Viti Levu

After 90 days, Germans with a tourist visa must leave New Zealand and spend at least one night in another country before they can return for another 90 days. I left on day 87 for two weeks to Fiji. Fiji consists of a larger main island as well as many smaller islands or island groups. About 95% of visitors are drawn to the Yasawa Islands, which are correspondingly touristy and expensive; furthermore, I read in the Google reviews of several accommodations about bedbugs. I wanted to avoid the latter at all costs. Therefore, for the first two nights in Nadi, I followed a tip from a couple I met in Indonesia, as according to Google reviews, many accommodations in Nadi also had issues with bedbugs.

My room was huge, the demeanor of the lady at the reception was quite cool, but I was immediately drawn into a conversation by three men who in a friendly manner invited me to dinner. One of the men took me on an excursion the next day with his brother and nephew to Rakiraki. The excursion mainly consisted of driving and eating, but it was nice to get an insight into the community. Just before we wanted to leave, the brother and nephew expressed the desire to take a goat with them. I couldn't look quickly enough, and the goat was already hanging upside down from a rope to bleed out, with its fur pulled over its ears, and then it was stuffed into the trunk.

Following a tip from Rainer, I then visited Beqa Island. Besides a Swiss man who has been escaping the winter here for three months every year for many years, I was the only guest, so I mainly relaxed, cuddled with the two kitten babies, and did a bit of snorkeling. Unfortunately, due to the rainy season, the sun didn’t shine much, making the reef look relatively colorless.

I spent another two days in the capital Suva, where I visited the market and met Gabriel. He wanted to arrange a homestay for me at his sister's house on one of the Yasawa Islands, as she is apparently also a teacher. What he told me about himself (including that he is an intelligence agent and also works as security personnel in a park, that he was deployed in Syria and was the only one hardly injured in a car explosion, or that he can just spontaneously take time off in the morning to arrange the homestay for me, but then tells me later that he had quit a week earlier...) sounded so absurd that in the end, I was glad it didn’t work out.

Really cool was the shark dive after almost a week in Fiji, which I did from Pacific Harbour. At first, I was a bit unsure whether I should really do the dive because the sharks are fed, which loses the authenticity. But it was really cool! On the first dive, we immediately descended to 25m, knelt on the bottom in the so-called arena, and then a diver fed the sharks in front of our noses from a metal box with tuna heads. Most of the time, the box was closed, and only a bit of blood dripped out. Occasionally, the diver opened the box, one or two tuna heads fell out, and then there was a scuffle among the sharks until one had devoured the head. Once all the tuna heads were eaten, we surfaced at 15m, where the sharks were fed by another diver by hand... until a shark accidentally took off with a chain glove, then the show was over.

After a break on the boat with fruit, vegetables, and hot chocolate, we set off for the second dive, where we lay on the ground at the edge of the arena. The sharks were again fed with tuna heads from a metal box, and I found a few shark teeth on the ground. During both dives, there were mainly bull sharks present, but some nurse sharks and lemon sharks also mixed in, and during the safety stops, we also spotted some reef sharks.

On the boat, I also met Sebastian from Germany and Lukas from Switzerland, and after the dives, I joined them and went to the accommodation The Beachhouse. That was the perfect decision, as there were plenty of nice people, good vibes, and great food! With Sebastian and Lukas, Sana, Tomy, and Jacques, I also took an excursion to Sigatoka, where we bought fresh fruits and vegetables at the market for the evening and visited the highest sand dunes in the Pacific Islands. Unfortunately, we were in the rain the whole time at the sand dunes - rainy season, indeed.