Oiy! They made us get up EARLY! As in 5:oo freakin AM so we could make the wirily curvy 2-hour drive back to Labasa to catch our flight. The Patch had worked miracles on our boat trips, drives, and snorkel trips. By now I was just starting to let my guard down and think it might really be working. We lucked out again. It did the trick!The trip felt long. Our flight wasn't for hours but they want to leave a good hour or more cushion in case the van breaks down. It makes sense but it still sucked. We got to Labasa really early so our driver took us around town. By then it was 8:00 and the stores and schools were opening up. The streets were packed with kids in uniforms. It's a town of about 25,000 people. That was way bigger than I expected. Also to my surprise was a significant muslim population complete with a mosque and school. We saw the hospital and women's clinic and bunches of schools and a branch of the University. Yes indeed, this was a real city!!
We went back to the tiny little unassuming airport where we had arrived a week earlier. This time it was packed. Again they weighed us for our flight back. I asked the clerk if he'd announce our flight and he said he would. After our experience getting to Labasa we had no expectations that the flight would be on time but turns out it was totally on time. We waited about 45 mins I think and then the flight arrived. We knew it was in but to my surprise the clerk came over and found us in the crowd and told us this was our flight. We were the only white folks there, I think. We went to the door. It was like Roi where you just wait and then they flag you to walk on to the plane yourself. On our way out the door they yelled in my ear (there was a lot of airplane noise), "Ms Charrier, Mr Barr - seats 1A and 1B." I just love little flights!! I love the personal attention. And I totally dig that they called us by our names. The Fijians are so totally awesome.
We flew back to Nadi and then waited around and then connected for a 10-minute flight to Malolo LaiLai. That's a little island that's only made up of resorts. It's located in the Mamanucas - a chain of islands with excellent reefs for snorkeling and diving. This is when Aaron and I both got to land our first ever gravel runway! No pavement to hold us back here. No way! At first it took us a bit by surprise because it was a bit bumpy when we landed but maybe it helped slow us down so we didn't skid of the end of the island. ??? Don't know, but it worked just fine.
It's a little bit soulless after being at Koro Sun for a week. It was a harder adjustment than I bargained for. We stayed at Lomani Island Resort. It's a couples only resort with about 12 condo like rooms. It had a mix of ages. They claimed to have A/C which was a major criteria for us. We said kids would be fine - but we weren't interested in roasting in our rooms. Turns out they just give lip service to the A/C. They had the same little air conditioner as the last place but instead of it cooling the area of a king sized bed it was supposed to cool a cinder block oven the size of our house. Pleaze. We were hot and not amused. Blech. We had to move the bed across the room just to be closer to the air conditioner and fan. We managed, but just barely.
We had lunch and then dinner at Lomani. In my journal I wrote, "It took forever and was forgettable".
That said: it had snorkeling and we planned to take advantage of that. For the first day we just settled for swimming in the water for about 2 hours. It was that warm bathtub lagoon water. Heavenly!!! The sky was amazing. That whole thing was just picturesque - just stay out of your room and the dining room.
Just like Koro Sun we had dinner and headed straight to bed for an albeit toasty 10 hour rest.
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