Jodi's Discoveries: Adventure #1 and Day 3

The hotel has complementary continental breakfast, so we went down to the bistro (AGAIN) to eat, but they didn't have too much of a selection. It was pastries, fruit, cereal or toast. No protein to last us through our Zip Line adventure at 10:30am today. I grabbed a huge glob of what I thought was oatmeal, fruit and some toast. The oatmeal turned into some tart cold fruity flavored food, which I didn't like at all. Wes mixed it with fruit and he seemed to like it.

The sky was covered with clouds and it was still raining, but let up to just a mist around 9am. When 10:30am rolled around we meet the shuttle out front of our hotel to head up to the Zip Line. Wes and I were the only one's from our hotel on the trip, but there was already a bus full of 18 people when we got on. We met a couple from Utah that was staying up in Nadi, which is the 3 1/2 hour drive we took the day before. They had no clue that the Zip Line was that far away, so it was a shock to them. It was only about a 1/2 drive from our hotel down the highway (queen's road) and towards the jungle/forest.

The shuttle driver showed us where they filmed the Anaconda #2 movie and we drove on a gravel road with lots of pot holes past kids going to school to get there. A lot of the people here do not where shoes and carry huge knifes (machete's) while they are walking on the roads.
Once we got to our location, they helped us put on harnesses and helmets. We walked up the hill and the guy told us what we needed to do. They would clip us into the zip lines each time we got to a different one, but we had to hold on with one hand and the other hand have an open circle on the wire. When you want to break, just rest your hand on the top of the wire, but do not grip it or it will hank you and pull your shoulder out.

Wes and I were the last one's to go, he clipped me in and I lifted my legs up and took off. There were a total of 8 different zip lines and we went through them twice. The first and last one's went over this little river/creek, so it was scary to start off with one of the highest zip lines!! They showed us how to go upside down, so I did that on a few of them, but Wes didn't want to... chicken ;) hehe. We would fly pretty fast through the trees and the end up on a platform around 100 feet above the ground. They tied us to a rope on each platform, so we wouldn't fall off.
Wes thought there was this huge black rope on a tree next to us, but it ended up being a millipede that was the size of a snake. It was crazy looking. After going through the zip lines twice, we got back on the shuttle and stopped at the arts village on the highway so people could go to the bathroom and grab food. It was only a 15 minute walk from there to our hotel, so we got off and stayed to eat lunch. I forgot the name of the restaurant we ate at, but it had a great view of this pond with tons of lily pads and flowers. Wes and I both got pan fried calamari for our appetizer and then Spaghetti Mexican for our meal. It had some peppers in it that gave it some spice, but I haven't had anything really spicy here yet. There was this cat out on the patio where we were eating, just wondering around begging for food.

After lunch we walked around the village a little, but didn't go into the boutique/tourist shops. I wanted to do that another day, so we got a few snacks at the little market instead. We got water, some drinks, coconut chocolate cookies, fruit snack candies, and lots of chips. Of the bags of chips was called UFO's with a burger flavor - an unusual spice. BURGER flavor... what??
The checker had to type each number in to her cash register, because there are no scanners. Technology is not very strong here. There are some Internet cafe's though. We packed up our groceries and headed back to the hotel along a walkways that was parallel to the Queen's road/main highway. It took us about 15 minutes to walk back to the hotel and we walked by a golf course and the police station that looks like a house with normal people there. I don't think the Fiji police where uniforms.

We had the whole afternoon to waste, so we rested in the room for a bit and then walked up and down the beach. It was just a mist out until the very end where it starting raining pretty hard. After our walking on the beach we changed clothes and went to happy hour at the bar in the reception area. They have some really good fruity and smoothie drinks at the hotel. I had a Melon Crush and Funky Fijian and Wes got a martini and beer. There are three different Fiji Beers; The Fiji Gold, Fiji Bitter and Fiji Premium. I think the first two taste the same and are very similar to Heineken, which I don't really like. There were two Australian's sitting next to us at the bar, so I started talking to them and they were really nice. There names were Stacy and Darrel and they had been there for about a week and a half and were leaving this Sunday. Darrel is a carpenter and Stacy works for the Council/County.

We chatted with them for about an hour and then headed down to get dinner at the Bistro. It was thai night, so I was really excited about that. The thai ended up not being spicy and not that great. The best part of dinner was the dessert Wes got. It was a rice pudding with a sugar sauce and mangos on top. Man that was one of the best desserts I've had and it didn't even had chocolate in it! Both of us were so tired after dinner that we crashed around 9pm in the hotel room.

Wes and I before we went flying through the trees