Colo-i-Suva Park
Yesterday, Saturday was market day, the busiest day of the week. Today it is very quite. Sunday most things are closed. No Internet access available. Most stores were closed. Lots of local people attend church on Sunday. We planned to take the bus to Colo-i-Suva Park. Beforehand we picked up some lunch from the local market shops. I had a roti wrap with "tinned tuna" and Indian curry and vegetables. It was quite good. It was so good I had a second one.
The local bus took about 45-minutes to make it the 11-km to the park. There were lots of stops. Local people can ring the bell and be dropped off right in front of their homes.
The park itself is very beautiful. It was about 1.5-miles hike in the road to the beginning of the trails. A couple of vehicles passed us, but that was it in terms of traffic.
The trails were filled with crushed rock or cut in the stone. There were handrails where necessary, made of local materials. John leaned on one and broke it on one of the small bridges. It was very lush tropical forest vegetation. Not a lot of light penetared in. There were upper and lower pools. The lower pool had a wonderful rope swing which the locals were using to the fullest extent. John and I had fun trying it out, though we never quite mastered the flying arts of some of local "human flying torpedos". The water was refreshing and it was a placed used by all ages of people. Pretty neat! We spend a few hours there before hiking out.
While waiting for the bus with a couple of Fijians, a local resident stopped and offered us a ride. He was a really nice gentleman who spoke English and fluent Fijian. He was really excited, as most of the other Fijians, about the Rugby playoffs. Fiji had just beaten the Argentinians. He dropped of the other Fijians and then asked us if he minded if he made a stop to pcik up a newspaper, which of course, we didn't. He left us and the keys in the car, and when he came out he had three very cold soft drinks and offered them to us, he'd take whatever we didn't choose. That was so sweeeet! After the 1.5-mile hike out of the forest an ice cold drink was heaven! He co-owned a company that did materials estimating. His services were now so much in demand that his firm couldn't keep up with number of proposals they received. He wasn't complaining about that. A few years earlier after the coup, he barely had enough work to survive. He dropped us off at our hotel and refused any reimbursement for gas. That was very nice of him!
That evening we had a lot of rain. I think John journaled. I reviewed my photos on the TV in our room and then watched a National Geographic special on rafting through unexplored rivers of northern Africa until I finally fell asleep sometime during it. That was a long special!
Yesterday, Saturday was market day, the busiest day of the week. Today it is very quite. Sunday most things are closed. No Internet access available. Most stores were closed. Lots of local people attend church on Sunday. We planned to take the bus to Colo-i-Suva Park. Beforehand we picked up some lunch from the local market shops. I had a roti wrap with "tinned tuna" and Indian curry and vegetables. It was quite good. It was so good I had a second one.
The local bus took about 45-minutes to make it the 11-km to the park. There were lots of stops. Local people can ring the bell and be dropped off right in front of their homes.
The park itself is very beautiful. It was about 1.5-miles hike in the road to the beginning of the trails. A couple of vehicles passed us, but that was it in terms of traffic.
The trails were filled with crushed rock or cut in the stone. There were handrails where necessary, made of local materials. John leaned on one and broke it on one of the small bridges. It was very lush tropical forest vegetation. Not a lot of light penetared in. There were upper and lower pools. The lower pool had a wonderful rope swing which the locals were using to the fullest extent. John and I had fun trying it out, though we never quite mastered the flying arts of some of local "human flying torpedos". The water was refreshing and it was a placed used by all ages of people. Pretty neat! We spend a few hours there before hiking out.
While waiting for the bus with a couple of Fijians, a local resident stopped and offered us a ride. He was a really nice gentleman who spoke English and fluent Fijian. He was really excited, as most of the other Fijians, about the Rugby playoffs. Fiji had just beaten the Argentinians. He dropped of the other Fijians and then asked us if he minded if he made a stop to pcik up a newspaper, which of course, we didn't. He left us and the keys in the car, and when he came out he had three very cold soft drinks and offered them to us, he'd take whatever we didn't choose. That was so sweeeet! After the 1.5-mile hike out of the forest an ice cold drink was heaven! He co-owned a company that did materials estimating. His services were now so much in demand that his firm couldn't keep up with number of proposals they received. He wasn't complaining about that. A few years earlier after the coup, he barely had enough work to survive. He dropped us off at our hotel and refused any reimbursement for gas. That was very nice of him!
That evening we had a lot of rain. I think John journaled. I reviewed my photos on the TV in our room and then watched a National Geographic special on rafting through unexplored rivers of northern Africa until I finally fell asleep sometime during it. That was a long special!
posted by Chris at 11:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home