But there's a big difference between going to bed early and going to sleep early.
That last one was going to be difficult...kinda like Christmas eve when you're 6.
I managed to get a couple of hours of sleep in before my alarm went off at 2:45am. The taxi I had ordered on-line the night before was arriving at 3:30. Time to get a move on.
Hop in the shower; get dressed; organise snacks; double check I have all my gear; make a smoothie for breakfast. Done. Just in time.
At 3:30 I'm at the bottom of my driveway. I'm alone.
At 3:35 I'm still alone. I call. The woman who answers asks me where I want to go. I tell her that I've already booked a taxi for 3:30 and he's not here.
"Oh. Yes, well you know that's not a guaranteed service."
No shit.
"I can re-fresh the request, but if you know the number to another service you can call them"
Thanks for nothing. I call the competitor. It's now 3:45. My bus leaves in 15 min. I tell the guy my story - panic has set in. He sends the call out and in 2 min my cab is there. We make it with 3 min to spare.
And thus begins my journey.
3 1/2 hours on a bus to Sydney. We arrive at the airport at 7:30. Plane leaves at 10:30. Go through the bag check-in process...and now we wait, wandering around the plethora of duty free shopping opportunities. We board the plane. 4 hours of flying until finally we are in Fiji!!!
As I exit the plane I am hit by a wall of humidity, it takes my breath away. When I left Canberra it was 14 degrees - I'm wearing track pants and a long sleeved shirt (I've already taken off my hoodie). All of this immediately sticks to my skin. I need to find a place to drop my pants - stat. I've already taken off my shirt (I had a tank on underneath). But the toilets are after the customs desk. I have to stand in line and wait. And wait.
As soon as I make it past I b-line it to the toilet and remove the offending pants..and socks. I have to wait to get my suitcase before I can take off my running shoes though.
Our dive crew is meeting in the main hall of the small airport (there's a money exchange place and 4 stores). I'm approached by a woman who places a necklace made from small shells around my neck. "Bula!" she says to me, all smiles. It's official now. I'm in Fiji.
However, we still have not reached our final destination. We all pile into a small bus and we are soon on our way again - direction Suva.
The scenery is lush and green, a big differnce from the browns in Australia! After a couple of hours we see the coast. We pass many small villages, kids big and small are playing soccer/football. There are little wooden stands along the road where people sell mangoes, coconuts, eggplant, you name it. Many smile and wave to us as we pass. Night falls quickly and we are still winding our way up and down the hills following the coast.
We arrive around 8, and we are all exhausted. We check in quickly and then meet up again in the dinning room for some dinner.
As I glance at the menu, I can tell that the next 6 days will be interesting: no vegetarian options in the mains. I ask the waitress and she looks over my shoulder to the menu.
"Do you eat fish?"
"No, nothing with a face" I say.
I finally settle for some bruschetta, a salad and a bowl of cassava chips (french fries basically). Well, it's only 6 days...and I'm in Fiji!!!
This night I had no trouble falling asleep. Tomorrow: Shark diving
P.S. I've had to write this in HTML because for some reason the text side of the site won't work on this comuputer! So if it's a bit choppy you know why...I also can't up-load photos. I've also only got an hour so I haven't been able to "refine" as much as I would have liked - sorry. Lastly, I'm sitting on a leather cube, in 32 degree weather with 80+ humidity - I'm sweating buckets.
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