To get to our next destination we took a loooong boat ride up to the Yasawa Islands. As we dropped off excited tourists at exotic looking resorts with white sand beaches, I couldn’t help but feel some anxious thoughts about the homestay accommodation that I had booked for us. The reviews said that it was quite rustic, with spotty solar electricity, cold water showers, and an estuary rather than a white sand beach.
It didn’t take long for me to remember why we like these types of travel experiences and give some reinforcement for me to trust my gut when booking. We had a variety of adventures and experiences, many of which we would not have had if we had chosen the resort accommodations.
We arrived at the same time as a NZ/Fijian couple and met other travellers from Denmark, Argentina, and Belgium. On the first night we sat in our homestay family’s living area to watch a Fijian rugby match on TV (go Drua, although they lost). We drank Kava, which is a drink that tastes a bit like earth. Fijians drink it during ceremonies and with friends and it has a calming effect. RobO said he felt a bit of a tongue tingle but we had minimal effects as our servings were ‘low tide’, meaning that the coconut bowl was only about half full.
We hiked up to the rock at the top the hill behind our house to see the views. It was the third time in our travels that a dog has led us along a hike.
We kayaked across the bay and found our own private white sand beach.
During low tide we could walk out hundreds of meters and we learned how to dig for qeqe (pronounced ghinghy), which is a type of clam.
The best part was eating our catch with coconut cream, lime, and chilies.
We boated over to the Blue Lagoon for an afternoon of snorkeling and beach time. Our rating was that the snorkeling was second only to the Maldives. I was even lucky enough to see an octopus.
For dinner one night we had a Lovo, which is a Fijian feast that is cooked via hot stones underground. We learned how to husk coconuts, scrape out the meat, and squeeze it out to get the coconut cream. That, mixed with a little onion and type of spinach and put in a half a coconut was my favourite dish.
My favourite activity was learning to spearfish. We boated to a beautiful snorkeling location and watched 2 Fijians free dive down and use a kind of slingshot spear to catch the fish. None of the tourists were successful in the hunt. It was a little bit sad to see them spearing all of the beautiful colourful fish that we enjoy watching when snorkeling.
We then went back to the Blue Lagoon for a fish fry on the beach. The fish were cooked over the fire and served in a broth of salt water, lime, and chilies.
One of the major benefits of the homestay was getting to know our Fijian family. We definitely will never forget Nancy, the 1 year old who looks like she is straight out of a Pixar film. She would stagger around, always barefoot, wreaking havoc on the 3 cats and Beast the dog. She was always sandy, sticky, or wet and always wanting a hug or snuggle.
One other adventure of the homestay were the critters! Every night on our way to our little house we would have to navigate groupings of large toads that were really creepy to walk through in the dark. On the first night there were 11 gathered outside our front step!
We liked the geckos that we saw in our house, but we needed help to deal with Steve, the biggest spider that I’ve ever seen in my bedroom.
We took the boat back to the main island and wheeled up to our final accommodation in a local minibus! Here are some parting shots from the Yasawas.
