No Pictures Today
Wananavu, Fiji
I had forgotten my daughter's propensity for issuing orders and instructions, then ignoring them. Overheard a conversation by phone with grandson: "We will be there at eleven sharp. You and your sister MUST be ready and waiting with your luggage packed."
We got away from her house about 40 minutes late and arrived chez grandkids close to an hour later than planned. Not a problem. We had several hours before the plane was due to leave.
Neither kid was all the way packed, but Arielle had her dive bag ready a couple of minutes after we arrived. Poor Christopher couldn't find one of his flippers. The house was a mess, papers, mail, food wrappers, laundry clean and dirty, other articles of clothing and dog toys scattered all around the first floor. The dogs were happy to see us.
In spite of this, we made it to the airport before Enrique, our tour leader. We checked in for the flight to LA and went to eat lunch. I ate too much.
Flight to LA was unexceptional and we had five hours to wait for the flight to Nadi, Fiji. We fiddled around, shopped the duty free area and I walked around the concourse as much as I could.
Then the adventure began. Fiji Air announced a delay in boarding, and it went on and on. We later discovered that a loading machine had damaged the cargo hatch of one of their planes. They had to scramble to get aircraft to gates for all their flights. The fact that our plane had to be prepared and screened for security added up to about an hour's wait. Then we stood in the jetway for about a quarter hour for reasons undisclosed before boarding was allowed.
Fran and I were flying business class. We went in when called and found our seats. A very nice stewardess came and told us that our section had not been cleared and escorted us back to a waiting area. We were passed by everyone else on the flight before being allowed on.
The reason that we were kicked off the plane, according to another passenger, was there was a rat on board. They kept our section clear of passengers until the rodent had been dealt with.
Alas, that was not the end. Seven passengers had checked their luggage, but did not show up for the departure. All the luggage was removed, that of the errant passengers identified and removed, and then we were ready to push back from the jetway.
The flight was fine. It was night. We had eaten so much we skipped the dinner and went right to sleep.
We arrived in Fiji two days later thanks to the International Date Line. We were treated to a three hour bus ride chauffeured by Mohamet. He acted as a tour guide too.
About half an hour out of Nadi, we saw a wreck on the side of the highway. We were diverted to a two lane section.
A commercial truck had overturned. People were gathered around, looking on. We learned that the truck had been carrying thousands of liters of ice cream.
The villagers had cleaned up the useable ice-cream. The driver was hurt, but not badly.
I'm too tired to finish this tonight. Tomorrow I'll finish the trip to the resort and show pictures I took along the way along with Mohamet's comments.
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