Tuesday The Jewel of Fiji Day Tour

This day tour is called the Awesome Foursome. That is because we have River Canoeing, Fijian River Tour, Magic Water Fall and Bamboo Rafting.  Ann my new friend from Tasmania, Australia and I were picked up by a native driver from the Tour. Nice young man with dreads. He gave us a running speech while we drove down the Queen's Road. We saw cattle, horses and palm trees. Lots of shacks but they don't really need cover like we do. We do see a  really nice house and the driver tells us he is the Kava seller. LOL
We get to the drop off point at the tip of the Navua River. We are told to wait as the cruise ship people are carted off first. We are a unique group as we have chosen the Awesome Foursome.  We pass through quite a few rapids on our way up to the village. We dock and go up the stone steps where we are greeted by a warrior with a mean looking club. Didn't take a picture because my camera and all our stuff is in plastic bags to protect them from the rapids. This is from the internet. The house to the left is where the ceremony is held.
 
Another warrior standing beside the hollowed out tree greets us by blowing through a conch shell and beating on the drum. We are then invited to the ceremonial lodge where the oldest looking man in our group is chosen as our chief.
He sits in the big chair and the ceremony begins. He is then invited with the other males to sit on the floor in front of the warrior who will make the Kava drink for us. They perform the Kava ceremony and he is given the first cup. We all are then given a cup. It is a bit lip and tongue numbing.

This is from the brochure:

"After being picked up from your hotel, you'll travel to the Adventure Capital district of Fiji, Pacific Harbour,.Navua to begin a journey to a world away from the cares of modern living. And exhilarating cruise up the beautiful Navua River, past villages, farm lands, pristine tropical rainforest, deep gourges/canyons, meandering rapids and numerous cascading waterfalls. You may come across wild river ducks, white and black heron and other native birds.

 A Fijian Warrior will escort you to the village meeting house (Bure). Experience age-old customs and traditions, a customary welcome yaqona (kava) ceremony which will be performed for you. This sacred ceremony is only performed to visiting high chiefs or very important visitors."

The history of the village is recounted, war dances performed and we participate in the taralala and tuboto (Snake Dance) sorry no pictures, I was participating.We then go to the school where we meet the children and they perform for us. So adorable.

Our guide then instructs on the importance of the coconut and a plant that they use to make mats.

http://www.kivu.com/the-fijian-woven-mat/
We sit on benches and watch while the women weave and make place mats. Our guide has a villager open a coconut and for $2.00 Fijian we sip on fresh coconut water.

After that we are led over to the unearthing of our lovo lunch. They cook some of the food underground. We wander over to the eating place where we take off our shoes and enter. On the table is a feast. Lovely roasted eggplant, pumpkin curry, fish in coconut milk, chicken cooked over hot coals in the ground, potato salad (not like our potato salad) taro and so much more. We sit and devour this feast. I go back for a small bit of seconds. They do have lemon bars which I don't have because of the gluten. Ann goes back for seconds on the lemon bars.

In the meantime the ladies have laid out their wares that we can purchase. We enjoy looking at all the crafts and choose some.I got beautiful turtle bowl for Jim and a printed table cloth for my self.

The boats are waiting for us so off up the river we go. Again scaling some pretty mean looking rapids. The boatmen are quite skilled so we only get a little bit wet. We reach the waterfall trail. We hike in and it is amazing.

Once we get to the falls I discover there is no place to change into my bathing suit. I am wearing capri's and a tank top with a silky no sleeve top over it. I take off the silky top and wade into the water. It is a bit cold but not like back home. I try to swim to the falls but the force of the water coming down pushes me back. After the refreshing swim we go back down the trail. I get one of our fellow travelers to take a picture of Ann and I.

We then start our trip back. We stop by a raft made from bamboo. All of us decide to hop (crawl) on board and sit on the thick bamboo sticks. We have a leisurely ride on the unsinkable "HMS BILIBILI" a.k.a the HMS No Come Back. Explored the only way used by their ancestors before roads or motors were introduced. A reenactment of centuries old only means of transport down river. This is a smooth ride, no motors used.We drift down stream with our guide telling us about the history of village established by lone Englishman John Humphrey Danford, early 1800's.

We got back into the boat and motored downstream. We stop by the village to let one of our guides out. He had been collecting some sticks that he put in a cloth bag. The children are playing in the water and waving good bye to us.

The driver was waiting to take us back to our hotel. We decide to have a lovely cappuccino on the deck looking out over the water. We had an awesome day.