The Friendly North

Ok so just recently I took a trip for work to the 2nd biggest island, Vanua Levu. I flew in to Labasa, the 'Friendly North', as they say...hot as balls, however, VERY beautiful and everyone there really is VERY nice. I met with a different womens group each time I was there. First day it went pretty well, they want me to help them start a bee keeping project. So I've got plenty of work to do in terms of finding them funding to do so. The second day went ok, BUT the location of the meeting was AWESOME. It's the one shown above where were out in the middle of nowhere with all these little groups of houses tucked away in the hills. At the pooja they had there for me..I had one of these, 'What am I doing? Is this my life right now? This is crazy! Where am I? This is awesome, my life is randomly cool at the moment!' moment. haha But then I proceeded to eat some Mango Chutney, which I hadn't had before, and all I can say is sweet Cheesu (Sweet Jesus) I.love.mango.season. And I was SO THANKFUL they still had it on Vanua. On our island, Viti Levu, mango season was ruined from the last hurricane. BUT you bet your bottom dollar I left with 10 pounds of mango's. And actually in that pic below we were picking mango's/more like catching mango's. Although later in the week after I was high on mango's and realized I desperately needed more, I did scale a very risky tree to get me a bundle of those sweet, glorious babies.

So my trips were great during the daytime in Labasa BUT at nighttime, it was EVEN MORE FUN! I really got a chance to meet all of the volunteers who came the year before, who I really didn't know all that well. Honestly, hanging out with them totally made my week! There's not too much to do in Labasa but we did nothing short of rolling into the local club called Bounty, named after the extremely strong liquor, Bounty Rum, they have here...aka hangover central. I could only handle that one night, but other nights we just hung out: I learned how to cook Tempura, , we went to dine at the nicest place in town- the Oriental where we taki'd some beers (aka took small shots of them, a volunteer's mom sent her this gingerbread man cookie making kit so we all super enjoyed some fun cookies from home. All in all I super enjoyed hanging out with the fun people in Labasa Town. My favorite part was how when I spoke in Hindi at the market, they immediately responded in Hindi. This usually isn't the case when I'm in Suva/Nausori.

So my next city that I bounced to on that island was Savusavu, known as a touristy town, but it wasn't too touristy at all. Actually it's my FAV so far. It's the perfect combination of beautiful (since it's right on a bay) and local-ish feeling, and you can get a fair amount of things in town. And since I arrive just in time for the weekend....the weekend was mine! There I stayed at 2 volunteers' houses and had even more of a blast. We went snorkeling by the Jack Cousteau (sp?) resort- saw some AMAZING colored giant clams (the bright blue was my fav). And after talking with the locals who ran the dive shop at the resort...we got them down to an awesome price to go diving. Hells to the Yeah.

So we went for a 2 tank dive in the Savusavu bay. First dive we were at about 100 ft...only because Hanna and I kept seeing more cool things and went further and further...next thing you know we'd been at 100 ft for quite some time...woops! BUT on that dive we saw a juvenile SEA TURTLE (they're really rare and endangered) and some pretty big fish. But on the 2nd dive, we went to an area called Alice in Wonderland because of all the mushroom coral. And yes, I did feel like Alice just a little bit when I'd stick my head under that coral hoping to find something amazing. Which we did! Actually on that dive we saw around 5 white tip/black tip sharks! Most were about 3 feet but one, Monte had seen the tail under some giant mushroom coral, so of course we all had to check it out. The tail itself was about 3 feet and while Monte, a totally hands-on kinda guy, stuck his hand out to grab it...the only thing going through my mind was 'Move away courtney...this thing is going to turn around, bite his hand, then I'll be next to the blood, then I'll die too!'...but of course I stayed since I realized if that were really going to happen, I'd want to see it. :0) so anyways, turns out the shark just pulled up under the giant coral more and didn't come out to say hello.

On that dive though I also found a giant conch shell with (sadly) an animal inside. I was really hoping it would be empty as I could blow it, Lord of the Flies style from here on out. But I was a good volunteer and threw it back. That dive was totally my fav for sure though, that afternoon we came back and had...guess: MANGO, banana, pineapple, and passion fruit smoothies. done and done.

OK and my last paragraph about this awesome trip was how one morning we went to the 'Hot Springs' in savusavu aka more like small spots with boiling water spewing out of random spots in the ground. They weren't anything much to see, but being cool volunteers that we are, we decided to come have a picnic breakfast one morning. We brought fresh bread and jam, a pot of water, and some eggs to make breakfast with. We got the idea when we saw how local women would boil their root crops on the springs. So we put the pot on the boiling water to get warm for coffee and tea, and then wrapped the eggs in my t-shirt and also laid them on the springs. It honestly wasn't anything much and sounds way cooler in words....but honestly, I had a super fun time having a picnic breakfast with Mother nature. :0)