On the few afternoons when the rain was not falling, we did a couple of road trips along the western side of Viti Levu, the main island of Fiji. If you do this, don't expect superhighways. The roads are narrow, sometimes very rough and potholed, and they wind along the shore and across fairly high mountain passes. There is never a dull moment with lots of interesting views, buildings and people. Here are just a few. From many places you can glimpse islands out beyond the fringing reef. This one is Beqa (pronounced mbenga). It has great snorkelling and diving spots, but is too expensive for the Oldies to take me there. Along the road you often come to roadside stalls where the locals are selling their garden produce. This one had bundles of something I had not seen before. It is Taro, one of the staple diets of islanders, but not of small bears. There are cows tied by the roadside with no sign of who they belong to, and horses just wandering around loose. It turns out that they all belong to local villages, not to any particular person, and if you need milk or a ride you just use the nearest critter. We passed this happy "cowboy" on the road north of the Warwick. He was on his way to harvest some bananas. Someday I may get back to Fiji and see more of the big islands; we saw lots of the smaller ones during our Fiji cruises and you can see lots of images of them in my older posts.
Labels: Fiji
# posted by Bart Bear @ 3:30 pm
