I bet 1 Fijian dollar...

At the beginning of 2010, Brian and I, our friend Julie and her parents, and our friends Cat and Jimmy spent a couple of days in Fiji. Our trip consisted of relaxing at the resort, an inland cultural tour, and a day on a sail boat. Our friend Julie is quite the jokester. The entire trip she would say, "I bet you 1 Fijian dollar that you won't ..." (One Fijian dollar is worth about 50 cents.)

The Fijians used to be cannibals. Actually, the last practicing cannibal died in the 1950s...so pretty recently. Most cannibal meals were for revenge or ritual and not for basic sustenance. For instance, there is a true story of a Christian missionary who was eaten. It is a huge disrespect to ever touch a chief's head. The missionary grabbed a comb that was in the chief's hair and that was the end for him. They ate him, everything. They even tried to eat his boots without success. The surviving boots are in a museum in Fiji. This occurred in the 1800s. Another odd cultural fact is that the chiefs could have multiple wives, AND all of his wives were buried alive with him when he died.

Today's Fijians appeared to be pretty poor. They have an unemployment rate of 30%. (These trips always remind me how much I have to be thankful for!) Lots of Indians live on the island too. The original Indians in Fiji were imported by the British as slave labor to cultivate sugar cane, and today many of their descendants remain.

Here are some photos from our trip:

RELAXING AT THE HOTEL

the nightly fire dance

sunset from our hotel

Brian and Jimmy played chess and had too many beers while Cat and I went to the spa...

some chess pieces were missing, so they had to substitute beers

cooling off in the pool

INLAND VILLAGE CULTURAL TOUR

we saw a ton of waterfalls traveling inland on the "long boat"

packed in on the "long boat"

a quick swimming spot on the way to the inland village

one of the villagers waiting for our arrival

Cat and I posing with some villagers

this was the village's health clinic

along the path in the village

doing one of their war dances

lunch in the village (probably where we all picked up the stomach bug)

the villagers farewell song

SAILING

our boat anchored in front of the island where Castaway was filmed

Julie was driving the sail boat!

at an island stop along the sailing trip

part of our crew (Cat, Jimmy, Brian, me and Julie's mom Sue)