Sigatoka Sand Dunes

7/25

I met up with Hitomi and two of her friends (Shin and Toyo) to check out the famed Sand Dunes of KuluKulu (a village in SIgatoka). We climbed into a shady minibus andarrived shortly after noon.

The national park was very well kept, and the guide gave us the option of the one hour or the two hour walk. We’re lazy, so we picked one.

We walked through the forest, with me repeating myself a lot because I tend to talk too fast and they were still English-learners. We arrived at a gorgeous view of the surrounding ocean and hills. We could actually see where the other trail was cleared on another hill, giving it a ‘cracked’ appearance.

Getting close, we climbed up and down hot sand dunes to get to the beach.  They were several stories high! Next time, we’re gonna bring surfboards to go ‘sand surfing’ down these dunes.

On the beach, we found these flat red stones on the beach with an almost veiny appearance, and then realized they were coconut seeds. And while taking a picture, the ocean snuck up behind me and Shin, and completely drenched our pants.

Walk walk walk. We crossed to a more inland area of the beach, and found…horses on the beach. Wtf?! At first, I thought they were owned by the village, but there was no one looking after them and talking to another person confirmed that they were indeed wild horses. Whoa.

These little kids came running out from the village entrance waving a flag, and running up and down the sand dunes to our left, which was pretty amazing, considering how steep and high they were—literally 5 storie! I was itching to try, so I jumped onto one of the dunes and tried to run up. I didn’t get very far before I had to use my hands too, and pretty much clawed my way to the top. Sand kept coming down around me, and I had this uneasy view that I was gonna trigger a sand avalanche. But getting to the top, I found an absolutely sensational view and waved to my friends below as king of the hill haha. Now, getting down was awkward. I ended up doing his crab like crawl down, with my legs before my torso, so I ended up shoveling a ton of sand down with me. That was tiring.

We realized we didn’t have much time before the park closed so we started heading back, but not before taking a wall on this piece of land in the middle of the ocean that was covered in life/bits of coral. On the way back through the forest, we came across a sign that said “Tree of Lost Soles”. I was thinking it was a spelling error, but then we saw the tree. Holy crap. It was actually a tree, with dozens of shoe soles dangling from its branches. Wow, the Fijians must love their puns.