Naquila Lodge

ranoodle31
Dec 18, 2015
3 min read

We arrived to Naquila (Nah-ga-lee-ah) Lodge and we were not ready for this. I will be extremely honest in my first opinion of this place. About arrived via a 15 min boat ride from the large boat, where we came to our lodging for the next two days. Our first impression was “Good lord what did we get ourselves into?” We sat in the office and had a rough run down of the place. Power only comes on at certain times (what times they are, we never figured out but still could charge stuff as needed), and the water only came on 2 times a day. They had 2 large buckets in the bathroom area. One was in the shower which they used when the water was on to fill it in case they didn’t have water. The other large bucket was for the same purpose but a backup to the one in the bathroom. The toilet…..now this is interesting. We got the tour and the woman who showed us around said, put water in the toilet and flush. Ok sounds pretty easy right? NOPE….we had to ask 3 more times for help. One guy came up and just flushed it….WTH we said, we have been trying that for hours and it never worked. Well I sucked up my pride yet again, and went to ask someone else for help. Our lovely buddy Aku came up to explain yet again for us. This man is a total riot!!! I swear he never stopped laughing especially at/with us. He showed us what to do….we had to put water IN THE TOP TANK…..DUH Hahaha for at least 24 hours we just kept pouring it in the toilet bowl…remember they said in the toilet the 1st time, there was no differentiating between the two. Anyhoo after that our toilet worked just fine ;)

The bungalow we were in had a bunch of bunkbeds with a fantastic view, not to mention a killer breeze on the first night.

So even after the toilet fiasco and everything being a bit rustic, this is the BEST place! It is a family run business and there are a ton of kids here. All of the staff are so incredibly nice and welcoming! They cook us 3 meals a day and they are awesome, for those of you who don’t know me well, I am not fan trying new random food, not knowing what it is and my food touching one another on a plate. Yes yes I am weird I know……so all of those things went right out the window here J

Last night we had a traditional Fijian dinner that was cooked in the ground and we sat on the floor and ate with our hands. The dinner was chicken, fish, spinach with veggies wrapped in it, some kind of yam and then something with no taste what so ever which we think is called bread fruit.

We also got to participate in a Kava ceremony, it didn’t taste good and made your mouth numb but it was nice to experience something different. I think my friend Mary said it best, that it tastes like clay. It is actually a root from a plant, that they then grind up in a big pestle and mortar outside. After the dinner and Kava we had some minor entertainment where the family sang to us with guitars and it sounded so wonderful.

Throughout the 2 days we were here, the kids that were on the island wanted to play games with them. We did a bit of tag, the hokey pokey and they helped up collect some shells. The kids were, Ani (said Annie), Eleanor, Mike, Quincy and Nena(said like Nanna) They love to take pictures, and play in the water and to learn different things. As I sit here and type this now, Ani and Eleanor watch and correct me when I spell someone’s name incorrectly. I have a whole bunch of selfie pics of the kids when I let them borrow my camera ;)