Queens Road starts at Nadi where the airport is located, and circles the entire island. Rumor has it that it’s a 12 hour drive to completely circle the island, however, our destination was the Pearl Resort in Pacific Harbor, which only took about 2 – 2 1/2 hours. The drive is a bit daunting after an 11 hour flight from Los Angeles, but the views are certainly worthy of your time.

It’s slow going at times as you carefully crawl through the many villages along the way. Homes are frequently painted bright colors, reminding me of the Fijian currency.  Some have doors, some don’t. There are rarely sidewalks, and dogs, horses, cows pigs and even roosters shuffle along the roads edge despite the traffic. On several occasions my various drivers happened to be from one of the local villages, and they were very proud to point out where they lived. It’s hard to comprehend a living environment where families have lived for generations, never having left the island. Life doesn’t appear to be easy for many of the villagers, but they take tremendous pride in what they have. They often smiled and waved at our car as we passed through their towns. This gave me a renewed perspective on my life in L.A. where any drive down La Cienega or 3rd street makes you feel Mario Andretti navigating the pitfalls of drivers asleep at the wheel.

The thing that really strikes me when I look back at the photos from my  journey to Fiji, is how wide open the sky is. I guess that’s the beauty of being on such a small island. The night stars were often overwhelming in their beauty and I wish I’d taken more time to study them. Over the coming weeks I’ll write several more design diary entries from my 5 days in paradise. And with a bit of luck, I’ll be returning to Fiji to ring in the New Year. We’ll see what the travels gods have in store. That said, I feel fortunate to have made this journey, it was life changing in so many ways.