“Bula! Bula!” (Hello! Greetings!) We’re still on the main Fijian island of Viti Levu but are now docked diagonally opposite to yesterday’s port – we’re now in the southeastern corner of the island in the capital town of Suva. Today I’m doing a CruiseCritic forum recommended island tour: “The Jewel of Fiji”, it’s got canoeing & culture & barbecue & waterfalls. Sounded like a winner!

It was a long 45 minute drive from the port to the village where today’s activities take place. We initially gathered in the Village Hall for a cava ceremony and dancing, some directed at us and some with us. The ceremony is meant to welcome visitors as well as honor the important village members and features an intoxicating brew of cava root mash. It apparently tastes like dishwater so fortunately only 2 chosen cruise ship passengers represented us all.

Afterwards we walked across the village square to see the bbq pits where our lunch was being cooked and subsequently uncovered from its cloth and leaf ovens. The village boys carried it away to be divvied up and we moved over to the Preschool where the local children sang a little song for us. It all could have been a bit hokey but everything actually felt genuine and welcoming.

Back to the town hall for a introduction to mat weaving and tapa cloth printing before having our buffet lunch. Curried lentil soup, pit-baked chicken and mahi-mahi, taro, curried vegetables, a vegetable noodle salad, and fresh fruit rounded out the meal.

We prepped for our longboat ride by wrapping our gear in black garbage bags and donned colorful life jackets before being ushered in groups of 5-6 into our longboats for the trip to the waterfall. It’s just barely the start of the wet season so the river was shallow at some of the bends and we had to take a couple of goes to find deep water without bottoming out. After having to walk around one set of fierce rapids the Captain made me sit up on the bow facing backwards like a reverse figurehead to distribute the weight!

We reached the access to the waterfall which turned out to be a 10 minute length of concrete built along a gushing river to a huge waterfall. Most passengers soaked themselves in the pool below, some went under the falls to get pummeled, and everyone watched the 2 village boys who climbed up the jungle slope to leap into the pool below. Alas I didn’t bring my swimsuit but I was content to watch everyone else frolic.

By 2pm we started our hour ride back to the village. We started zipping downstream in our longboat for a short while then we transferred to a bamboo raft for a gentle glide past a waterfall. This recreated the traditional transport of the locals but as there was no current we weren’t going anywhere quickly so back to the longboat and downriver to the village.

At 3:30pm we all piled in to our respective buses (there were over 200 cruise ship passengers on this excursion) and headed back “home”. I had a slight headache from having to sit in the back of the bus sitting over the engine and beside some juvenile adult Germans laughing over YouTube videos so when reaching the ship I washed my face, went to the buffet for a goblet of rosé and grilled salmon and salad and called it a night!

“Vinaka”! (thank you)