I awoke, feeling not exactly rested and suspected I was coming down with a cold. Fiji was amazingly beautiful, and my hostel, the Nomad’s Skylodge, was quite nice for $25 Fijian dollars per night. I did some shopping in Nadi and found some really beautiful sarongs. Mostly I just lay by the pool nursing my cold and recovering from the jet lag. I wasn’t much for exploring the island, after all I only had 3 full days there, was feeling under the weather and was by myself. I shared a room with a Swedish girl who will be coming to NZ in a week and on my last day in Fiji I met The Elves (not to be confused with the hunka hunka burnin’ love, Elvis).

I call them the Elves because they are beautiful and kind and a little bit magical (minus the pointy ears, of course). It was on my last day, I decided to take a fast catamaran to Beachcomber Island. After I missed the bus from the hostel (the tour guide told me it came at 8, and it actually came at 7:30 – which is ironic, because everything there is “Fiji” time which usually means everything is later and no one worries about things, but of course, today they were on time, and that time was a half hour before I got to the lobby).

At any rate, I thought no problem; I will take a cab, and did so. The thing about being a female tourist travelling alone is that you’ve got to be a little careful with people trying to get the better of you. The cabbie wanted to take me around a loop at the harbour and charge me $3 extra dollars. But I said, “The girls at my hostel told me this would be a $15 ride, either it is or I get out here and walk around this loop.” It was $15 and I didn’t have to walk. Come to think of it, I also had a little run-in with a wood carver in Nadi that carved some wood against my wishes and then tried to charge me $25 Fiji dollars for it.

A good tip, I think, is to store your money in different pockets in your pants; usually you’ll have at least three pockets in shorts and such. Keep one pocket for smaller change and bills and the other for larger bills. I ended up paying $4 for this wood thing (in which they made a spelling mistake anyway!) instead of $25 because I had the $4 stashed in a pocket and all my big bills in another pocket. I said that was all the money I had, of course, keeping my secret pocket with bigger bills out of sight. And I didn’t even want this wood thing and told him so several times, but these sellers can be quite pushy and really put you on the spot (which at the end of the day I understand, these people have families to feed) but sell me something the proper way, don’t bully me into it. I ended up leaving this woodcarving thing, spelling mistakes and all, in Fiji anyway.

Anyway, back to the Elves. I finally got to Beachcomber Island and it was GORGEOUS. The water was warm, an absolutely tremendous turquoise colour and the weather was about 26 degrees and perfectly sunny. The island itself was quite small and only had one resort on it. I walked around the island in about 15 minutes and then decided to partake in the snorkeling. It was one of the most beautiful hands-on experiences I’ve had in a long time. Phosphorescent coral and rainbow coloured fish. I got a little scrape in the water from the coral but it was worth it. They took you out in a boat and dumped you overboard where all the interesting bits are.

Next came the fish feeding in a glass-bottomed boat. These fish are honkin huge, I’m wondering how many times a day they get fed! Lunch was served BBQ style and quite good – it was at this point that I met the Elves, a group of Kiwis on vacation there. I joined them for lunch and afterwards myself and one of the gals decided to go parasailing, which was pretty damn cool if I do say so myself. You’re flying, and all you can see is miles of ocean, blue skies and little white sand islands. If you look below the water is shallow enough that you can see all the coral formations. It took about 6 minutes and went around the island once. Well worth it.

After lunch the 5 of us took the fast cat back to the mainland. They asked me to join them for dinner at their hotel so I went home, grabbed the Swedish girl that was staying in my room and away we went. After dinner, the 7 of us went to a local bar called The Macambo, where The Elves were asked to dance by all the locals. It was quite fun. The next day a couple of the Kiwis were on the same flight as myself, they insisted on driving me in from the airport to my hostel and have pretty much adopted me since then.