Hello from Nadi, Fiji – Part 6

Hello from Nadi, Fiji – Part 6

Blog posted:  Tuesday morning  May 7, 2013  Fiji time (sixth travelogue of this trip).

Now that the majority of the SU folks have left, there have been significant changes at the resort.  For one thing, it is a lot quieter {grin}.  SU ladies are always enthusiastic and they tend to get excited and just keep talking louder and louder. 

Next, the breakfast lines are much more manageable.  With the SU folks they all tended to go to breakfast about the same time and that overwhelmed the resources of the restaurant.  There was always a long line at the omelet bar  and often the coffee was not ready {grrrrrrr}.  The last two days have been great and much more relaxing in the breakfast area (see photo).

Looking out of the breakfast room

Lastly, the population at the resort has changed drastically,  There are lots of kids – mostly well behaved.  It also appears that there are many folks from Australia and New Zealand.  We talked to one couple and the feeling we got is that Fiji is a great “holiday” (vacation) destination.  It is only a four hour flight.  The interesting thing we noted is that the folks from Australia/New Zealand walk on the left side of the walkways – same side as they drive on.  So far we have avoided any head on collisions {grin}.

Almost all of the public areas have huge open “windows”.  Most do have windows, but they are never closed.  There are lots of birds that fly in and out of the areas.  This is especially true of the breakfast area.  As soon as someone leaves, they swoop in and pick up some of the food.  The seem to be “potty trained” as we never see any signs that they have been in the public areas. 

We have been eating our dinner at what is called the Salt restaurant/bar.  Each night we have gotten a table right by the wall that overlooks the Pacific.  We try to time it to arrive a bit before sunset (early here – about 6:00).  At the SU dinner, several folks noted that they saw large bats flying around.  Well, Sunday night, at the Salt,  we sat under a large palm tree that was the landing spot for one of those bats.  The wingspan was huge. I think about 1.5 feet and Pat said about 3 feet.  In any case it can get your attention.  Thankfully, it did not seem to want to share our dinner.  There are two types of bats in Fiji (said to be the original native mammals). They have the normal insect eating bats – presumably like we have in the US.   The other variety  is called the monkey-face fruit bat, or “flying fox” (called beka by the Fijians).

We made the decision to just relax for these last few days.  The tours that were available just did not jump out as being something we had to do.  We got to see a lot of this island on our river safari tour.  In addition, the weather has been great, but a bit hot.  It is much more fun to relax in one of the open air public areas.  The breeze in these areas keeps it cool and we get to do a lot of people watching.

We did walk on the beach Monday morning.  The sand is not all that great, and the water is a bit murky.  That said, it was still fun to collect shells.  We even got to see some snails that had just washed up on the beach and were “scurrying” around  trying to find a shell to hide in.

As I have said many times, I look for things that “normal” people do not.  I noted that most of the internet for small businesses and homes is from satellites.  I got to thinking about what direction they would be pointing.  Most TV, Internet, and communication  satellites are in what is called geo-synchronous orbit over the equator.  In the US, our satellite dishes are pointed in a generally southern direction.  Since we are over 17 degrees south of the equator, I assumed that the dishes would be pointing north.  So I got out my trusty iPhone with the compass app and walked down to the marina area where I had noted several dishes.  Sure enough, they were pointed in a northerly direction.

Today is our last day.  We get the use of the room until 5:00 PM and then a bus takes the SU folks to the airport for a 10:00PM flight.

That is all for now.