Caqalai Island

The next morning we left Viseisei for Caqalai, tiny island that belongs to Lomaviti group and is situated on the east. We took local Express bus to Suva via Kings Road. Our way trough the mountains, small towns and villages was picturesque.  We saw village men cutting bushes or bamboo with mechetes, small children playing outside barefooted. The real adventure was 50 km long part of unsealed road  with very narrow wooden bridges but the driver didn't seem to care. We admired him for his driving skills, one hand at the window and one on the steering wheel.

After 5 hours we got to the place where the boat to Caqualai Island was waiting for us.
Caqalai appeared to be real paradise. We couldn't dream about more beautiful and relaxing place. Crystal clear water, coconuts, corals around the island and such a friendly atmosphere. Caqalai is very small. It takes only 20 min to walk around the island. And the people were fantastic both the staff and the guests. We spent 5 nights there. We were swimming, snorkeling, eating fresh coconuts, drinking kava (Fijian drink) with the locals in the evenings. We had a wonderful time there.

Viseisei Village

After a very long trip we have finally landed in Fiji. We had a flight from London to LA on 30th January and then  six hours later the same day from LA to Nadi in Fiji. Each flight took about 11h and we've lost one day somewhere in the air :) (time zones). We came to Fiji in the morning 1st of February. Taxi driver arranged by our Couch Surfing hosts was already waiting for us. He took us to historic Wiseisei village, to the house of our Fijian  hosts  Fi and Api. It was early morning but the weather was very warm. We were so happy that we were so far away from the freezing cold in our countries :). Right after coming to Viseisei we went for a walk in the village. Everyone smiled to us saying bula (hello in Fijian). Houses were small, wooden or concrete some of them very shabby looking. People don't have a lot of money but they are smiling, they seem to be very happy and relaxed. Later that day we had a chance to admire Fijian dance because Japanese tour came to the village. It was very nice performance but we prefered to observe real Fijian life. Everyone got dressesd up and behaved just to entertain tourists.

Afternoon Api took us to the nearest town Lautoka.We went to the market to buy something for dinner. It was amazing with loads of different vegetables, fruit, fish, Indian ( there is huge population of Indian people in Fiji) sweets etc. We bought fish, casava (something like potato) spinach and coconuts for traditional Fijian fish in coconut souse that our hosts cooked for us that evening.

At night Fi and her neighbour prepared kava ceremony for us. Kava is a root plant that is pounded, mixed with water and consumed to make your body relaxed. It tase like mud and your tongue numb but the ceremony of drining is very nice and I think it's a must when you are in Fiji.