I'm in Suva, Fiji... waiting for a connecting flight to Tuvalu. The flight keeps getting canceled and I've been waiting for 3 days now with about 12 others. Air Pacific has put us up in a nice hotel and pays for our meals. Each day I try and find something new to do, but that will not take too many hours in case I miss the call for the flight.On the first day I walked a few kms to the local yacht club to see if I could borrow an outrigger canoe. A few phone calls and the generous people in the canoe club had me set up with a single and paddle. It was a long haul out through the oil slicked harbor, but I eventually made it to a reserve call Mosquito Island. It was a really nice place where locals go for swimming and picnics. It is also close to my hotel, so I paddled across for lunch. The head winds were strong on the return and it must have taken me well over an hour to get back to the yacht club. I was pretty tired on the walk home so grabbed a taxi.
The next day a Mirja, a German journalist in the group and I went for a walk in a local water fall park up on Princess Road. I saw this park on the way in from the airport. It was a $10 taxi ride, and $5 to get in to the park. About a 5km walk and the little falls and swimming holes in what appeared to be native forest was really nice. The swimming holes were set up with little dam walls with seating and picnic shelters. We didn't swim at all but it was just a nice place to escape the heat and see the forest. On the way back we picked up some kava drink.. I still need to learn how to mix it, and plan to try it out with the rest of the group tonight. Wikipedia cites research that found Kava to be effective in killing some cancer cells.
Today I'm catching up on email and work stuff... avoiding the work stuff with this post instead.
When I get through to Tuvalu, my job is to run a workshop on the use of MediaWikis for the Commonwealth of Learning. I'm really looking forward to meeting the people at the University of the South Pacific (USP) and if they half as friendly s the Tuvaluans I have met already, it will be a great experience. Hopefully the flight will confirm before Tuesday.
