Rental car - check, figuring out driving on left hand side of road - check, GPS to where we need to go - check, 1 hour drive to farm - check. Let’s roll.
Slight flaw in plan, google GPS in Fiji doesn’t exactly have the coordinates down. After a 3 hour detour, driving down dirt roads, gravel roads and having our little Suzuki fish tail erratically thru rutted gravel roads we finally stopped and asked a couple walking down the road how much longer to Dreketi? They pointed in the direction we had come, “Go back to the main road.” You mean we didn’t have to be on this gravel road the last hour? But, but, the GPS said... They laughed and said there’s a river between this road and Dreketi. No bridge.. Go back. Sigh... They were extremely sweet and took us to their home (!), introduced us to all these sweet relatives and let us borrow a cell phone. Ours didn’t have service. The eldest gentlemen took Ned for a short walk, sat him down under a bench under a tree, put his arm around Ned’s shoulder and said, “You’ve made a terrible mistake!” And then let out a big belly laugh. They offered us water and to come sit on the porch with them, but we told them we were already several hours late for our appointment.
Sorry I don’t have a picture, but they were all so sweet and I didn’t want to offend them by taking out my camera and taking pictures of them and their home. God, I love the Fijian people. In the meantime, enjoy these pics of our jaunt thru the Fijian backroads.
This part of Fiji does lots of logging. These pictures reminded us of Georgia with the tall, skinny pine trees and the logging trucks.
We also enjoyed the occasional sheep or goats that crossed the road.
Love the colorful clothes everyone wears, especially against the green backdrop.
But I digress...back to our journey
We finally made it to the main road, got ahold of Arif and were told to “Stay on the main road, go past the two saw mills and look for the Cacao Fiji sign.” Sounds easy enough for these seasoned travelers. The people that helped us out earlier said the exact same thing - past 2 saw mills look for the Cacao Fiji sign.
Our interpretation of 2 saw mills is first one then look for another. Wrong! There are literally 2 saw mills side by side on both sides of the street. We kept driving. When we reached almost the sea, we got another phone call from Arif and his foreman Bob. “Where are you? Turn back, you’ve gone too far!” At this point Bob didn’t trust us to our own devices and insisted to stay on the cell phone with us having me call out landmarks as we drove. “There’s a Jehovah Church” or “there’s a quarry”, etc. Bob just kept saying, “keep going”. We FINALLY found the Cacao Fiji sign! (Does this road on the right look obvious to you?”) Bob said, “Should I come get you or can you make it up the gravel hill?” No, no, we’re NOT that pathetic we can certainly drive up the hill, especially after the 2 hour detour down sketchy gravel roads.
Wrong! We managed to get up a very rutted gravel road until we came to a creek. Mmm, let’s go back to the fork in the road it must be there...
Bob ended up getting in the truck and finding us. We crossed the creek, went up the hill and very sheepishly met up the Cacao Fiji crew.
In typical Fiji fashion we were given a very warm welcome.
As you’ve followed along with us, it shouldn’t be a surprise that one of my
favorite things so far in Fiji is the friendliness of everone. We took an early morning walk around Labasa and were continuously greeted with waves, good mornings and the constant “Bula”. People would roll down their car windows, give us a wave and shout out “Good Morning.” I have found my happy place. I’m always getting teased for having too much energy in the morning or being just a tad bit too cheery before everyone has had their morning coffee. I’ve met my match here. Can you imagine being in Nevada City or San Francisco and people would open up their car doors, poke out their heads, give you a big smile and warm greeting? Or walk across the street to greet you?
Loved watching the school children in their bright pink and snowy white uniforms walk to school.
Stay tuned for our day on the cocoa farm...
