We arrived yesterday at the airport, picked up the (rather dented) hire car, and headed south.
Fijian drivers seem to fall into two groups: slow and erratic or fast and tail-gatey. It certainly enlivens any long trip. Added to that were the abundance of road works, repairing the damage from various climate catastrophes over the last couple of years. There are plenty of police about, including the ones helping the couple who had just driven into a ditch before we drove past them this afternoon.
After our early start yesterday, we were very pleased to finally arrive at our resort after 2 1/2 hours of fairly unrelaxed driving. The Mango Resort is down a 1 km long dirt roadway that’s crying out for a grader. Bouncing down that road was an adventure in itself.
The reception staff were friendly and helpful, apart from when the lady showing us to our bure couldn’t work the room key. Face masks are a rarity anywhere in Fiji, is this the week I finally succumb to the virus? If so, at least I’ve had a nice holiday.
Our bure is well situated right by the beach and the restaurant and bar, which is fine as long as the rabble don’t continue partying too late. It’s not mosquito proof so much as mosquito porous, but as it turns out, the little blighters don’t like the overhead fan, an important fact we worked out at 2 am that first night.
It turns out that when I get bitten by mozzies, I get a little red spot that looks from a distance like acne, whereas Simon gets giant swollen lumps all over him which is more reminiscent of smallpox. He says this is not a weakness but rather a demonstration of his sensitive nature.
Other quirks of our accommodation are the outside shower
and the fact that the water is turned off every night between 11 and 5 to allow the reservoir to refill. You can’t drink the water out of the tap unfortunately, which is mostly only a problem when you forget while brushing your teeth.
The resort is fully booked with about thirty guests, and we were the oldest ones here the first night. Luckily a family of two kids and their grandparents arrived the next day, so now we’re part of the younger crowd again. There’s a big group of Brits in their early twenties that seem to be here on some sort of work trip, I wish I knew what their story was? The middle of the pacific is a long way from the UK for a team building exercise.
The manager is a diminutive kiwi by the name of Ed. He’s got a big pot and is very friendly and helpful. There are two dogs that belong to the resort, and one very tiny and cute puppy, that is a blessing except when it’s whining loudly and extremely piercingly in its crate which for some reason is situated in the corner of the restaurant (and within earshot of our bure, as previously mentioned. )
In terms of pandemic protection protocols, we had to show our vaccination certificates on arrival at immigration, and we were legally required to book a supervised RAT test at our accommodation. We had arranged this to be at 11 am on our second day here, but as it turned out, it suited Ed much better to do it on the evening of our arrival. So, that first evening, after we’d eaten our mains and were awaiting our dessert (apple pie out of a packet with some ice cream, duration of wait one hour, this is what is termed “island time”), Ed took us to a corner of the restaurant and performed our RAT test. His approach wasn’t exactly best practice – he didn’t make my eyes water, for a start, and the 15 minute wait was more like three – but I’m guessing he has much more experience than me, and the control line showed up clearly, so it must have been good enough. He said if we’d been positive, he wouldn’t have sent us to the quarantine resort, but would have allowed us to stay to isolate in our rooms. So, it wouldn’t have been a catastrophe. As it was, we both tested negative, so could enjoy our apple pie in peace.