From: asanders@email.com
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999
Subject: Kia Ora - Out of the bush and in New Zealand!
Hi everyone!
Woah - what a dream Fiji is. Must admit being thrilled with Auckland's thriving metropolis. After Fiji, anything works. I'm clean for a nice change :-).
After being on Fiji's main island of Viti Levu, Robert (a Texan backpacker who travelled Fiji with us the entire time), Liz, and I flew from Suva to Taveuni, Fiji's famous garden island. The flight was spectacular. As we were landing, you could see tons of waterfalls and coral reefs every shade of blue. Went immediately to a plantation with dorm accomodations. Woah. Came as a bit of a shock to us all. If we thought Wayalailai was rustic - think again! No electricity. Ate and cooked our meals by lantern, long walks to the toilet, blah, blah. Now if the plantation wasn't such a paradise, we would have turned around at first glance. And wouldn't you know it, I fell in love with the place. Of course. Don't think Robert and Liz were as keen on our place as myself, but I got my way :-).
Say congratulations to my completing a PADI open water dive course! Spent my next 3 days doing theory and diving. Brilliant - my new love. Saw 2 sharks (~5 ft) on my very first dive. Saw a baracuda and a moray eel on my 2nd. All told, I finished 6 open water dives. My 5th dive was the famous Great White Wall which is a wall of white soft coral that simply drops into the deep dark abyss. Wild. It looked like a wall lace, as Liz describes it best. Went a whooping 120 ft. too :-).
In addition to diving, we spent some time with the locals seeing as how intimate our setting was. One afternoon we spent the later half of the day horse riding. I like to call it kamakaze riding. My ass will never be the same. If you could've seen me galloping up to a volcano on a handmade Fiji saddle (scary) made of 2 boards held on by a thin piece of leather. Thought I was going to die for a minute, but was laughing too hard to care.
Finally, we spent our last full day in Taveuni hiking up a rainforest trail to a set of famous, absolutely gorgeous waterfalls. The Blue Lagoon was filmed at the waterfalls. Went for a great long swim and managed to get under 1 of the falls. Good time.
Other than daily activities and rustic conditions, not much else to report. Liz and I are going to spend another day or so in Auckland planning our itinerary. One month here. Nice to be outside the sweltering heat and away from the mozzies.
Love to you all! I'll be more email accessible in N.Z.
Amy
xo