When the Beginning is Over, the Journey Begins

I often forget arrivals. They usually occur at odd hours (or normal hours that jar with my time traveling body clock) often beginning in artificially bright and clinical customs lines, then moving on to dingy taxis and bumpy roads and then…poof—it’s gone. The beginning has finished, and the journey has begun.

But I do remember my first arrival in Fiji, on Continental Airlines’ inaugural flight in December, 2009. After about six quiet hours after leaving Honolulu (which I mostly spent reading and watching their generous suite of films on my personal passenger screen, and being well-hydrated by attentive attendants), we landed at Nadi Airport in the middle of the night. I’d never before been jetted out of the country so quickly, and upon leaving the plane I half expected to be in California.

Tups in repose

Upon gliding down to the colorfully fluorescent-lit baggage claim via a narrow escalator, the blue-ish hues and jumping guitar music oriented my disorientation. Looking back, this moment was the first time I felt that tinge of shock that Fijians seem to be imbued with a boisterous aloha spirit now somewhat dimmed in Hawaiʻi.

Here, well past midnight, were smiling Fijians playing music in the airport in and seeming genuinely happy to see us disembark. Call me jaded by Hawaiʻi’s tourism industry, but I was perplexed, if pleased. And though I suspect the show at that hour was unusual and in honor of this first Continental flight, for a moment it seemed to be meant just for us.

Once we connected with our Fiji Me representative Tups, and my small group departed in our Fiji Tourism mini van, it was so dark outside that no land or mountains could be seen. We could be anywhere, and only knew our destination by name, Denarau Island and the breezy, open-plan Radisson Resort.

Pool view of Radisson Denarau

Thus, apart from the airport music and our effervescent guide Tups, Fiji and its aquamarine seas, burnished skies, and instant relaxing calm was enshrouded—much like the tale of Pele’s sister, Hiʻiaka, landing at Kapaʻa, Kauaʻi near the sleeping giant Nou Nou, only to find the village dark and invisible. (Fiji has a sleeping giant land formation, too, I learned later, during daylight hours while being driven back to the airport for our return to Honolulu.)

My voice could not call Fiji forth that night as Hiʻiaka’s did with the village, so I crawled into the cool white sheets under the cover of darkness, thankful to the Radisson for my clean and elegantly comfortable room, then waited for the sun to reveal Fiji to me, at her leisure—waited for the next day’s beginning to begin.

When the Beginning is Over, the Journey Begins

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