As it turned out, our welcome at Sunset Waya was very calm and chilled and we were relieved to find that the camping spots were in a really shady area, that was actually the best camping ground so far...but hey, all we were after was shade, no high expectations really! However, we did wonder if we would find shade on an island that had recently nearly burnt down! Thankfully we did.
That evening, after putting our tent up, we drank away the night chatting to Canadian sisters Kelly and Karen, and their new holiday side kick Marco. They all seemed to have had a more luxurious visit to the Yasawa's and visited some of the more upmarket resorts. Consequently they were a bit more horrified by Sunset Waya's charred state than we were!
Breakfast the next morning was homemade doughnuts, of sorts. This fitted in well with my Yasawa enforced carb-fest of rice and noodle, noodles and spaghetti and more noodles...oh dear. Wiji heard Karen's response to the breakfast situation...'that is fuckin retarded!' And found this highly amusing. It is definitely going to be in our top 10 repeated phrases for our travels...although it does sound better with a Canadian accent. Lol.
We opted to do a weaving class in the afternoon and sat out the morning in the shade to have a break from crispy frying ourselves. Kelly and Karen mad perfectly show-offable weaved goods, where as Wiji and I struggled to make our bookmarks look as though they were made by adults. We really sucked at weaving!
Matelita Naulu was just glad that we didn't ask to make a Kastom mat. lol.
Here she is showing off Karen's bookmark...nothing to be ashamed of here!
Karen, Kelly, Marco, Karen and Paul all left late that day and we decided to stay on for another day so that we didn't have to do another pack up immediately, and to visit the village on Sunday. Fortunately later at dinner they pulled out the stops that night and we got some fish...and rice.
We also stalked Nelson until he decided to give us the coconut demonstration that he had promised...Fiji time.
We started by watching a demo of how to de-hust the green coconut on a wooden spike...the modern way...then...
Nelson showed us how it was done 'back in the day'...yep, with his teeth.
Puh, puh!
Then it really was show time. Nelson suggested that he show us how to chop a coconut in half with his bare hand...OK.
He made a small circular stand for the coconut with a single piece of palm leaf and a stick to secure it...
Then he asked if anyone would like to have a go first...oh go on then Wiji!
Nelson demo's how to hit the coconut with part of your hand so that it doesn't hurt...Oh really?
Then Wiji has a go.
Apparently it does hurt if you hit the coconut in the wrong place on your hand...Mmmm.
Keen for Wiji to have another go, Nelson sets up the coconut again...
There was much discussion and comparing of hands that have seen manual work and hands that have used a computer...
And Wiji had another go, after which assuring me he could feel where he hit the coconut in the bones of his hand. That's good then yeah? Lol.
I decided that it was worth recording Nelson's coconut chop and after much laughing and general Fiji time he gets down to it...
We all get to drink the refreshing milk.
Nelson collected our coconut halves in order to grind the flesh off. To do this he used a metal hook that was screwed to a piece of wood that he was sitting on. It had the effect of finely shredding the flesh.
Nelson caught the coconut flesh on a piece of palm bark.
It was really delicious, we all got to try it.
He took the shredded flesh in a bundle of the bark and used the bark as a sieve to squeeze the juice from the flesh...
Back into the shredded coconut flesh...
The palm bark sieve.
One of the other guys used the juice as a moisturiser on his legs, and they all agreed that this was the best way to 'oil your skin'.
We all get to eat it and it really is the best coconut that we have ever tasted!
Nelson then sliced another one up...
And makes a coconut smile. His self depreciating humour made him a pleasure to watch.
Then we are done! We gave them all a round of applause, it was genuinely hilarious!
We were then bang on time for the Sunset that had not previously materialised, sadly they had run out of beers, so Wiji was up for finishing the 58% overproof rum...your on your own love!
Across the isthmus.
An actual sunset on Sunset Waya!
After dinner Nelson and co put on their fire dancing dress to perform for us. There was some initial concern that they were about to perform under an electric cable....Mmmm, was this how the fire started perchance?
Nelson...a totally ripped Fijian, goes for it...but giggled away when they made some little mistakes...it was pure quality.
Awesome!
Then they got changed into long grass skirts to do the traditional Fijian fan dance.
And then they changed outfits again for a fire stick dance...
What a performance...it was brilliant! And we managed to avoid a Bula dance...ideal!
The next morning, as it was Sunday we caught a small boat with Su, for the church visit. I was really keen to hear the Fijian singing. The waves were big enough to make it quite a hairy trip.
Looking across Sunset Waya.
We were pleased to make it to the beach, both a little worse for wear from the previous night. Su, our guide, takes the lead to the village in his Sunday best.
One of the traditional Fales.
We sat for sometime in the shade outside Su's family home. Its only after 9am, but the sun is incredibly hot.
The cooking area for Su's family. The pot was fuelled by green wood that was slow burning and was harvested behind the resort. In front of the cooking area is a stool with the coconut flesh grinder attached.
We were then ushered into the church to sit at the back and listen to the service. The church itself was much, much cooler and it was a relief to be sat in there. The service itself was a bit disappointing. Unlike Rapa Nui, where they have retained some of their own culture and incorporated it into Christianity, this service is very, very traditional. The singing was beautifully harmonised by the men and women in the main choir and the Fijian language sounded even more easy on the ear when sung. The poor children sat for what seemed hours on the floor under threat not to make a noise...some of them fell asleep.
Wiji managed to stay awake for the whole service. It did help that the last man to preach gave a full on rant that was punctuated with extreme arm and hand gestures and then breathy pauses before launching into something else very passionately, but fortunately for us it was all in Fijian.
After the service several of the speakers personally thanked us for attending.
Instead of catching the boat back Su lead us up on the path over the hillside and out of the village, we got some good view's of the village and coastline...
And really saw how devastated the land had been by the fire. When I asked Su about it he eventually conceded that it was human error and an accident, but wouldn't say any more apart from to explain that a fire had happened five years ago and the vegetation would grow back again this time too.
The ground really reeked with the stench of the fire.
Some other villagers on the path between the resort and the village.
The path cut an unburnt dusty track.
A cheesy paw-paw tree and fruit, burnt to a cinder.
We thanked Su for taking us on the trip that was actually free. We felt as though we had seen something of Fijian life on the island as a result of it.
Back at Sunset Waya we found Karen and Paul (from Somerset, no less) chilling in the hammocks. They had spotted an enormous praying mantis.
Very much like Wiji's Gloria of Monte Verde fame, she turned her head from the neck to look at him taking the photo's. He declined to hold her though!
Paul put the praying mantis back on a flower bed under a palm tree. It then climbed the palm, hopefully to fly off.
Chilling in the hammocks made for two.
I went for a walk across the isthmus...
The Yasawa Flyer was met by the tiny boats coming to pick up and deliver guests while sailing at a reduced speed! Lol.
The other charred island, an unrelated fire.
Later that day we watched as all the local men hysterically laughed their way through re-thatching the dining area that was burnt down in the fire. Check out the makeshift scaffold! The nails were banged in with a large rock, that was then tucked back into the thatch. It was a hugely sociable occasion.
After lunch the Yasawa Flyer returned to take us south back to Nadi, we had decided to return to the mainland...we were Yasaw'ed out. We spent a chilled boat journey chatting to fellow campers John and Eryn from Oregon, America.
Goodbye Sunset Waya...it was chaotic, beautiful, welcoming and the most sociably chilled of the islands we visited.
We passed the beautiful landscape of Wayalailai...but maybe another time, hey?
1 comment:
Just dynamite, perfect xx
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