I slept until 8:00AM today and then headed off to the gym. The gym was a little thatched roof and had an elliptical, treadmill, rowers, bikes, 3-sided weight machine, lots of hand weights--good, decent gym. The only problem was there were no fans and it was boiling in the gym. I was sweating within 10 minutes and dripping within 20. I was entirely soaked so I went back to shower and then off for the day. Ali picked us up in his cab and drove us toward Mt. Sabeto--a large mountain range--we wanted to climb it but it is privately owned and very scary to do so. Ali pointed out the Sleeping Giant which is a natural part of the mountain that resembles the nose, face, chin, and belly of a giant lying on his back. It was neat to see this natural occuring formation.
Then we were driven to a hot spring/mud bath. This is a little place off the road-the roads were basically stone and very rickety and rocky. Ali would stop and go really slow sometimes because some of the roads had huge ditches. When going up toward the mountains, we saw tall, tall sugar cane plants, random cows grazing, and some Fijian people. Since today was Sunday--its Sabbath here and everyone goes to church for hours and basically everything is closed in town.
Ali shared that the town we were driving through only had electricity for 10 years which surprised me.
We arrived at the Hotspring/mudbath colony---greeted by a woman named Lana who lead us around for the day. First she showed us a hotspring--not hot, I would say boiling-it was 72 degrees Celsius=161 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to boil an egg! It sure was extremely hot, I think I even burned the side of my foot when I crossed over the log. She then showed us the path of the hot spring which went into another pool--this cooled the water and brought it to 30 degrees Celsius.
Then she brought us to the mudbath, we all got changed into our bathing suits and entered in. The feeling of entering this was weird---the mud was all underneath my feet---my foot immediately sank until about knee deep in gooey mud. It felt really gross----squishing in between my toes. There was a couple of times I squealed a couple times---it just felt so weird! I had to keep walking in though to gather mud from the bottom and then I got out.
After getting out, Lana covered me in mud--head to toe--I was completely black. It felt really good though--like a mud body massage. I helped to cover everyone else and even got my name written on my back. We kept spreading mud and even had a few mud fights. We decided to climb a tree close by the mudbath and take some neat pictures--we looked as if we blended in with the tree. I never thought I would do something like this, but this was such a great cultural experience. We surely immersed ourselves today.
Then we had to wait in the sun for the mud to dry. While it was drying, I felt ,my skin getting tighter and my hands looked very gator skin. After about 20 minutes of letting it dry, we all got back into the mud pool to wash it of. The mud surprisingly came right off, but took a good 5 minute scrub. I had it everywhere--ears, hair, toes, inside my bathing suit--I just went under the water and shimmied. Abby and I helped each other clean off.
After exiting the pool, we went to the second hot spring Lana took us to before and finished cleaning off in there. It felt just fabulous, it was like a huge jacuzzi---very calming and relaxing. I loved this hot spring and didn't want to get out ever! About 15 minutes later though, everyone else was ready and Lana told us about 5 Fijian ladies who would give us massages---it was only 20 fijian dollars for 30 minutes. The massages felt great--they used coconut oil. We all lied down on a colored wrap on the ground and the ladies started doing their magic---I was very relaxed and it was a great way to end the mudbath/hot spring adventure. I made the group pb&j sandwiches for lunch so we had then in the cab ride back.
After the massage, we went to the grocery store--looked around--had some weird ramen noodles with tomato flavoring, lots of canned items, and the smallest boxes of cereal for 8 fijian dollars.
We also walked into a local market which had fruit and veggies--the bananas either green or yellow and black-neither looking appetizing at all. I also saw a KFC. Then we went back to the hotel--I sat out by the pool for a bit until it started raining. It rains every afternoon here. It very tropical so I expected it, but the wetness brought about many mosquitoes. Every morning though it was beautiful--sunny, but every afternoon it got cloudy and rainy. Then it rained here, it rained hard--thunder, lightning, and harsh downpour.
I decided to sit outside for a bit, journal and read, and then hung out with the other students---we chilled in the hotel room--watched a movie, played card games and went to bed!
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