A Monkey and a Water Pump, Please.

Friday January 8 4:19 pm

We're stuck in Fiji.

That doesn't even begin to sum it up. Today has and continues to be so long, and the scariest and most adventurous day of the trip. I could write a 500 page book about it. Ok. Here it goes.

I was woken up this morning at 4:30 am, as planned, to get a ride to the Nadi airport. After a groggy climbing out of bed and eating a banana, the phone rang. It was our cab driver Jai, calling to say he was stuck in a flood outside of Rakiraki. Twenty minutes later a resort van drove up, and told us he would drive us to the flood, and had some plan to get across (everything was still very vague). Keep in mind that it was pitch black outside, and raining so hard I could hardly see my hand (the lack of light didn't really help that, either). It pours so much harder here then it does in Eugene, which I know is hard to believe. Eugene pouring is just considered plain rain here. Anyways, we got all the suitcases in, and rushed out to try and catch our flight. After forgetting something, turning around a couple times, and T ending up so drenched I couldn't remember the original color of his shirt, we were on our way. Sort of. I was so terrified-- I was really considering the idea that we weren't going to live through that day. Or at least that we would get stuck in the middle of nowhere in the dark and torrential downpours.

As the sky was lightening we got to the bridge over the river that caused the flood. Our driver called Jai, who said he was with the van on the other side of the flood, and we found out that to get across we were going to walk, carrying our giant suitcases above the water level. I was still stressed and thinking we needed to hurry to get to our flight. We then learned that it was too deep to cross. We waited an hour or so while other people showed up and sat in their cars behind us. A few people went up to see what was going on, some starting to try to cross it then giving up. One person (who we dubbed Machete Guy) actually got pretty far, then got stuck, then came back. Eventually our driver convinced us to go back to a hotel on the road, call Air New Zealand and reschedule out flight. After learning we couldn't do that until nine, the driver offered to take us to his house. We didn't really have a choice.

That was so amazing. The house was small, made of wood and corrugated metal as most houses around here are, with chickens walking around and banana and mango trees around it. At first it was awkward, but after they gave us tea and basically forced us to eat AMAZING curries on wonderful flat bread, it warmed up. We stayed there for a few hours, long enough for the Air New Zealand office to open and for Jai to drive through the flood in a 4-wheel drive vehicle (we were so close to the ocean that the amount of water was effected by the tide, which was low at noon). Being in that house was my favorite time of the day, because they were so nice and the food was soooo good. M got through to Air New Zealand, and found out the next available flight was Sunday morning, although there were others before then that were booked. T, B and I played Scrabble, while their two kids watched and laughed. Eventually, however, Jai came, and the five of us plus Jai and all the luggage piled into a four wheel drive car built for four people. After a short trip we did get to the other side of the flood, no problem (it was much lower by then). Then we switched to a minivan, like normal, and started driving towards Nadi.

That lasted about 50 minutes, until we came to another flood. The two policemen having fun driving in the water told us that although it was passable here (Jai didn't want to drive through it with the minivan) it wasn't soon after that, where the water was seven feet deep on the road. We turned around and drove back to the hotel we stopped at earlier, as the first impassible flood was by then very passible.

We got two rooms, and have been here ever since (that was about 11:30) except for a short walk. There is another family from Wellington who is also stuck, and who we first talked to here this morning when we stopped in to call Air New Zealand.

M has been on the phone all afternoon with our travel agent in Christchurch trying to figure out what to do, and stressing out about P. He is supposed to fly from LAX to Auckland to Christchurch and arrive Sunday morning. We were supposed to be there to meet him, which obviously won't happen (well, most likely won't happen).

Jai said the road will probably be passable tomorrow morning if it doesn't rain any more. Since he said that it's been pouring and just raining on and off. Well, maybe eventually we'll get out of here. It's really amazing in Fiji and this hotel is nice (it even has a pool and sort of restaurant), but it would still be nice to get to NZ.

It's 8:30 in Eugene right now. Woah I just realized school started a couple days ago. That means...

Happy math homework, dinosaurs.