May 24, 2016
Flight: Suva, Fiji (SUV) to Funafuti, Tuvalu (FUN); Fiji Airways Econ ATR72-600
Hotel: Vaiaku Lagi Hotel; Funafuti, Tuvalu
It was actually a bit chilly in Suva this morning but the weather looked gorgeous clear. The taxi was a few minutes late due to traffic. Luckily outbound to the airport was clear, but traffic heading into the city was quite heavy. I'd already gotten my boarding pass the night before on email but hadn't been able to print it. Checked in at the desk around 7:15 and had my boarding pass to Tuvalu! Stage one done, now to see if the flight actually goes..
I went to the cafe for breakfast of pumpkin roti and Jason's chocolate cake.. only to hear a few minutes later that checkin was now closed for the Funafuti flight due to no fuel in Tuvalu (they had to carry return fuel)! They were asking for volunteers to go on the Thursday flight. I had my boarding pass already so wasn't likely to volunteer! I had seat 3F just behind 'business class' though looking back the plane looked almost full, so they must have only needed to boot a few passengers. Takeoff was on time for the 2h30m flight. Started talking with my seatmate who was heading to Tuvalu to do a marine survey and would be coming back on Thursday as well. I mentioned Tuvalu was my 2nd to last country and a guy across the aisle started talking with us. Peter was from Norway and had spent 6 weeks traveling through the South Pacific and had been to 125 countries so far.
Jason's chocolate cake, Suva airport
Fiji Airways SUV-FUN
On arrival into Tuvalu unfortunately was on the wrong side of the plane to see the atoll but Peter took a pic for me. The terminal in Tuvalu is tiny. They didn't have arrival forms for us on the plane so we all had to stand out in the scorching sun filling out the 4 sections of arrival forms. Immigration formalities were super easy and I was soon stamped into country #196!
Arrival into Funafuti
There was some construction going on at the airport with fences up blocking one of the exits. It was a super short walk though to the Vaiaku Lagi hotel. Originally I had booked the Wamusari Lodge via booking.com but had made email booking with the Vaiaku and cancelled my original booking. I had lunch of roast chicken at the hotel when Peter came by and said he'd been booked at the Wamusari as well but they were full! So he was able to get a room at Vaiaku last-minute, and half the price of the room I had. While we were sitting there chatting an Australian woman came by who had been on our flight and had overheard us talking about our travels. So we sat at the hotel talking for awhile, enjoying the breeze.
Vaiaku Lagi Hotel
Peter and I set off to see if we could rent some scooters to see the island. The hotel mentioned there might be some 5 or 6 houses down the road. On the way down there was a family sitting down for lunch and we asked them about the scooters, turns out it was the house next door but when we checked there they said theirs was broken. We went back to talk to Richard and he said he could get us some scooters, for cheaper than they would charge foreigners! He said 10AUD per day. A few minutes later he drives up on one, he said they only had one but he would check elsewhere. He also invites us to come to drink kava that evening.
I hadn't ridden a scooter in years so Peter drove us down to the south end of the island, passing by the Government house. Tuvalu is an atoll, barely 100 feet wide in places with just enough room for the road and a house or two. As we reach the south end of the island, Richard and his wife pull up on scooters. So he'd followed us all the way south to find us! I had a bit of a practice drive to get the hang of things. We drove down the remaining dirt path to the southern end of the atoll. This must be the local boozing point as there were lots of cans of 'Red Horse' beer. From the south end it's quite shallow and possible to walk to the next motu, but the tide was coming in and the currents were quite swift.
Tuvalu stamps
We then drove the full length of the island up to the northern point. We passed by schoolkids on their way home, then past the port and up to the end of the road. The dump/landfill is located here and they were just about to close the gate (5PM) but the gatekeeper agreed to give us a few more minutes. The road from here was crushed coral then sand where we got the bikes stuck. We were looking for a place to swim, but really the best place I'd seen was right near the hotel. We got there to find a bunch of kinds leaping off the sandbags on the new land. They kept shouting 'take my picture!'. Had a swim for a bit, the water was a gorgeous milky blue. Richard was there swimming with his kids and said normally it is clear but there's still a lot of sediment in the water from the dredging.
At the beach
The hotel was having a party for some organization that evening, it looked like a great spread including a whole roast pig. But we were relegated to the upstairs conference room for dinner. There were a couple other guys there from the IMF. They were in Tuvalu for a few weeks for meetings.
After dinner we headed over to Richard's place just before 8pm. We were just in time as he was just finishing mixing up the kava in his backyard fale. Some of his friends were already there getting ready for a jam session. We had met the keyboard player earlier in the telecom office when we bought our wifi cards. Kava isn't grown locally, it is brought in from Fiji in powder form. We all started taking turns drinking from a coconut shell. I'd never had it before so didn't know what to expect. It was bitter/woody tasting and had to gulp down the first cup. I could feel my tongue going numb soon after. We kept passing around the bowl for hours and ended up refilling the kava bowl three times while his friends sang and played their instruments. My head was spinning and I really couldn't drink any more of the stuff and my stomach was feeling queasy. It's then that Richard said we could have quit drinking anytime! We staggered back to the hotel around midnight.
Drinking Kava