(written on February 22nd and 23rd from notes taken previously)
I think I was the first of the whole, crowded dorm room to be up and out this morning.
I even beat the sun. 🙃
After using the bathroom, I headed over the beach, taking pictures of the sky at sunrise–once again reminded of how much I loved Barefoot Manta, and how much Blue Lagoon doesn’t even hold the tiniest of candles to it (the reminder was brought about by the fact that I was unable to see what I could tell was a gorgeous sunrise because it was blocked by buildings and jungle, etc. 😅)
I pulled one of the beach chair cushions from where it was hanging up and put it on the chair and ended up spending a good amount of time sitting there on the beach, staring out at the water but also spending a pretty good amount of time working on my journal catch-up efforts.
Gratefully, though my power button was still giving me the same problematic issues, the SIM-card issue was resolved. 🙏
Perhaps my overnight phone heating helped.
As I was hanging out on the beach chair, I noticed a concerned woman trying to get some sort of an issue resolved. She was standing next to where I was sitting on the beach, and so I started chatting with her, and it turned out that she was one of the owners of the whole place.
No, I didn’t mention anything about how disappointed I was with the place. 🙃
As it turned out, one of the elderly patrons, I think a guy in his ’90s? had left his life-saving medication in a suitcase on the island, but he was on a different Island and needed it to stay alive. 😬
She had given the medication to her best boat captain and sent him out to brave the gnarly early-morning waves that were coming in.
That’s why she was on the shore… watching.
We both watched the boat in the distance as it headed toward the large incoming swells. At first, they didn’t seem like too much, but eventually, the boat arrived at swells that were big enough that, from where we were on the beach, the boat disappeared briefly before reappearing at the top of the next swell.
No so small. 😅
Gratefully, they made it out safely, and I found out later in the day when I asked her about it, that they had been able to get the medication to the elderly man in time.
🥳
It wasn’t too long later that I headed into the open-air food area and ordered breakfast, again asking for something authentically Fijian and getting… pancakes. 🙃
🤷
I was eating breakfast by myself when Johannes and Christina, the couple from Austria I ate lunch with yesterday, walked over and joined me. 😊
We chatted for a little while, and I found out that they had completely changed their travel plans based on the conversation they had with me yesterday. 😅
If I’m remembering correctly, originally, after spending time in New Zealand, they had planned to go over to Australia (Tasmania, I think?), but apparently, after the part of yesterday’s conversation where we talked about traveling through New Zealand, they decided to just stay in New Zealand for longer instead of going to Australia. 🙃
Hope they don’t regret the decision. 😅
They are somewhere in the middle of their around-the-world ticket, which I guess is a ticket that gives them a certain number of flights? to go all the way around the world, but they can’t ever backtrack: Each flight has to make at least some progress around.
I think they’re going to Japan next after New Zealand.
We had a great time chatting, and Johannes got my WhatsApp info and sent me a message, and we bid each other farewell, perhaps to run into each other in New Zealand. 😊
Back at the dorm room, I packed up all of my stuff, or at least what I thought was all of my stuff 😅 and headed out.
I actually don’t remember if it was today or yesterday, but I took a very long hot shower. 🙃 That was nice. 🙂
I think from the time I got myself packed up to the point when it was time to leave, I spent my time just working on my journal catch-up efforts, conveniently forgetting to check out (which involved paying the $189 Fijian dollars for the meals 🙃).
I learned about that because someone was wandering around calling out for me, saying that it was time to get on the boat and I still hadn’t checked out.
After a mild panic, I went quickly over to the office, got everything paid, and then got back to find out that there wasn’t that big of a hurry, as I didn’t have any luggage that they needed to stow on the boat. All my stuff was on my back.
Because of how strong the wind and the waves were (apparently the waves were quite something) the catamaran needed to meet us in a different place, so we ended up walking down the beach a little way to a couple of different smaller boats–the normal covered sea-taxi thing, and a much smaller sort of rowboat looking things with a motor on the back.
One of the staff members asked me if I’d be willing to ride in the rowboat, since I only had a backpack and if I’d be willing to go without a life jacket. 🙃
That was fine by me, but I guess they ended up finding a life jacket for me anyway, as they came out with one more than expected.
Instead of going straight out from the shore to the boat like how we had come in, our two little boats took us around the south end of the island to the eastern where we waited for the big ship to arrive.
The water was definitely calm on that side of the island.
One of the staff members jumped in the water to cool off (the sun was hot) while we waited for the big boat, and another one of them pointed out a shipwreck in the relatively shallow water that was below us.
Coincidentally, the young German man I had met yesterday who had wanted to continue talking to me when his wife came over a bit stressed about something, was on the boat with his wife leaving with me… and she was still stressed. 🙃
They were quite an interesting couple, both could have probably been models, but whereas she was stressed about every little thing seemingly at all times, he was relaxed and unconcerned.
I could tell he was a super patient man, while also clearly wishing that his wife would relax and not stress so much.
Once on ship, the German couple, a solo traveling woman, and I all went to the top where we stayed and just talked until our various departures.
Once on ship, we also were given a warning that the ocean waves were quite large, and it was going to be a pretty rough ride, especially for anybody sitting on top.
Which was one reason why I definitely was not leaving the top. 😆
And boy was it quite the ride!
The four of us chatted as we hung onto railings or other seats, regularly with both hands, so as to not be thrown about the top deck.
It was an impressive display of ocean power.
And quite fun. 🙃
At one point, one of the trash cans on the upper deck blew over and was flopping about, so I let go of my hand holds and carefully made my way over to grab it and stow it underneath a row of seats.
I don’t know if I was on the boat long enough to verify that I don’t get seasick, but I imagine that if I were to get seasick, that probably would have done it. 🙃
I think the German young man did deal with seasickness, so he had to watch the horizon?
It might not have been him. Somebody was dealing with it and had to stay looking at the horizon. I think it was him.
Anyway, I spent most of the time chatting with the German young man’s wife, as he chatted with the other lady passenger.
His wife was super talkative. Nice young lady.
I can’t remember if they got off at Barefoot Manta, or if I had just been gushing about my experience there… I think maybe they got off at Barefoot Manta, and that was why I was gushing about my experience there, having heard that was their next destination?
I think that was it.
By the time we arrived at Barefoot Manta, the ocean was much calmer, if I’m remembering correctly.
I think it was there that I bid farewell to the young couple, and it was then that, to my surprise and delight, I saw Meme! one of my favorite Fijían staff members from Barefoot Manta on the little taxi boat!
I called out to her and waved as she was coming in, and then to my surprise, saw that she was coming aboard!
To my delight, she came to the top deck and hung out with me and Sofía (the solo traveler lady in the group with the young couple and me in the top deck during the crazy waves).
We talked for a while, and then Sofía got off at her next resort, and I stayed chatting with Meme for the next… maybe two+ hours? all the way into Port Denarau on the main island. 🙃
We chatted about all sorts of things, her really brutal diving injury, life in Fiji, education, my life, even getting into really personal things.
Great conversation, and I didn’t want it to end.
Great girl.
Some of the things we talked about ended up helping her make the decision not to go to grad school.
Hope that works out best for her. 🤞
She had to get her luggage off the boat, so she suggested we meet up to say goodbye at the shore end of the pier. I was pretty sure I had gotten off the boat first, and so I just stood waiting on the pier for her to come, but after the last of all the passengers seemed to be off the boat, she still hadn’t come.
Well, apparently I was wrong: She had actually gotten off the boat before me, as she came up to me walking from a different direction just a little bit later, finding me after having looked around for me?
I got her WhatsApp contact info and snapped a selfie with her on the pier before giving her a hug and saying goodbye.
Hopefully we can keep in touch. 😊
I think it was somewhere around 6:00 by that point? And though I had waited and waited for Meme, somehow I was still the first person on the bus that would take everyone back to their respective hotels.
I got off the bus and made the walk back to the same homestay I had been at before. I’m not going to say I was looking forward to it, as it meant another hot night, but it was such an easy walk from the airport, and I needed to be right back at the airport in the morning for my flight to Taveuni, so… it was worth the small level of discomfort for the travel ease.
Heck, I lived in my van in Arkansas in the middle of the summer, so clearly I can survive the heat and humidity. 🙃
But what was my surprise, upon arriving at my homestay, I was greeted by the manager lady who told me that they had given my room to someone else–an 85-year-old woman who was crying and didn’t have a place to stay–so they had given her my room and hadn’t told me.
She told me that she had issued the refund already, but there I was, now night time in Nadi, without a place to stay and needing to be at the airport early the next morning.
She said that she had also accidentally refunded my third night, but told me just to come back with $50 (Fijian), and she would save it for me (I think the normal price was 60 something?)
I hopped on my phone and started looking around for other places to stay, finding one maybe a couple kilometers away?
The manager lady gave me a ride over there, but we had trouble finding the place. We were there in the right neighborhood, so I told her to just go ahead and drop me off, and so she left, and I started walking around the neighborhood trying to find the place.
Eventually, I found the place, knocked on the gate to get the attention of the owners, and found that the place used to be a homestay. 😶
It was no longer.
So I canceled my reservation.
Gosh, where to now?
It was well after dark, and it had started sprinkling, and I was getting big bitten, so I opened up my pack to get my rain jacket, and that’s when I realized…
I’d left it hanging up on the bunk bed at Blue Lagoon Resort. 😶
Good crap. What a night.
There was a little playground area in the neighborhood, so I went over there, sitting down to change my clothes. 😅
I then jumped back online hoping to find another place to stay, but at this point, I didn’t trust that the site had updated information, and some of the places were non-refundable ones making the reservation.
In the end, with the rain sprinkling down, I decided to walk all the way to the bus stop at the hotel just across from the airport, the bus stop where I had been dropped off earlier tonight.
It wasn’t an awfully long walk, but it certainly wasn’t a quick walk either. I did stop along the way at a grocery store to buy some water, and I think I bought some water. I don’t remember if I bought anything else, but I definitely needed water.
The bus stop had a roof over it that would at least keep most of the rain off of me, and I sat there thinking that maybe I’d just stay there for the night.
it was around that time that I reached out to both Yohannes (the nice Austrian man I met at the Blue Lagoon Resort) and to Avery (the nice… Canadian? man I’d met at Barefoot Manta). I gave Johannes the details of my situation via WhatsApp, and I asked Avery if he happened to have Rosie’s phone number, the girl who had traveled from Barefoot Manta to Blue Lagoon with me and who was staying in my same dorm room.
Gratefully, they both got back to me, Avery with Rosie’s phone number, and I messaged her via WhatsApp as well, and Johannes actually called me (which was a surprise because I usually have no luck using the call feature WhatsApp, probably because I don’t understand exactly how it works?).
Johannes was at the Blue Lagoon Resort desk and worked with them to find my jacket. 🎉
Thx, Johannes!!!
The resort people told me that they would put it on the boat and that it would be waiting for me when I got back from Taveuni (as I was flying out before my jacket would make it back to the mainland).
Rosie also reached out to me, but by the time she had gotten back to me, everything had been figured out with Johannes.
But a big thank you to all three of my rescuers!
There was still the concern, however, as to whether or not I would be able to make it to the port at a time when the Awesome Adventures Fiji desk was still open (as my flight back to Nadi from Taveuni was going to get in after 5:00 p.m).
But whatever is going to happen is going to happen…
After spending about an hour sitting at the bus stop, I decided to walk over to the airport to see if maybe there was a better, safer place to crash for the night, looking around as I wandered in for covered areas that would keep me out of the rain.
When I arrived at the airport about 9:30ish, I walked first through the international arrivals building before walking over to the much larger international departures building, where, to my excitement and relief, I found other people sleeping on the floor. 🙃🎉
I’ve slept in airports before, though I don’t think ever for an entire night.
But here we go! 🙃
I found myself a little spot next to one of the entrances, a spot specifically chosen because it had outlets that I could use to keep my phone and devices charged overnight (my phone now with a functioning SIM card, but still with a non-functioning power button), veged out for a bit, sent one last message to Meme, whom I had told about the homestay fiasco, and crashed for the night.
What a nutty day. 😅
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 