BULA!!

Hello Everyone! First thing I have to say is.....Pizza!! Tonight we're in the main island of Fiji,
Viti Levu and we just ate Pizza. I know I know, we've only been away for 3 weeks but it was very exciting to be able to choose our own restaurant and our own meal (we'll get a little more adventurous tomorrow but tonight was just pure comfort food!) Let me give some back ground....we have been traveling between many small islands (like small enough to hike around -which we did) and the only food is what you're given for each meal. For example; lots of donuts and starchy foods and let me tell you it's really hard to find the meat on the neck cut of lamb. So, Pizza was fabulous!
All food aside, Fiji was wonderful and beautiful. We last wrote while at Oarsman's Bay Resort where we did 3 more scuba dives - one with our first shark encounter!! From there we made our way to Manta Ray Resort where we had a chance to swim with Manta Rays- which are huge and look like birds soaring in circles underwater, it was amazing!! There at Manta Ray we did more snorkeling and loads of beach laying!! Manta got our vote for having the best food of the 3 week trip!! From there it was on to Sunset Resort where we encountered more bugs in our bure then we had seen in the whole of our trip! We also made a little doggie friend that slept on our floor and kept the cockroaches away! We hiked around Waya Island where Sunset is located and did a whole lot more beach laying! From Sunset we planned to hike across to the next island resort. No Fijian could understand why we would ever want to do that!! After much explanation we were on our way. 2 hours later we arrived at Wayalailai Resort where not a single Fijian could understand where we were coming from and why we were not on the boat. At least we gave everyone a good laugh! Let me say we have heard some of the best laughing ever in the past three weeks, the islanders we've met just don't hold back, it's infectious! So, back at Wayalailai they were full even though we had a booking - there was no room at the inn. So because they were sympathetic to us being on our honeymoon and didn't want us to sleep in the dorms, they set us up the nicest palace of a tent! it was swanky! Check out the photos!! The second night of our stay they put us up in the fanciest cottage where we spent the rainy day finishing our books.

This morning we hiked to the top of the island - it was gorgeous - we then caught the boat back to he mainland and that brings us back to the Pizza...

And finally what you've all been waiting for: MORE PICS
http://picasaweb.google.com/mhewing/TheRestOfFiji

Enjoy!!

Love Liz and Mark

Fiji and the trip so far...

We finally made it to Fiji after a long couple of days of travel. We left Crested Butte Monday for the long drive to Denver followed by a number of shopping trips in the big city. Michael and Vindya kindly put us up for the night and fed us lots of incredible Indian food - what a blessing that was before our departure!! We left Denver Tuesday evening and arrived into LAX for our flight to Fiji... departed at 11:30pm on Tuesday night and didn't arrive until 5:00am on THURSDAY!!! We completely lost Wednesday - hope you had fun cause we never experienced July 9th... so we're both that much younger... weird stuff that date line!


It's winter here in Fiji!! Brrrr!! Just kidding. We went from the longest day of the year (our wedding day) to short short days in the Southern hemisphere! Though it is winter and it has been a tad windy... the weather has been gorgeous despite the blustery conditions and a short-lived shower here and there. We've spent our first 7 nights at the Nabua Lodge on the island of Nacula in the Yasawa group of Fiji. The Nabua Lodge was a fun taste of real Fijian culture with mandatory participation in the Bula dancing every evening, good food served family style, and friendly fijian characters to help us along the way. They've taken us snorkeling in the blue lagoon, hand line fishing (we didn't catch anything), shown us their traditional dances, sold us jewelery, cooked us dinner in their traditional Lovo (earth oven) and gave us a tour of their village.


We're officially certified!! Our dive course was incredible, we had two of the most amazing dives (though we have nothing to compare to quite yet except posters and books - and these were both JUST like the posters or better!!) We've seen incredible species of fish and coral and crystal clear water! We're sorry we didn't buy an underwater camera - but we'll most likely splurge on one for our next dive which is on Saturday (we'll be feeding sharks!!!). Even our "confined water" dives which normally take place in a pool were held in the Blue Lagoon made famous by the Brooke Shields movie.


We've met wonderful people so far with time at each meal to meet people from all over the world (not many Americans traveling so far). We loved meeting Renee and Brigit from New Zealand and Germany - sorry we didn't get to say goodbye - unfortunately our final exam ran over... yuck exams on our honeymoon!! We both passed with flying colors!


We've just now arrived at our next stop down the island chain - we're at Oarsman's Bay Lodge which is a bit swankier than our last digs - hence the internet access.


We're going tomorrow to watch the village rugby match - but besides that and the shark dive we have nothing planned other than laying in the sun on the beach! The white sandy beach here is absolutely amazing with incredible snorkeling right off the beach... including a little pod of squid that live out there - they're pretty neat.

Check out our pictures from the past week here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mhewing/FijiNabuaLodge

We love you all!

Getting Ready to Leave

Oh the trials and tribulations of getting ready to leave for 3 months. We've spent the last week or so getting everything organized for our trip. If you haven't heard by now, Liz had a slight mishap on her bike Thursday after our wedding.... to the tune of her getting hit by a car. An ambulance ride and a long night in the ER with a full CAT scan of her back proved that she just had a very sore butt (what a pain in the ass;) - so long story short - she's ok - we're dealing with some legal issues that I won't go into here - but hopefully it will all be sorted out upon our return... not quite what we wanted to be dealing with just prior to our trip!

So thanks to all of you again for making the trip out here - we loved having everyone here and we're still basking in the afterglow of having such a loving group here to celebrate with us!!!

So Fiji has proven to be a bit more taxing than we thought it would be - we were initially going to simply book the first week or so and then wing it from there - but as it turns out - it's peak season and the places we're going only have 4-10 beds per island... so here's our itinerary as it stands:

http://www.fiji-dive.com/ this is the dive company we’re learning to dive with during the first week. We'll be certified then to dive for the rest of the trip.

Boat to Nabua

10-16th Nabua
http://www.fiji.hotel-pictures.com/offshore-islands/nabua-lodge/index.html

Scuba lessons start the 12^th. We lose the entire 9^th to travel because of the date line.

Hike from Nabua to Oarsman
17-19th at Oarsman
http://www.oarsmansbay.com/
Oarsman is quite expensive… so we’re only staying there a short time. The beach here is supposed to be the nicest amongst all of the islands of Fiji.

Boat to Manta Ray
20,21 at Manta Ray
http://www.mantarayisland.com/
Manta Ray is known for its dives with the Manta Rays… also expensive so we’re only there a short time.

Boat to Sunset
22-25th at Sunset
http://www.fiji.islands-resorts.com/resorts_ex.cfm?Memberid=377
We’re staying here for a while – it’s going to be nice – it came highly recommended by Carson and it’ll have great hikes and snorkeling at our front door. It sits on a spit of land so both sunrise and sunset are visible over the ocean... and during low tide the spit becomes a bridge that we can hike to the next resort...

Hike to WayaLaiLai
26,27th at WayaLaiLai
http://www.bcdi.ca/wayalailai/
This one is supposed to be great too – and will be our last two nights on the Yasawas in Fiji.

28th in Nadi so that we can catch our flight to Australia the next day.

So far the plan is to rent a car in Melbourne and drive to Sydney over the course of 5-6 days. We'll see.

Love you all!!! Hope you all are doing well!

Mark and Liz

We got married!

Here are some pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mhewing/BeforeTheCeremonyGettingReady

http://picasaweb.google.com/mhewing/Ceremony

http://picasaweb.google.com/mhewing/CeremonyPosesAfter

Thanks to everyone that came! We had an incredible time with you all and we sincerely appreciate the effort you made to come join us in this remote destination!!! Hope you all enjoyed Colorado! Come visit again!!! Liz and I love you all - thank you so much for being a part of our lives and for supporting us through everything! We wouldn't be here if it weren't for you all.

THANKS!