Cunqalai

 

Cunqalai was incredible. We walked on the white sand beach around the island in 20 minutes. There was a dive shop on the island and one hostel. The hostel was owned by another island nearby called Motoriki that was resident to 11 villages and no hostels nor tourists. The staff all came from Motoriki. The staff cooked us all our meals. Apart from cooking, maintenance, and getting food and other supplies from Levuka and Motoriki, the staff spent most of the time relaxing, playing guitar, and singing songs. Every night they sang to us while we ate dinner. Our first night after dinner we sat around a beach bonfire and drank Kava. Kava is a drink that is made by pounding the root of a certain pepper plant into a powder and then mixing it with water. Apart from tasting rather like bitter chalky water, it makes you a bit sleepy and gives you a numb tongue. Kava is probably the fijians favourite thing - better than cigarettes! To drink kava you all sit on the floor in a circle and one person passes the kava out to each person in turn, one at a time in coconut shell. It can take 2 hours or so to finish the bowl) since they keep filling it back up again) they REALLY love their Kava! We spent the rest of our time playing volleyball, swimming, relaxing, meeting new people, and snorkeling. The dive shop was taking divers out each day and took us along for free to snorkel. The coral was magnificient! We hadn't seen anything like it in Honduras or the Philipines. The fish were amazing too, and i saw a 4 foot long shark!