Fiji is a small place. For the first time we met Maëve and Matt on Wayalailai. As it turned out they nearly had the same itinerary or were following us (which Niels is still very convinced about 😉 Being in the 20ties both are working travelers. Maëva is abroad for nearly one year and Matt even for more than 2 years. They met while fruit picking in Australia. Their “relationship” seems to be based on pure hate, but somehow it works out very well. On Mantaray Island Niels and Maëva became dive buddies for life. Even though Maëve tried to kill Niels several times by diving far deeper than they were supposed to, following turtles or sharks without paying any attention to the Dive instructors signs or by simply making him laugh and therefore losing his regulator.

Oxford Dictionary: Multicultural Couple = Mus and Roman. Being from the Republic of SingaCzech (defined by a staff member at the Barefoot Resort as a mix of Singapore and The Czech-Republic) they are living in Sydney, Australia at the moment. Without any doubt Mus is the most valuable person to Niels who we met during our trip – she is a real doctor. Unlike Niels she can actually heal people! Roman “The Engine” is in charge of the propulsion power especially while kayaking. He is the logical brain while Mus is the heart behind project “Team International”. We spend a great time with them and hopefully will meet them again in Sydney!

Emma is the daughter of Andy, who is the stereotype of a Cowboy (John Wayne must have had him as a role model). He has a rough voice, wearing boots, jeans, a shirt and of course a cowboy hat at all time. Eva was treated like a member of the family and felt at home straight away. Both of them are practicing “Natural Horsemanship”. Natural Horsemanship is a special way of working with horses based on their natural instincts and methods of communication. Horses are herd animals and they interact with each other through body language.

The horses they use for the treks are all standard breads (either trotter or pacer). Most of them would have ended as meat without Andy or Emma. They managed to get them all well balanced so that even people without any experience can ride them! This especially amazing, if you think of the horses previous job as racing horses. They like to share their knowledge and taught Eva some very useful basics, which she will definitely use back home. Thank you guys for the amazing time. I wish I could have stayed longer!!!