And... I'm Back!

I haven't been able to connect my laptop to the internet in a very long time, so I'm about to put up a few posts that I wrote earlier but couldn't post on here (assuming my battery will last that long!). Probably more than anybody wants to read, I know... sorry. :)

This one was written on Monday, June 7.

We (me + 5 other Projects Abroad volunteers) left on Saturday morning for a brief vacation (from our vacation) in the Mamanuca Islands, and it was just as great as I was hoping it would be. The weather was perfect- the sun was out all weekend (but I didn’t get burned this time, yes!). Our first stop was Mana Island, which is one of the bigger “small” islands. I didn’t walk all the way around it, but apparently it takes a little more than two hours to cover at a leisurely pace. Here’s a picture of Mana that I took while we were on the boat:

The water was sooooo transparent and blue that it looked fake. I tried to capture it in a picture, but it really doesn’t do it justice:

On Mana, we stayed in a backpacker hostel that wasn’t really anything special (but I did appreciate the straw roof of our bure). I spent most of the afternoon reading and listening to music by the ocean, with a few walking breaks to explore a little bit. My friend/Projects Abroad Coordinator, Heather, picked up this crab on one of those strolls:

When we walked in the other direction, we found a really cute group of kids from the village playing in the water:

Also, there was this awesome tree that we had fun climbing:

And the sunset was nice:

On Sunday morning, we left Mana Island on a boat for a daytrip to Castaway Island, which (ironically) is NOT the island where Cast Away was filmed (that one’s called Monuriki). It was absolutely gorgeous! I would go back there in a heartbeat. Too bad there’s only one resort on the island, and an overnight stay would be way out of my price range. Life’s tough. Here’s a picture of me and my roommate Hannah on the beach at Castaway:

We had an amazing buffet lunch. I stuffed myself with pasta and salad and pineapple. I love my host-mom’s Indian cooking, but I hardly ever get fruits and vegetables here so I took full advantage of the buffet! The view from our lunch table looked just as spectacular as the food tasted:

After lunch, we went snorkeling. Coral reef surrounds the island, and we saw so many cool fish! My favorites were the dark blue starfish. Here’s a picture of the shore:

There were some fun rocks near our beach chairs:

Two other volunteers and I rented kayaks for $5 (Fiji dollars) each, which is only around 2.5 US$, so I thought it was an excellent deal. We had lots of fun and got a little bit of a workout, too. From left, here’s Molly (England), a random lady, Isabel (Germany/US), and me:

There were quite a few catamarans that you could take out as well:

Needless to say, I was sad to leave Castaway Island! Here’s a shot that I took from the boat: