A Warm Welcome

Fiji!

Last month, we spent a week on a little island of the Yasawa Chain off the western coast of Fiji.  Our little island for the week was owned by a pleasant resort called Paradise Cove, and man, it really did live up to it's name!  We planned the trip as a break from the lengthy and wet Wellington winter, and, in traveling with our German friends, Linda and Manu, it was meant to be a fun mix of couples retreat, girl's week, and an island adventure.

We flew into Nadi and then took a seaplane to the island resort.  By the time we circled the small island to prepare for landing, a beautiful sight for sore eyes, we were feeling like ritzy, first-class, world travelers.  And then, our barefoot captain yelled, Shoes off!  As we disembarked the tiny plane, we were greeted by a warm sun, white sand, crystal blue waters, and a choir of smiling Fijian faces, strumming guitars, ukuleles, and various calls of Bula!  Their smiling faces engulfed us immediately as they shook our hands and escorted us across the beach.  We'd landed in the middle of the big ocean blue only to find where the Winter had been hiding warmth all the time.

I was eager to begin the week, but also quietly calming myself so as to not wish the whole week away too quickly.  We were shown to our bungalow suites, complete with large plush beds, simple and cozy furniture, and a sumptuous outdoor shower.  We scurried quickly to lunch after setting our things down, having not eaten since our airport arrival in Wellington at 5am that morning.  After our first lunch melted us, as if we hadn't tasted food in so long, we succumbed to the beach, where we continued to admire the clear, almost faux in how blue it was, ocean.  We heard Manu say at one point, "It's like they put blue ink and ...," followed by speechless silence.

     

We settled into a comfortable lifestyle in Paradise.  Each of the following 7 days was pretty similar, but each so uniquely memorable.  Most days, however, went like this:

• Morning: Wake up and slowly meander over to the continental breakfast.  Because you can both eat from the buffet and order from the kitchen, and because we were on vacation, we did both.
• After breakfast: Settle on a lounge chair on the private beach.  Maybe go snorkeling, maybe just read, or maybe just fall back asleep under the shade in the warmth of the morning.  The first full day, Brandon and I kayaked back and forth over the resort side of the island to explore a bit of quieter stretches of beach.  The scenery, the stretched vistas of distant islands along the expansive and surprisingly calm blue sea, was amazing.  Another day, Manu, Brandon, and I tried scuba diving in an intro to scuba diving.  Though the underwater world was spectacular and beautiful, the unfitting gear didn't sit well with me and I kept feeling like I was on the verge of drowning...still can say that I tried it!  Another morning, we booked our complimentary Fijian massages and the masseuses came to our room!  We didn't leave until lunch that morning...
• Lunch: The four of us had lunch together every day.  In the earlier days of our trip, we did it to plan out the rest of our afternoon and evening.  What time for dinner, drinks before dinner, maybe that off-island snorkeling trip that the dive shop was offering?  After the third day or so, though, it was just our way of not having the first drink of the day alone.
• After lunch: Go back to the lounge chair on the beach, which, after the first day, we learned to always save even if we weren't sure if we were actually going to back.  But we always did.  More reading, more swimming, or more naps.  I struck up a habit of always renting a stand-up paddle board in the afternoons, just so I could sit and soak in a bit of that color in my skin that I used to wear more naturally in my younger days in San Diego and LA.  
• Early evening: wash up and rest.  Being in the rooms after a day out in the sun and on the beach was especially soothing, and sometimes, it meant napping for the third time that day.  
• Dinner: The four of us also had dinner together each night because why wouldn't we??  We'd typically meet at the Germans' bungalow, where we'd sip a couple of duty-free spirits that we'd bought at the airport, and then head over for a delicious, 3-course dinner.  Every dinner was SOOOO unbelievably good.  Everything was tasty, interesting, and fresh.  The kitchen and wait staff even had Linda's list of allergies practically memorized.  And every other night, some of the staff got together for a meke, where they sat around singing beautiful Fiji and non-Fiji songs.  It made the whole atmosphere sync up into a wonderfully soothing way to end each day in Paradise.

It almost goes without saying that we had a really wonderful time.  Everything from the warm friendliness of the resort staff, the memories of laughing with the Germans and even some new friends that we made while at the resort, the small adventures in the water and across the island, and the exquisite surroundings and good weather made for a perfect trip.  As they had welcomed us on our arrival, the staff sang us a lullaby goodbye.  I wished I could take one of them home with me just so they could sing to me regularly.

We ended the trip by taking a two-hour ferry back to the main island to catch our flight, watching the sun set on the tropical horizon and sight-seeing the other tiny islands along the coast.  It was the kind of trip that made us all feel alive.