Couchsurfing

Hey ya’ll,

We’ve been in New Zealand for a week now, me and Joris are still together. Decided to lay our differences aside and travel some more in each other company. New Zealand looks great, there’s so much nature around you can hardly believe it. This country is at least 20 times as big as Belgium and there are only 4 million people living here. So a big part of this country is untouched, and that’s exactly what the surroundings here look like, they’re so pure that it instantly makes you feel good. New Zealand has a good atmosphere about it and I still really want to do parts of it on my own, especially because I get the feeling that it’s save here for a girl on her own, backpacking and couchsurfing. Wich by the way is so awesome. The other day, we were staying with a girl named Jessie, a really nice host. But we had also contacted Nick (another member from couchsurfing, who also lives in Auckland) and because he couldn’t host us that evening he just took us out on a trip the next day. We were driving around, went to a beach, got some Chinese food, hung out, drank tea and played the guitar. When we offered to pay some gas money, he told us that we couldn’t. Because of couchsurfing; “People have done it for me, now I’ll do it for you guys and some day you’ll do it for someone else” And that’s exactly how it should be.. I love it.

I’ve kinda decided that I’m going to do my best to work and study at the same time when I get back, so that I can live on my own with my girlfriends and be able to have couchsurfers over..

Sounds like a plan.

kissieboot

In New Zealand

Jeej, finally in New Zealand!
We were becoming a bit fed up by Fiji. I'm running out of internet-time, so it'll be a short post. I am now in Auckland and I'm going to couchsurf my way down. Me and Joris decided to split up for a week, and I'm looking forward to traveling alone, but it's also a bit weird because I got kinda used to having such a good buddy around. Eh well, it'll be awesome.
Cheers
Saskia

random pictures

Hope you enjoy, I'm flying out of here on wednesday really early in the morning. Right now, we're going for some pizza, and see if we can find a daytour for tomorow so we can go snorkling before we leave. Bigs hugz


On the way to Suva


On the way to Suva to..


Bay in Suva


Waloaloa Beach


Party at Ed's


Farther away from the Suburbs


Train in Natandola


Being bored with beautiful nature : )


Suburbs of NadiTown


Saying goodbye to the Nawaka-babies


Natandola Beach


Walking to Sanasana (look benny, horsies!)


Traditional Performance


Mocko's


Api (doesn't he kinda look like Roberto-Che?)

blar blar blar

Hey babies,
I wanted to say I'm sorry for not bloggin' very often, but internetacces wasn't always very easy or cheap. Right now, I'm in Suva, that's the capital of Fiji. We are still traveling togheter, but joris wants to leave Fiji this wednesday, and I'm not really sure what I want to do. I can call Air New Zealand and change my flightdates whenever I want, but I'm not sure what I want. I think I might stay in Fiji for a few days longer and maybe visit one of the little islands. Then fligh out to New Zealand on friday. I have loads and loads of more pictures but can't find the time to upload them all. I hope everyone is enjoying reading this crap ; ) and I plomise to be more interesting and photographical next time.

peace out

Nawaka Village

Rugbyplaying


Nawaka Village


River by Nawaka


Grashoppa


The Chief's House


Clubbin' with Oni and her friends



Hey ya'll,

We spend 3 days in Oni's village Nawaka. It was quite an experience.. small stone houses, a shower made of a corrugated sheet (golfplaat) and concrete with one pipe with cold water and cockroaches that were up to 5 centimetres. We had traditional food, but we're not sure what they would have eaten if we weren't there. "Visitors eat first, that's the fiji-custom, our way of life" We slept in mbumbu's bed (that's fiji for grandmother) "Visitors sleep in the best bed in the house, that's our fiji way of life" We went to church on sunday. A lecture that lasted for 2 hours and right in the middle someone came to the front and thanked us for being there.
The people are not used to having tourists in there village (or as Api calls us "whiteskinpeople",.. he's Oni's son. Just two and a half years old, he reminds me so much of my nephew Roberto-Che) they are all so friendly and appreciate the fact that we want to live their lifestyle, instead of spending our days in a paradise-resort. Although they are very proud about the fact that their island is so popular for tourists. After church we packed our bags, said goodbye to everyone and took the minivan from the busstation in town to Natandola beach.

We wanted to stay in Sanasana, the closest village, but they charge 40 fiji dollars for us to sleep under the same circumstances as in Nawaka. We had a hard time admitting it, but sleeping without airconditioning in weather like this was becoming difficult for us. So we went back to the beach and arranged with one of the fancy resorts that we could put up our tent in their grass. Still no airconditioning, but atleast sleeping was free now. So we spend our money on a good meal in the restaurant of the other resort. There we met a bunch of European people who were working on a project and living in the resort. After a nice meal, some beers and some chats, we eventually ended up staying in the second bedroom of Nicolas' delux resort-hut : ) Awiight, a real bed, airconditioning and a shower!

I had my first surfboard-experience, watched madonna-dvd's, had some whiskey. Good food, nice people.

Bula (means hello)

Yesterday we bought a fiji-simcard, we emailed, called and called some more. Harlan told us to call freddy, freddy told us to call Oni. Oni is so nice, she's taking us to her village. We went "clubbin" last night : ) Hiphop and Fijibeer. We're going to try and go from village to village, live the fiji-lifestyle. So don't shoot me if you don't hear a lot from me the next couple of days, because I'm not counting on computers where we're going..

Bye Xxx

Fiji

Hello again from far far away,
I'm sitting in an internetcafe in Fiji. We arrived safely but exhausted. It was 6 a clock in the morning and already 26 degrees. We took a little bus to a backpackershostel (I know not our style, but because a small backpack was lost in L.A with among other things joris' agenda, we had lost all the information and phonenumbers about hosts in Fiji) Now we're trying to contact some people to get out of the little touristic town that is Nadi. The main industry of fiji is tourism, so it's hard to avoid staying in hotels and going on expensive organised tours to paradise-resorts on the little islands. There are souvenirstores and taxi's everywhere, but the people are nice and the weather is sweet. Well, atleast very hot and very moist.
We'll find a way to get out of the touristic parts, and stay with people..
We are sleeping in a 8 persons dorm for 12 fijidollars per night, so you can't call that expensive, it's about 6 euros. We drank the local drink Kava a few times, it's made of a root and mixed with water, it also makes your tongue num for about 2 minutes. Yesterday we met some people from germany and went to a bar, rhum&coke and Justin Timberlake. The Fijians like their popmusic :) I hope everyone at home is good and that spring comes soon in belgium!

big kisses

Everything is still a-oke!

Because I was so stubborn about blogs and didn't start one until now, everything is kinda messed up.. pictures are crisscross, no right dates, I'll only post some words when I feel like it, and so on. But who cares. Stories are for later.
I just wanted to tell everyone that we changed our flightdates because we were having to much fun to already leave after a big week. We are going to Fiji on the 5th of March and not to New Zealand until the 28th of March. Also : California rocks! the weather is sweet and the people are even sweeter. Hospitality and an incredible attitude towards strangers like you've never seen before. I think we have a wrong image about american people. Or atleast about the ones that live in California ; ) Bumperstickers with a little palmtree that say "no bad days", how swel is that!


The other day Joris was surfing in Ocean Side, San Diego (oh by the way, he bought a board. So in edition to two backpacks we now also travel with an 8foot surfboard, and still we get free rides from people and get everywhere we need to go, only in California baby) and me and Paul made a chinese halfnaked partygirl out of sand :)
Paul is the best, I really hope I get to see him again someday. Now I'm going to sleep because I'm tired, I had a big steak at dinner with alana's parents. So alle gekheid op een stokje, I'm having the time of my life. Worldtripping rules far out.
Peace

Roadtrip from Santa Cruz to San Diego

I'm off to the beach, more picutures sooon!

San Francisco