No. 3: Fiji
Five fun facts about the delightful South Pacific islands
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5 THINGS I LEARNED IN FIJI
The wild collection of island jewels in the South Pacific
To me, Fiji is the most perfect blend of my favorite things: nature and culture. Lush, electric jungles laden with bananas, coconuts and waterfalls hug sandy beaches edged in crystal water crammed with coral and exotic sea life (not to mention surf paradise–level waves). The cultural element on these 330 islands (only one-third of which are inhabited) is alive thanks to abundant singing, dancing, storytelling and smiles. A subtle natural soundtrack intermingles waves, palm trees, laughter and song. Refreshingly, Fiji is one of few places I’ve traveled where virtually all hotel staff is actually local, imbuing curious travelers’ visits with a true sense of their pure lifestyle. My impression is that Fijians live in harmony with the wild, with a very happy result. It’s inspiring to be around, and something I’m compelled to be in the presence of again. Here, a few reasons I feel certain I’ll return.
1. Fijians are most likely the nicest people you’ll ever meet—but in the not-too-distant past (they’ll be the first to tell you) they were cannibals!
Fiji is consistently ranked one of the world’s friendliest countries, and my experience backs that up fully. The locals are so warm you’ll often get a long hug paired with a massive smile upon first meeting a person, like I did from a lovely woman named Funga at Laucala, just after landing. (I can’t help but wonder if Oprah got the same welcome when she visited!) Fijians are happy—infectiously happy. And that happiness doesn’t seem to be based on material possessions or technology. In fact, they seem happy in spite of it. On some islands people still live without phones, WiFi and electricity, harvesting what they need from the land and water (farming and fishing), and spending about $15 Fijian dollars ($7 USD) per month on basics like sugar and salt. It’s a very simple life, and a very joyful one, apparently. Though it didn’t happen to me, multiple people mentioned that if someone sees you walk by their house they will insist you come in for tea—perfect strangers included!
2. Making music and sharing stories is a way of life.
Any place where music is part of the every day is where I want to be. Being Fijian, it seems, means having a natural sense of rhythm and a powerful voice that can either sing sweetly and softly (like when we departed each island) or project catchy rhythms that build to a torrent of vibrant sound and energetic dance. In performances that thrilled me at Namale, women and men, boys and girls from a local village paired grass skirts with bare chests or floral dresses accessorized with seashell necklaces and palm garlands. They depicted Fijian fables and stories passed down from generations of aunties, fishermen and warriors that seemed in song, at least, endlessly exciting. (Migration from Micronesia and Melanesia to Fiji continued onto Hawaii, and in many ways the culture here feels like a particularly euphoric version of Hawaii’s.) Their exuberance, I feel, was responsible for at least a few new smile lines on my face. On another island, while walking across squishy ground in eye-popping electric greens to a thundering waterfall, a Herculean Fijian hacked open fresh coconuts while explaining life on ultra-remote isles where shoes don’t exist—his friend tried to board his first airplane barefoot! Leading the way and occasionally hacking down wayward vines, his buddy Mahle told a tall tale about how an umbrella was responsible for the end of cannibalism. I wish I’d written it down—it was an amazingly fantastical story, and one of many that cemented in my consciousness the unmatched delights of these islands.
3. Kava is also a way of life.
The ubiquitous drink described as a mild narcotic is precious and unendingly popular—think of South Americans’ yerba mate obsession. But kava is very much about ceremony: Historically it’s part of welcoming a visitor to a village after they’ve presented the chief or elder with the valuable pepper plant root. It’s generally dried in the sun and pounded into a fine powder to mix into water, which becomes increasingly muddy looking. And honestly, I don’t think it tastes much better. Drinking it is quite a ritual, as I learned at Namale, and can go on all night—until there’s none left—interlaced, naturally, with songs and stories. You sit on the ground in a circle as someone ladles small servings into coconut shells, clapping and saying “bula!” (like “aloha,” it’s the local word for hello, love and life) before downing it in one gulp. And there is no getting away with one swig, you’re expected to continue until you can no longer feel your tongue, or at least that’s when I stopped, somewhere around a dozen shots later. I truly felt I had started to slur my words, not because I was the slightest bit tipsy but because it felt like I’d had an intense trip to the dentist. Interestingly, at Jean-Michel Cousteau Resort I was told of a double-blind clinical study done in Melbourne that found kava to be wonderful for anxiety. Biologically it’s a bit of a sedative, anesthetic and anti-depressant—maybe one more reason Fijians are so blissfully happy?!
4. Things grow like crazy.
Evidently Fiji is in Mother Nature’s good graces, making it extremely self-sustaining from an agricultural standpoint. (Also, the government’s pledged the country will use only renewable energy by 2030.) Hiking through jungle I felt a little bit like I’d been miniaturized, à la Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, the flora towered so mightily. At private-island resorts like Laucala and Kokomo Private Island Fiji, hydroponic gardens are quite sophisticated—and hugely prolific. The former’s farm is 240 acres, encompassing three greenhouses, an orchid and plant nursery with 600 species, Austrian chickens, fluffy sheep, pink pigs, quail, imported Wagyu cattle and their own coffee. Kokomo works with a farmer who while living on Suva banked seeds he’s adapted over many cycles to the island soil and salt-infused air—apparently plants can actually be educated, trained in a way. Copper wiring under their garden beds shocks slugs in lieu of pesticides; leaves get spritzes of Johnsons baby shampoo to ward off aphids. There’s basil everywhere because the bees love it, plus the herb lends an aromatic quality to honey.
5. Fiji is the soft coral capital of the world.
When I first learned to snorkel as a kid, I swam around fixated on finding Little Mermaid–worthy fish—you know, all the neon colors of late ‘80s animation—and ignoring everything else. But at some point there was an epiphany that made me realize I’ve matured in my under-the-sea explorations: Corals are often far more interesting and at least equally as vibrant. As the soft coral capital of the world, and home to one of the world’s longest and most untouched barrier reefs (the Great Astrolabe Reef), Fiji is a mecca for the kind of saturated, undulating, quite alive corals that make me want to drop an anchor and stare. Of course, healthy coral also brings plenty of what we typically think of as aquatic life, critically endangered hawksbill turtles, for one, and also mantas and iridescent blue spotted eagle rays. And because even remote Fiji is not immune to climate change or cyclone damage, there’s ample effort being made to replenish what is being bleached or damaged. Kokomo’s marine biologist, Cliona O’Flaherty, took me down into the brilliant blue—sunlit so ethereally it could be heaven—to plant a few pieces in their coral garden, a long rope between A-frames to ensure insidious crown of thorns starfish can’t eat the budding fragments we twisted into the rope. It’s like they’re giving natural selection a sweet helping hand, selecting bits from the strongest corals to propagate and increase survival. Because as I witnessed, one of the most inspiring things about Fiji is the symbiotic way humankind and nature coexist.