Saturday, August 10, 2013

Oh, What A Week!–August 10, 2013

Did I tell you how much I hate dogs?  And did I tell you how much I hate the Fiji dogs? And did I tell you that they just let them wander free – everywhere?

Well this week we had a dog-run-in story.  Not ours, but our friends, and fellow office mates the Tennis’. She was out walking for exercise on Monday and she always walks on Princess Road which is a main road that runs in front of the temple.  It’s a busy road, and the houses are all very expensive and nice.

As she was walking she noticed three dogs, but didn’t pay too much attention to them.  That is until the Doberman in the group looped around behind her and without a bark, a growl or a peep bit her leg on the calf.

She went to the hospital and had it cleaned out and all seemed fine, but by Friday it was badly infected.  So badly infected that it had turned into gangrene.  She had surgery Friday night to clean it out and will have a whopper of a scar. The doctor wants her to stay in the hospital for two weeks, but she has family coming in one week.  We know who will win.

Oh ya, and there are no dog laws here.  Ya gotta love it.  I have decided that I will come home out of shape and fluffy rather than walk here in Suva.

But on the bright side!  Saturday was a free day for us and we took the Navaua River Excursion.  It included a boat trip up the river to a village where they did a Kava ceremony for us, danced and sang for us and then took us on a tour of their village.  We visited their pre-school where they little one’s sang to us.  Then we were shown how they weave the mats and paint the tapa cloth and open coconuts. Then lunch and they had souvenirs for sale.

After lunch we were back in the boat and headed farther up river.  It has been dry and the river was low and there were a lot of spots where it was very, very shallow.  We ran several sets of rapids, and in low water it was very interesting how they got the boat through.

We pulled over and hiked about 6 minutes up a concrete trail to a beautiful waterfall complete with pool.  It is winter here and the pool and river water were a bit chilly – kind of like getting into a swimming pool the first time – then so refreshing.  We swam and waded around for a while, then back into the boat.  Then we changed to a bamboo raft called the HMS NoComeBack, for a brief raft float.  Then back to the start and our cars.

It was a beautiful blue sky day and we had such a good time.  We were in a group with a family from Beijing, a main land Chinese fellow and his 10 year old son from the bay area in California, and two Aussies and us.  What a group, but we so enjoyed it.

Our guide told us that he had a fellow from Alaska on the tour the other day and he told him that his best summer was winter in Fiji.  Have to agree with that completely.

We are trying to checkout as many fun spots as we can find so that when we have visitors from home – hint, hint, hint- we will be good hosts.

Can’t wait for Scott and Ann’s visit – we have been so worried that he would be “bored” with all the sitting around!  Scott we are doing this all for you!

Navua River

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