Fiji Critter Profile - Spiders

As far as we’ve been told, the spiders here in Fiji are not poisonous. That is a relief as many are quite large – some nearly as big as palm of your hand – and nasty looking. We seldom see them in the house, probably thanks to the geckos. They are certainly prevalent out in the surrounding landscape though, or up on the telephone lines, where the really big ones can be seen from 50 yards (62 m) away. Here are a few pics.

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Not sure what's in that big wad; maybe someone's leg.

Interesting web

One of the big ones.

Deborah thinks this one looks like the almond mints you get at weddings. And yes, the web is yellow. Haven't seen that before.

Beautiful color on this one.

More nice color; looks irridescent in person.

Return to Labasa

Yesterday we returned to Labasa for the day. Semoko came with us and we stopped first at his village to say hello to his mom and, as it turned out, a couple of the kids who somehow managed to use the excuse of an earlier rainstorm to skip school to see us. After a brief chat and a cup of tea the three of us plus one of the children – seven year old Robert – walked into town, passing through some residential areas along the way and stopping by a couple of temples. Further into town we parted ways with Semoko who had some shopping to do, and agreed to meet up with him again at the Farmer’s Market. Young Robert stayed with us. Deborah’s efforts to draw the well-behaved but very quiet Robert into conversation were largely unsuccessful – probably not so much because of Robert’s shyness, but rather because of his lack of English. After touring the market and watching for Semoko, waiting for what seemed to us a long time – although I think Fijians have a much greater capacity to wait than we impatient Americans do – we finally gave up and took a taxi back to the village to drop off Robert.

We returned to town and the market, again finding no sign of Semoko, so we went ahead and ate lunch at a nice little vegetarian Indian restaurant. We emerged from the eatery to find Semoko standing on the sidewalk. He tried to help me in my fruitless search to find a Hindu calendar (I like the images) but ended up only with some tiny illustrated Hindu books. Semoko hadn’t eaten yet so we suggested he try the same restaurant we ate at, but they didn’t have his requisite fish and chips (he ALWAYS orders fish and chips) so he had to find an alternative establishment.

Labasa isn’t a tourist town at all and there wasn’t much else for us to see, so we did a lot more waiting around for the next bus. I was panhandled for the first time in Fiji, a total of three times that day. I must have stood out like a tall white ATM machine in a sea of dark skin. It was surprising because we’ve never seen anyone begging in Savusavu. While sitting on the bus at the depot waiting to head home we saw Semoko’s sister Caroline and two of his nephews walk by, including young Robert. I’m not sure why we bothered to hire a taxi to take him to the village when he just ended up back in town again. The nephews successfully begged a few coins from Semoko, so I wasn’t the only one to get panhandled that day – I just wasn’t related to my beggars.

The distance between Savusavu and Labasa is only 85 km (51 mi) but it took 2 hrs 40 min to get there and nearly 3 hours to get back. That’s a long time to sit on a bus. There were certainly numerous stops along the way, but another major contributor to the length of the journey is the snail’s pace at which the noisy old buses crawl up the inclines. Deborah thinks we could have gotten out and walked faster. Taxi’s take a third as much time but cost more than six times as much.

At one stop on our return trip we took on a mass of school kids of various ages, all dressed smartly in their school uniforms and little backpacks. Deborah was happy to put one of the smaller girls on her lap to free up an additional seat for a tired-looking woman, and was reluctant to give the little girl up when her departure stop came. We found it interesting how the bus drivers don’t bother to close the bus door, even when the bus is packed and there is someone standing on the very bottom door step hanging on to whatever he can. After seeing that I was glad for our seats, no matter how sore our backsides had become on our interminable journey.

Deborah reads "Thumbilina" to Semoko's nephew Robert and neice Tea (aka The Monkey)

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The mosque down the street, complete with loudspeakers to announce the call to prayers

A Sikh temple


Hindu temple

Fashions for Labasa's considerable Indian population

Robert

Inside the market

Uniformed school kids head toward the bus depot.

Braids and bows seem to be part of the school uniform.

An Indian woman in traditional garb.

The (slow) road home.

Fiji Critter Profile - Birds

We were initially a little disappointed at the bird life here on the island, although it’s gotten better lately. It’s just that after seeing all the amazing birds of Australia last year we had high hopes for all manner of colorful feathered creatures on what is, after all, a tropical island. We had visions of big-beaked toucans and huge red parrots, maybe even a pterodactyl or two. Not quite. The birds we’ve seen have been more subtle in their appearance. Since the cyclone, however, it’s gotten more interesting – either because of a change of season or because the cyclone blew all the birds from Taveuni over this way.

We enjoy watching and listening to them from the decks around the house, especially in the mornings when they are most active. Deborah was most amused when I once blurted out, “My God, there’s that orange bird!” She suggested I had officially entered the realm of nerddom – or at least old-codgerdom – when the mere sight of a small feathered animal could elicit such an enthusiastic response. I try to take pictures of the more interesting birds as best I can with my point-and-shoot camera, but they’re seldom close enough to avoid blurriness. Below are some examples.

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Kingfisher

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Possibly some type of flycatcher, but I'm not sure

Fiji White-Eye

Golden Whistler



Goshawk. We often see these munching on insects, but apparently they take small chickens as well.

Myna Bird. Noisy, and commonly found in or near town.

Orange Dove (male). A rare sighting.

Possibly a female Orange Dove, which, unlike the males, are green, not orange at all.

Barking Pidgeon. Their call sounds not so much like a bark, but a really loud sneeze. You'd swear the AFLAC duck was out there somewhere.

Working

I’ve managed to finish several small paintings during our stay here, despite not putting in the hours I expected to. I completed ten pieces; well, actually eleven, but I managed to ruin one trying to put on a protective clear coat. Painting has not been without its challenges here. The lighting in the house is poor so I usually paint outside when possible, but that sometimes means contending with the wind or the mosquitoes. I also have to deal with ants crawling over my pallet and fruit flies making fatal one-way landings on the wet paint surfaces. And sometimes the heat and humidity is such that it just sucks the motivation right out of me.

Deborah’s work is somewhat less glamorous, but certainly more useful. She prepares the main meal of the day – usually lunch – and oftentimes breakfast or a small dinner as well, all without the benefit of an oven or microwave. She also makes hot tea, iced tea, and lemonade. She washes the dishes an numerous times throughout the day. She cleans and organizes the kitchen, puts away the groceries (not easy with our tiny fridge), cleans the bathroom, sweeps the floors, sweeps the outside decks, cleans up gecko poop, tidies the desk area, organizes our laundry, hangs the wet towels on the line, washes the windows, even scrubs the mold off of the outside wall surfaces. She also feeds our neighbor’s dog (probably more than she should) and occasionally bathes her. And there are an untold number of other small thankless tasks she accomplishes on a daily basis. Yet she still finds time to kill the multitude of ants that appear in the kitchen sporadically throughout the day. If I offer to help she usually waves me off saying she has nothing else to do. Such are the benefits of being an artist who is married to a domestic goddess.

Blake "working"

Shade


Tree of Wisdom

Life and Death

Watering

Smile

Fiji Critter Profile - Mud Wasps

The strange little blobs of dried mud that we’ve seen attached to the rafters, the walls, or just about anything else – both inside and outside the house – turn out to be the work of mud wasps. These aren’t nests, though. They are receptacles for the wasp’s food. When you break one open you find spiders (either dead or paralyzed) and larvae and other tasty morsels the wasp is keeping for future meals. They are kind of like insect kitchen pantries. I’m told you have to be careful when you break them off not to get any of the shattered remains in your eyes as whatever the wasps use to bind the mud together is toxic. They haven’t stung us or even acted aggressively at all, but I always destroy the little food lockers as soon as I see them to discourage the wasps from hanging around the house. So far the strangest place a wasp has chosen to build one is inside one of the homeowner’s guitars. We had to tape over the sound holes to deny him access, but I have to assume a little mud pantry is still in there somewhere.

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A wasp working on his mud construction

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This one was built on the tubes for the gas cylinders.

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This one was at the top of a wall inside the house.

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Bob the builder.

Inside the wasp's pantry. Yummmm.

Taveuni, Part 3 - West Side

We spent our third and last day in Taveuni exploring the west side of the island before catching the 2:00 ferry back to Savusavu. Once again we employed the services of our friendly taxi driver Dip (pronounced “deep”; I’m hoping his last name is Purple). Dip is a good driver and also a good impromptu tour guide. He makes an effort to identify points of interest as we head toward our destination, and even manages to spot jumping tuna from hundreds of yards away or a small purple crab at the side of the road, all while negotiating the extremely uneven terrain of Taveuni’s storm-ravaged dirt roads. Actually, because the west side of the island was more protected during the cyclone, the damage to the unpaved roads was not as severe, so this day featured somewhat less rattling of our bones.

Dip drove us by things like the hospital, the prison, the Catholic Mission, a couple of fancy resorts, the island's largest town, a few villages, coconut plantations, and a blow hole where the sea meets a formation of volcanic rocks. The three of us stopped for lunch at one of the resorts where the staff inexplicably thought Deborah ordered two sandwiches. We ate them anyway. Afterward it was back to the ferry for the four-hour-plus crossing. We arrived in Savusavu after dark and Deborah reluctantly but bravely agreed to walk up the hill back to the house. (She didn’t agree not to complain about it though).

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The island's prison. Only fifteen cells, but what a view.

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The Wairiki Catholic Mission

Inside the mission. Leave your shoes at the door and don't expect any pews. This is Fiji so you'll sit on the floor like everyone else.


Shoreline view

One of the fancy resorts we can't afford

The blow hole in the volcanic rocks

Blake and Deborah

(photo by Dip)

Dip the taxi driver

Fishing near the ferry dock. No boat or fishing pole required.

Taveuni, Part 2 - Vadewa Rainforest and Matei

Our second day in Taveuni included a return to Bouma National Park and, unfortunately, another taxi ride on the posterior punishing dirt road, although not for quite so far as the previous day. The objective this time was a guided half-day hike in the Vadewa Rainforest, which was to feature ancient village sites and bird watching. They told us we were the first tourists to take the hike since the cyclone and warned us the bird watching would probably be sparse because of all the damage. That proved to be true – we heard more birds than we saw – but we still enjoyed ourselves, traipsing through farmland first, past village ruins, into and out of old defensive ditches, and into the rainforest. After the hike we had some time to kill waiting for our taxi so we sat (on the ground, of course) and talked with our guide Rusi and some of the other residents of Vadewa, whose village marks the beginning of the rainforest hike.

The remainder of our day we spent poking around our home base of Matei, a small beachside town – if it can even be called a town – where a lot of expats (especially Americans) have built homes and put down roots. It’s a quiet place with a tidier, more affluent feel than most of the other places we’ve seen in Fiji. Even the dogs look healthier. We discovered the restaurant prices also reflect that relative affluence; no sign of the US$3 entrées we’ve grown accustomed to in Savusavu. Our accommodation in Matei was a wooden burre (traditional Fijian cabin) in the very friendly Tovu Tovu Resort. I'd call it a quiet place as well except for (a) the rooster next door who obviously had no concept of "dawn" or that crowing should be reserved for the onset of daylight, and (b) the fact that, like all establishments in Matei, it had to rely on it's own generator for electricity, which set the entire community to continually pulse with a gentle humming sound.

Tovu Tovu Resort

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The airy, light-filled dining area

Our hostess in Vadewa at the office for the Rainforest Hike.


A house in Vadewa Village

Our guide Rusi examines a cyclone-toppled tree in our path

Blake sits in the stone warrior's chair, used to scout the distance for invading tribes

Rusi makes a more convincing warrior suitable for the chair

Tree ferns

Rusi and Deborah demonstrate the use of the sacrifice stone