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Bula! is the Fijian greeting used all over the islands. However, instead of “Bula” we heard “Czesc!”from Kasia and Michal who were decided to drop by! Soon afterwards Ania and Lucien joined too, slightly delayed (by one week) by the volcano on Island. So in the end we were 6 happy travelers on Fiji. What a meeting on the other side of the globe! The world is getting really small and “flat”.

We bought a 7 day Bula-Pass, which is an easy backpacker’s way to do a bit of island hopping. Fiji consists of a 321 or so islands. But it is not clear how to count them, because some of them you can circle around in 30 seconds. These islets may sometimes host exactly one ‘bura’, a hut made of local trees and leaves. Also, their number changes considerably between the low and high tide as the islands emerge and disappear from the lazar blues.. Other islands are slightly bigger and host more then one family, sometimes even an entire village with a school. One day, accompanied by a local girl, we visited a primary school; interaction with local kids, a quick geography lesson about Europe, snow and skiing was whole lot of fun.

On Fiji, they drink “kawa”. It has nothing to do with coffee (Polish ‘kawa’). We quickly figured out its main ingredient – dirty water. It is a bit narcotic and makes you tired and sleepy (you should see the locals after a long kawa session!) and your tongue sore, a bit like after chewing Bolivian coca leaves.

Although Michal didn’t take his brand new, mobile, ten-man-hours-to-assemble kayak with him, we had some opportunity to paddle. Once around a nice island, and several times to go fishing. Don’t ask about the fishing outcome though…

On Fiji it is often difficult to tell the gender of the person based e.g., on the face and figure. They make the problem even more challenging by appropriate dress-code: “guys” wear traditional skirts and stick flowers in their hair…

There is, however, a strict gender separation when it comes to palm leaf basket waiving, which we tried on one rainy day. Girls make nice big baskets, suitable for some grocery shopping, or just for an afternoon stroll around downtown. In contrast, guys make ugly and tiny baskets, apparently designed to contain all fish they normally catch.

Marta befriended Alfred, a local crab. Soon later Alfred turned out to be a bastard and badly attacked the hand of one local woman. Lucien, our Swiss friend equipped in much more than the swiss army knife, and Kasia – a girl that sliced hundreds of brains for the sake of science, they both took care of the wound. Alfred is still with us. At least partially, as we all ate him for dinner. Yummy!

Sorry for the delay in writing this post. Internet hasn’t yet spoiled many of the Fijian communities. In fact, on some islands even the electricity was a rarity, and we had to use candles instead. Actually, it was so romantic, that we didn’t even exploit too much the foldable solar panels Ania dragged all the way from Switzerland.

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