Today we drove to Raiwaqa Village where they had a Fijian kava ceremony and showed us how they cook in the ground with banana leaves and the many uses of coconuts. After the show, we had a delicious lunch that the locals in the village prepared for us.
After lunch, we boarded a longboat and cruised on the Navua River for 45 minutes en route to the Magic Waterfall; Navua’s largest waterfall where we went swimming in the chilly water.
February 03, 2015 – Garden of the Sleeping Giant
Today we drove through fields of sugar cane en route to the village of Viseisei. The locals greeted us with a Fijian song and dance, and they also had a traditional Yaqona (Kava) ceremony.
Kava is a tranquilizing, non-alcoholic drink which numbs the tongue and lips and comes from the dried roots of the pepper plant. The ceremonial preparation for drinking Kava is the honored rite of the formal life of Fijians, performed for any significant occasion, including births, marriages, deaths, official visits or the installation of a new chief.
After the Kava ceremony, we went to the famous orchid garden called the  Garden of the Sleeping Giant which is set within the backdrop of a magnificent mountain (the Sleeping Giant).  Walking in the garden was dangerous because the wood walkways had moss and it they were wet, and some were steep. Some of the people from our tour ended up falling. luckily John and I didn’t fall. We also visited an Indian temple called Sri Krishna Kaliya Temple.
