vatu-i-ra.

I have to mention this place because it was really extraordinary. Especially because recently I've become so rutted in the same sights and sounds and smells of Fiji -- this place was so different!

Eight of us went. We rode a boat for 2.5 hours to Vatu-i-ra Island -- "the bird island." They did not lie about the birds. I was so overwhelmed with the odor of bird $@&* initially that I ran across to the upwind side, thinking my lord, what was I thinking to come all the way here, this is insanity. But then I looked up and nearly collapsed. Hundreds of birds, all frozen in place by the wind. I laid down for over an hour just staring. There they were, gliding, not moving a muscle; there i was, watching, not moving a muscle. We were both flaunting our mortality as if to say, yes, we are so evolutionarily adept, we have so much time on this earth, that we will spend the next several hours ending up no farther from where started. I felt guilty being the lone observer, thinking of ornithologists around the world that would be mesmerized by what I was looking at. Hell, even non-ornithologists would be mesmerized.

Soon Kara joined me, and we proceeded to name all the different species of birds. There were the "batmans," the "ladybugs," "white stripes," "all blacks," etc etc. We got pooped on, to be sure. But somehow, it was worth it.

We camped on the beach, just us and the birds, and I made sure to wake right before 6 so I could race to the top of the small hill on the island to watch the sunrise.

I want to go back.

(Pictures: top, view of the shore from the top of a large rock. middle, birds at sunrise. bottom, view of entire island at sunrise with our boat on the left)