Hot Hot Hot. Fiji Experience Day 4.

We were finally able to sleep in. No rushing this morning, just a calm sit down for brecky. We drove toward the north of the main island which has a large Indian population – something about Indians coming to work on sugar cane fields during the late 1800s. This had a great influence on our destination for lunch. We drove along the beach and arrived at a beach resort owned by an elder Indian man. We were greeted by the owner and some of the staff with refreshing mandarin juice. We had lunch- a home cooked Indian meal- in what looked like the owners home. The dining room positioned by the living area gave view to portraits of the owner during his young days- he was quiet the handsome man- and wholesome smiles from his family portraits. The meal was by far the best meal I had eaten in Fiji. Absolutely full and nearly falling over from food coma we walked over to the steam/ stone sauna that was just built. The owner of Vatia was really excited for us to check it out. The four of us stripped down to our bathing suits and sat on the bench of the small room- stonewalls decorated with sea shells, the windows shutting the air from entering the room but letting the sunlight in. The young girl who worked at the resort came in with us, a hose in hand. She sprayed the floor below us – the steam quickly rose up as the water splashed on the stones below us. We all hopped up as the steam ran up our backs and surprised us. We stayed as still as possible, listened to the sweat dripping off of us rapidly onto the stones creating more steam. At times it got too hot- to the point where we were hopping up and down nearly shoving each other to run out of the small room toward a quick refreshing shower under a cold hose and back in we went. We could not handle much longer. Stepping outside, the cool breeze was a relief. Compared to the hot and steamy room the weather outside felt cool- um it was about 90 degrees out- just saying. Next on the itinerary was the mud pools and hot springs. We slowly stepped in the muddy water our feet sinking in the soft mud at the bottom of the natural pool. The small green leaves floating in the pool tickled our bodies…. MUD FIGHT ! ahha of course we took it upon ourselves to throw big chunks of gooey mud at each other and decorate each others bodies and faces with mud and leaves. As the mud was drying it began to feel tight on the skin. Before dipping into the hot spring we rinsed off. The hot springs … oh the hot springs. And I thought the steam room was hot enough. I dipped a toe in the hot spring to test the water and I thought, “oh gosh, I will literally bake in there”. But I couldn’t punk out- unlike some people::cough cough- Jon- cough cough :: I creeped in until just my head was out of the water and stood still until I could not take any more. Walking out of the spring was interesting in itself. I got really light headed. But not so much that I couldn’t join in on the silly pictures we took by the spring. To the showers and back on the bus to visit the children of the orphanage. We park beside a house decorated with a front yard, which was decorated with colorful toys a trampoline and swings. We walked in to a warm welcome from the women at the orphanage and smiles from some of the young children sitting on the living room floor. Each one of us dispersed in the home and said “Bula” to all the kids and handed hem our gifts. The eldest at the orphanage was a 17- year old girl who had lived there for the past 3-years. We had a small chat, she took the time to tell me a bit about herself. One of the younger females took it upon her to pull us all together and choose the game we had to play. The FE people looked at each other and laughed at how bossy she was- it was too cute. We played along but soon enough all of our attention went in different directions as a different half pint came and pulled us this way and that. This made me realize how out of shape I am- running around playing freeze tag. When we left we were just as upset as the kids were to say good bye. On the bus once again we were but for the last time. Awwwww. We thanked Raffa and the driver and hopped off at the Nomads resort. The rest of the day at Nomads consisted of dinner, some drinking games- of which everyone thought itd be great to attack me/ aka put Alta to bed and bring out Baja- Lol and some serious bro- ing out.

P.S Random> Fiji was once known for having extreme rates of cannibalism. The man to eat the most people ate a total of 999 in his life time.