Fiji-January 14

January 14

The rains have cleared out overnight and we are able to see that we are really in a beautiful place.  We go down to have our breakfast and delight at the menu that has so many wonderfully familiar offerings: Omlettes, cereal, fresh fruit, pancakes, French toast, and a big honking American breakfast with bacon, sausage, eggs, toast and juice.  We enjoy our meal immensely.  While heading back to our cabin, we meet a lovely woman who has stopped by to tidy our place up for us.  We tell her about the drippy faucet and she suggests that we move over to a nicer bungalow and shows us the way.  It is much nicer – three bedrooms, living room, full kitchen, and two bathrooms.  We agree and start to feel a little more upbeat about our surroundings.   One interesting thing about where we are staying is that this is a tidal community.  At low tide you can walk almost a half mile out to the water’s edge, but at high tide the water is lapping at the retaining wall of the resort.  We venture off to the local scuba shop to inquire about a possible dive trip for Annie and Paulie and meet a very nice couple formerly from the UK.  They have been here for about 3 years and have a dive shop, Scuba Bula,  on-site.  We relax for a little while and then begin in on some serious schooling.  The dive shop owners let us borrow their classroom for our lessons and it is perfect, especially the air-conditioning.  We study for quite a while and then hit the pool for a quick cooling off.  After our swim, it is back to the books for Math, reading and writing in our journals.  When we get hungry, we venture off to a town a little further south called Sigatoka. We get to the main street and find a combo Chinese-Indian restaurant that has something for every palette.  We eat a very interesting lunch…. pack up our leftovers and head into the downtown to do some shopping.    We shop for the basics to have a light lunch and/or dinner in our bure over the next couple of days.  As we are leaving, we stumble upon an open air market selling local produce and pick up some carrots, 4 pineapples, ginger, and avocados.  We also come across a store selling freshly baked bread and we buy two loaves. It is now around 5:00, so we head back home.  When we arrive, we unpack the car and head to the pool.  Dinner consists of pineapple, fresh bread and juice…..we only ate lunch at 3:30 so this is enough.  We sleep very well in our new surroundings.