We are home!

Our travel was smooth, except for one minor hiccup. We had a few hours to kill between the ferry and our flight, so our hotel arranged for us to shower and eat at the partner hotel across the street from the airport. It worked out great! We had a delicious dinner, one of the best of our trip, showered, and got on the airport shuttle. 

Three minutes later, the shuttle driver opened the door of the van and helped Syd get the surf board out at the airport. He walked over to the little trailer for bags and he realized that the door was wide open and our luggage was gone! We watched him load it before getting in the van so he said he must have forgot to close the door and our luggage fell out and is in the middle of Nadi Airport’s busiest intersection!!!! After a moment of panic, Syd and the driver planned to go back to the intersection to try to find our bags. I was going to stay at the airport with the surfboard. The poor driver looked horrified and was really apologetic. I felt bad for him, I am sure he was thinking he might lose his job!

Right before Syd and the driver were about to leave we noticed that a policeman was trying to flag us down and had Syd’s suitcase! He must have pulled over, picked it up, and then followed the van. At that point we were missing my suitcase and carry on. I was imagining a car hitting my huge purple suitcase and it exploding in traffic with my clothes every where. I want to add too that it was 7pm and totally dark because it’s winter in Fiji and the sun goes down early. 

Then a cab driver stopped and waved me over. He was pointing at me and I was saying, no I don’t need a cab, but he insisted I come to his window. He asked me if I had lost bags in the road and I said yes and I described them. He didn’t speak English that well, but signaled that he was going to pull over. Once he parked he opened up the back of his taxi and my two bags were there! He had rescued them from traffic before they got hit by a car. I was so grateful!!! Syd gave him our extra Fiji dollars that we weren’t going to spend as a thank you. Totally worth it. 

Here is all our luggage, a little worse for wear, in the check in line. If we had lost a bag I would have been pretty bummed after such a great trip. I think we are really lucky the surfboard bag didn’t fit in that trailer!

Anyway, flight was smooth and we are home. We were happy to see Arthur and I picked the apples from our tree that were about to fall. Happy to be home and looking forward to apple sauce tomorrow. 

My apple crop so far. 

Arthur, happy to have his family home.