Mello Yello days

The lazy boy and the lazy girl you know didn't become hyperactive people just because they crossed the equator. That's maybe why after 2 and a half weeks in Australia we didn't post anything about here as well as about the week we've spent in the Fiji.

And being us very tidy, we don't want to break the indispensible chronological order of the pictures posted, and that means that until we don't show you what we looked like when we were in the hot damp tropics after a few hours of flight from the cold san francisco winter (all the readers in scandinavia laugh please), we can't possibly show pics of Sydney.
That's why I'm going to post this brief guide to our holiday in Fiji.

Through couchsurfing.org we met this wonderful family from Suva, the capital of Fiji and most rainy city of the country, that hosted us for a few days, and showed us the beauty that was hidden between the rain drops, and took such a good care of us that we now feel like we have a family there. They were (from left to right) the small loving Joy, Simon also said Moni, Joe also said Mani, Nana Lei the caring matriarch, great cook and wonderful hostess, and the future rugby star Joe. Yeah, I know, they're all called the same, and yeah, that was confusing.

(market by the canal in Suva+walk in the rainforest park, Colo-i-Suva)

Avoiding direct exposition to solar beams through only walking around under a safe shelter made of clouds (rainy ones eventually) didn't work at all as an anti sun burn technique, and we painfully found out that in fiji white skin gets burned just by being exposed to the open air. When I say 'painfully' maybe I should point out how after these red coloring days in Suva we went to the north side of the main island, and that implied putting 20ish kilos heavy backpacks on our sore shoulders. But believe me, it was worth it. We caught this bus ride through the island, that by the way made me think that sita drivers down the sant'andrea are careful drivers, and it was beautiful: we drove thru rainforestish bush, incredibly green hills, lost in the mountains villages, small wooden bridges as wide as the bus and breathtaking shores (sorry for the excessively pathetic rethoric, but it's hard to find so many different adjectives).

(tropical version of a city park in Suva - just a lovely house)

And the destinations was kinda of what everyone pictures when thinking of the world 'tropical paradise island': we spent 3 more days in a bungalow with mosquito net instead of glass on the windows just over the beach on this little island (that you can walk around in 6-7 hours of beach stroll--thank you for asking, no, we didn't do the whole circle) with no shops no village no cars whatsoever. All that was there were 3 resorts and (we found out) a lot of rich white people's holiday houses hidden in the trees along the beach. Our bungalow wasn't really a resort, it was just rented out empty with electricity until 10 pm, but it was sweet (about 7 people could have slept in there, and it was the only building on the island with a mosquito netted balcony, which I tell you was an amazing thing), and we met lovely fellow travellers having meals in a small resort run by a f**ing relaxed and smiling australian guy (everyone would be if living there, I say). The sun was really hot there, and the sea really wonderful, so our days were quite lazish.

(beach walk - outside our window;P)

On the last day we got this great deal with the australian guy: free lift to the airport in exchange for us taking a box of brochure heavier than my backpack to Sydney with us. It's always nice to be on an international flight carrying a strange orange box packed by someone else, we thought.
The last night we had the lucky chance to see Nadi, the backpacker capital of Fiji, and shared with 6 other people the luck to sleep until 4:30 am (yes, the hostel does provide free shuttle to the airport, but only at 5 am and at 2 pm, and our flight was at 10:30 am so...) in a tiny room in the dampest hottest weather I could think of without any fan, breeze, or airconditioning.
And the night after we were in Sydney...
And by the next weekend we were already introduced to the noble and tough sport that's cricket, and we led our team to defeat (we have a video, don't worry), we petted koalas ("isn't it exciting" I'd say, quoting the Niagara Falls video) and hand fed small kangaroos, had to deal with parrots (kockatoos) trying to take Yvonne out for a drink, took pictures of the Opera House, went to the beach and tried not to be in the rich number of dumb foreigners that took there their last swim, learnt to tell good spiders from bad spiders, and all that kind of stuff you do in Australia.
Peter

And now a little game: who can spot Yvonne in this little video clip?