After a week long drive from Boulder to Los Angeles, Lindso and I had tickets o Air Pacific to Fiji for our honeymoon. We arrived at LAX and checked in for our eleven pm flight, only to find that due to mechanical problems, it was delayed until one. Agghh, a 2 hour delay? We were tired already and were dreading this 10 hour flight, not being used to red eye overnight flights. The we saw people packing up and leaving the terminal, and when we looked again we realized the flight was delayed until 1pm tomorrow afternoon! I was outraged. I told the attendant that this was ridiculous and they needed to just get another plane. She smiled and said "Yes, we are getting another plane. It is flying here from Australia right now. We have no other planes in America."They put us up in the Furama hotel for free, and we got on the plane the next day. Upon arrival in Nadi, the main city of Fiji, we had also missed the last boat to our destination island. No problem, they put us up in a decent hotel, and got us on the first boat the next day.
We arrived on little Malolo Lailai island, only 2.5 miles long and a half mile wide, at the Musket Cove resort. Upon arrival we were met by a friendly Fijian on a golf cart. She said we could have our choice of bure (cabin). I explained that we had opted for the cheapest lodging option the "Garden View" bure. She just smiled and said that the resort had some cancellations and we could have our pick of bure's. Cool! Oceanfront it is then. We settled into our spacious little bungalow located just fifty feet from the South Pacific.
We knew how we had gotten such luck. Fiji's government had been endangered by a civilian coup attempt just a few months earlier. This type of thing tends to scare off American tourists. But not Lindso and I! I researched the coup and found that it was relatively non-violent and limited to inter-government squabbling, there was no impending civil war, and the country was peaceful. So we took advantage of the post-coup discount and flew to Fiji!
Fiji was idyllic. I snorkled for the first time in my life and was shocked by the multitudes of colorful fish. We dove three times and saw some sharks. We drank Fiji Bitter at a circular bar that looked just like the one Tom Cruise worked at in Cocktail. We met retirees who lived aboard thier sailboats and sailed the world. I sipped real Kava with some locals on a tiny island next to ours. Loved it.
Fiji was idyllic. I snorkled for the first time in my life and was shocked by the multitudes of colorful fish. We dove three times and saw some sharks. We drank Fiji Bitter at a circular bar that looked just like the one Tom Cruise worked at in Cocktail. We met retirees who lived aboard thier sailboats and sailed the world. I sipped real Kava with some locals on a tiny island next to ours. Loved it.
