us with a band consisting of Port officials playing popular songs. In their uniforms, badges and guns there were various guitars, keyboard and drums. they played anything but island songs.
Fiji has some very interesting points of intriguing history. Certainly, their history is very consistent with the other Polynesian islands – indigenous tribes, European discovery, land grabs, wars, introduced disease followed by much death and slavery. A little differently, cannibalism was practiced in some of the Fijian tribes although the extent and reason seems to not be agreed upon.
Fiji became a British Commonwealth in 1874. After 96 years of rule, Fiji obtained their independence in 1970. However, their path in independence has not been calm or easy. There were 2 coups in 1987. A new constitution was created in 1990 and then rewritten in 1997. 2000 brought another coup followed by 2 mutinies of rebel soldiers the same year. In 2001 the High Court ordered the constitution to be reinstated and democracy restored with a new election. However, it appears that there were a series of shenanigans that have continued to around 2020 when a couple of elections have been held without any further coup events. Confused? You are not alone. The last coup, which involved guns and violence, occurred in this building - their old parliament building. After the coup, this building was abandoned and moved to a new location.
The dock was teeming with groups selling tours, hair braiding and massages-kind of an odd combination. t was a very loud and fluid experience. I, like many other passengers, was looking for various tours. Someone attached themselves to a passenger, agreed with whatever was asked and immediately had them board a bus. Once you were on a small bus, your fate was sealed – you were going wherever the bus was going. There wasn’t much to do but go with the flow. I had tried to explain that I was only interested in a city tour and after assurances, learned after the bus was in motion, I was on a city, waterfall and cultural tour. Once again you buy your ticket, and you take your ride.
First was the city tour. We stopped at the President’s house and gardens. I’m not sure why the guard wore a uniform that reminded me of a pirate.
The Presidential residence was tucked away surrounded by presidential gardens and this was the best picture I could find. Our tour guide informed us that prisoners were used to meticulously care for the presidential grounds, then smiled and added ‘but only the good ones’.
Across from the President’s house is the Grand Pacific Hotel. This is used to house any heads of state or royalty that would visit the government. She specifically mentions Prince William and Prince Harry staying at the GPH. The picture doesn't look like much but I'm sure inside is another story. It is directly on the beach and the compound is much longer than this original building.
On the way to the cultural village, the tour guide was quite open about the slums in Fiji, probably because we had to drive by the area. The houses were very small and often no more than a metal box with sides and roof from corrugated tin. No windows, no doors, certainly no air conditioning in sweltering temperatures. Again, a very different picture from the department of tourism pictures of the 5 star resorts with beautiful white beaches and luxury surroundings. We did stop of a quick view of the mountain that supplied the well-priced 'Fiji water brand' as well a dam at the top that supplied all the electricity to the island.
There were many villages along the way. A village was a group of houses with a church. There had to be a church to be considered a village. A village was really a group of family homes, not a village or town we would think of. Everyone in a village was in some way related, and size or number of houses was not a limiting issue. Most of the villages looked to have 8-10 small houses in a U shape-and a church. A cultural village was a family that agreed to host tours and provide some local food, a show of music and dance with the ability for guests to purchase souvenirs. Of course there was a nominal entrance fee per person.
I have really unsettled feelings about this kind of activity. I end up feeling like the music and dance may be more tourist then authentic and I really feel intrusive. However, I do understand that these tourist visits are most likely a significant income stream for the family.
They did provide some food that would be common in their lives - pumpkin, potato, taro, spinach, chicken. I wasn’t too intrigued until I learned they also had the young taro leaves in coconut cream I discussed with my taxi driver, Beverly, back in Samoa. Throwing caution to the wind, I had a serving, and it was really good. Not a big greens fan like spinach etc but this was very mild, not slimy and the coconut was good. No, I did not get sick.
One of the homes in the village.
The village church
After the food we sat under a thatched roof patio and some of the family shared their songs and dances. There was even a fire dance.
The fire dance
Unique to Fiji was a Kava Kava ceremony. Kava is a drink concocted from Kava leaves and appears to have some kind of alcohol content. They took a few volunteers from the group to participate. Unlike the taro leaves, I was not touching that – some unknown liquid in a large bowl, passed around in a common cup. No thanks. I asked one of the volunteers how it was and did not get a glowing recommendation. The best I can say is that the Kava Kava ceremony is a way to honor guests and is a common drink on the island to help people relax.
The kava was kept in the big bowl on the floor. Who knows what was really in there!
The waterfall stop was yet another straight down the hillside walk and people could do a short swim if they chose. I stayed at the top with many other tourists and walked around the grounds as we were in a tropical rainforest with interesting plants. We got back on the bus and back to city just before a deluge of rain covered the area.
Some of the interesting palms found at the waterfall.
We have been adjusting clocks back almost daily so sunset is earlier every day. In Fiji we remained anchored due to some kind of technical issue until after sunset. The dock in Fiji was rather small so as long as our boat was tied up at the dock, the other boats were anchored in the harbor.
The next morning brought a pretty sunrise over the island Lifou.
And later that morning, a private yacht was anchored in a lagoon of an uninhabited island as we were moving through a channel of islands. Not a bad way for people on that boat to start the day.
We will move on to Australia after this!
Ni sa moce
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