Fiji Islands
The travel itinerary we developed before we left had us going to New Zealand directly after South America. We wanted to visit both countries in their summer and thought it would be straightforward to fly from one to the other since they are both in the southern hemisphere... Turns out that while there are direct flights from South America to New Zealand, the cheapest way to travel is to connect via the Americas: Buenos Aires to Panama City to Los Angeles to Fiji and then finally New Zealand. Luckily we were working with a company to help us book all of our intercontinental flights (Air Treks!) and they informed us that we could extend our layover in Fiji from 4 hours to 4 days for only a $40 fee! We jumped at the opportunity for some relaxing island time and used some of our credit card points to book a stay at the luxurious Hilton Fiji Resort. Also, quick shoutout to Susan’s parents who flew out to LA for our 24 hour layover so we could see them after 3 months!
We mostly just wanted to relax after a whirlwind three months in South America (and finally drink tap water again!) but the one activity we definitely wanted to do was to find some scuba diving off the island. We were gifted a Scuba Dive by Matt’s Aunt Sherry and Uncle Ted (Thank’s y’all!!) so we found a local dive shop called Aqua-Trek Dive Company and booked two dives with them. The unfortunate thing was that their dive shop was nearly halfway around the main island at a place called Pacific Harbor and Beqa Beach. This meant we were picked up at 5:30am by a taxi to drive the 2.5 hours along the Queen’s Road (The Queen’s Road is on the south side of the island, while the King’s Road is on the north side) to the marina.
We were fitted for our gear by our dive master Laz. The only other person on our dive had just completed his 200th dive and has been diving all over Australia and Polynesia (Hi Mark!). He showed us some incredible photos of the other dive spots, including shark diving, around Fiji so we didn’t feel too much remorse for only being able to do one day of diving. Our first stop was the Caesars Rock dive spot. This spot has a series of “bommies” (kind of like coral spires) that rose 60 feet from the seafloor and reached about 10-15 feet below the surface. Laz informed us that we would be doing a “swim through” on this dive. Since this was Matt’s 9th dive ever he nodded and said, “how cool” but really he had no idea what that meant. It turns out a “swim through” is a cool way to say “underwater tunnel”. If we had known that when Laz first said it at the surface, we would have had more questions. Instead we had the moment of realization 50 feet below the surface and had no choice but to follow our Dive Master through the scary tunnel! Luckily you could always see the light at the end of the tunnel and had enough room to kick and swim but it was a strange feeling. We saw tons of fish and sea life on this dive including a camouflage black scorpion fish and some nudibranch slugs. The colors of the coral and sea sponges were incredible.
Our next stop was called E.T. which stands for Extra Terrific. This dive had some very impressive cliffs of coral so you felt like you were falling off an edge. Off the cliffs we saw some white tip reef sharks and large clown fish. We ended with a swim through that had multiple levels through the coral! We entered at the very bottom of the coral tower through a large tunnel and when we were almost to the other side we turned around to see a small cave leading upwards at an angle to the top of the rock and that is where we exited. It was a long time to be in a cave but it was pretty cool once we were out.
We were also gifted a great experience from some of Susan’s friends for a boat excursion day (Thanks PA Friends!). They actually gifted us a super bougie floating-bar-pizza-pool-club-thing that looked awesome but we were in more of a relaxing mood on this stretch of our trip. We audibled to an all-day sailboat cruise to a nearby tiny island called Schooner Island. It was also all inclusive beer and wine which definitely didn’t factor into our decision at all :). We started the morning with breakfast fruit, pastry platter, and a champagne toast. There wasn’t really much wind that day so we motored for about an hour and a half until we arrived at the island.
When we first boarded the boat the weather wasn’t great, a little rain and full cloud cover. But by the time we got to the island the skies had cleared and we had beautiful sun. The island was about the size of a basketball court and we had it all to ourselves (and the other 10 people on the cruise). We started our activities with a snorkel in the coral reefs surrounding the island and then had a buffet lunch. We felt bad because if we were being honest, after the great scuba diving we had, the fish and coral here were kind of lame; we know we are the worst but it's hard to be constantly impressed by things for 12 months! For lunch, we had fresh caught fish that they actually caught while on our way to the island. For the rest of the afternoon we sat in the sand, did some more swimming, and enjoyed the sun and open bar. We then got back on the boat to head home. It was a great day seeing more of the islands and soaking up the sun!
The rest of our time was spent relaxing at the Hilton. We were jet-lagged and getting used to a new time zone (Fiji is in the future! Look it up). We enjoyed the tropical drinks served by the pool and the great restaurants at the resort. Our hotel room was incredible, especially compared to some of the budget hotels and hostels we have been staying at. We had a small patio that overlooked the ocean. Every afternoon there would be a thunder storm that rolled in and we would just sit outside and take in the sounds of the rain hitting the water and the wind blowing through the palm trees.
The resort also put on some cultural celebrations in partnership with the local villages. We spent most of our evenings and mornings at a great restaurant by the pools with an open patio overlooking the beach and the ocean. There was another restaurant at the resort that we didn’t try till our last night but it was incredible. We sampled some small plates that included Berber Beef with mashed potatoes and roasted cauliflower, grilled salmon with a potato cake and a pumpkin purée, and a rich baked eggplant and potato moussaka with a creamy béchamel sauce. We were blown away by the tasty dishes and were bummed we only tried them on our last night.
Obviously you don’t need us to tell you that Fiji was a great place to visit and included some stunning island views and scenery. We were really glad we had a short “break” from traveling and backpacking around the world and can’t wait for our next layover in the Fiji Islands!