Island hopping through Fiji – Bula Paradise

Bula means “Hello” in the Fijian language and on every island you are welcomed by the locals who sing a Fijian song for you followed by a loud BUUUUUULLLLA.

Fiji is a paradise. It consists of an archipelago that includes more than 300 islands out of which around 100 are inhabited. If you think you have never seen a picture from Fiji you are probably wrong because the gorgeous scenery was the stage where lots of movies were shot including The Blue Lagoon with Brooke Shields, Return to the Blue Lagoon with Milla Jovovich, Castaway with Tom Hanks, and Jodie Foster’s “heaven” sequence in the sci-fi movie Contact was also filmed here.

Because April is the last month of the rainy season for Fiji we chose to do an island hopping tour through the Yasawa Group of Islands which are more protected from the rain and the decision was the right one as we had only 3 days of rain in 3 weeks. We chose to stay 4 nights on each of the islands Nanuya Balavu, Baya, Tavewa and Nacula with every single one of them being a little paradise.

In Fiji there is no danger to get bored because on every island you have lots of daily activities to choose from including hiking, snorkeling, diving, cooking classes, jewelry making out of coconuts, visits to local villages, handline fishing, beach volleyball, rugby, crab races and party nights. And if this is not enough you can just lay down in one of the hammocks on the beach and stare at the blue-greenish water. Can you wish more???

We also tried the local cuisine with Kokoda being one of our favourites. Kokoda is very similar to the ceviche from Peru. It is raw fish marinated in lime juice and served in coconut milk with onion and spices, very very tasty. We also tried the typical Fijian drink which is called Kava. It is a narcotic drink made out of the roots of the pepper plant and after you drink it you feel a slight numbness of your lips and tongue. I couldn’t say it’s a tasty drink as it really looks like muddy water :=) but you cannot escape from drinking it on every island on your welcome ceremony.

In Fiji we met lots of people from all over the world but because of the long flight from home most of the Europeans were on a longer trip around the world. So guess who we met? If you read the last blog post about Sydney I mentioned that I hope we will meet Marco and Denise from Switzerland on a small island in the Pacific. And we met on Nanuya Balavu Island. Now if this isn’t weird than call me crazy but by now we managed to meet them this year in 4 different countries Peru, Bolivia, Australia and Fiji without planning it.

One amazing thing we’ve seen or done

The snorkeling in Fiji was one of the best we have ever done and the corals are considered to be part of the most colorful in the world. We also went diving a couple of times and even did two shark dives with one of them being our best dive till now. It was very well organized as we went down to 20m depth and held on to a rope while three guides fed the sharks 4 – 5 meters in front of us and other 3 guides watched for the safety on the back side. We saw different types of sharks, the white and black tip reef sharks, lemon sharks and the best, the bull sharks. It was definitely one of the most amazing experiences so far. Take a look at the video with the amazing underwater world in Fiji.

Next stop

French Polynesia – Tahiti, Moorea and Bora Bora