Barefoot Manta

With the pizza delay from yesterday's dinner in mind, we left the hostel extra early. We dropped off some luggage we didn't need for Yasawa, and had some toast and cereal at the breakfast bar. We had heard that buying water on the islands was expensive. The advice was to buy water on the boat that taxis between Nadi and the island, the "Yasawa Flyer" . Better yet we figured we would buy water on the mainland. There was a little shop next to the hostel that advertised 6 bottles for 10FJD, but unfortunately it was closed when we had arrived and also when we left in the morning. A fancy airconditioned bus took us and 30 others to Port Denarau. After searching there for awhile, we bought 6 bottles for 20FJD. Then we boarded the Yasawa Flyer. The waves at times got rough and made us a bit seasick, but after all it was OK. After 3 hours we reached our island. We were picked up by smaller boats and then brought to resort Barefoot Manta. It's called that due to the chance of swimming with manta rays, but they're only here between April and November.

Arriving at the beach, we were received by a small group of employees playing a welcome song for us. We got some instructions, had to sign some papers and pay the meal plan. Then we were led to our 'bure', which was surprisingly nice. It was a beach hut with 4 beds but we were for today the only guests and our beds were not even bunk beds. Right in front of it we had 2 beach chairs and our own private beach excess. After a quick look we had lunch. We could choose between a fish meal, chicken vegetable pasta and lemon couscous. We went for the first two options and it tasted quite nice. We also realized that buying water here is cheaper than on the boat, so it all doesn't really matter.

Afterwards we felt quite defeated by the hot humid weather. We went back to our bure, read books and napped and wondered if we would get used to it. Too bad that not even the water can cool you down as it is just as warm as the air. At 7 we went for dinner to the sunset bar. A big buffet with salads, rice, bread, fish, meat and grilled vegetables was waiting for us. It was very tasty and while talking to a Flemish girl and listening to live local music, we had a very nice dinner at the beach next to a campfire. It got dark early, we were quite tired from this long day, so we went for a shower and made it back into our private bure.Read more