Wakaya: Travel Review

Buddhists call it Nirvana. Greeks call it Elysium. I call it Wakaya.

As the sun rose to warm the day, I rose to warm my muscles.

Setting out on a dashing run, I soon found myself striding across some of the most eye-popping terrain I had ever seen. I have trained in many beautiful locales, but this place was without equal.

My legs carried me over hill and dale past ancient banyan trees and groups of (thankfully docile) feral horses -- as my lungs drew in the fresh, salty ocean air sweetened with frangipani and flower blossoms.

In my post-run reverie, I took to my 1500 square-foot cottage-suite (or “bure”) and lingered long in its outdoor volcanic-rock shower. I then adjourned to a beach-front gazebo and sipped down green tea, nabbed at papaya sorbet and gazed out at an impossibly azure and soothing sea.

You might call this halcyon moment post-run euphoria. I call it a sublime state of grace brought on by a place of unparalleled splendor.

Where in the world was I, you ask? At the Wakaya Club, a 2200-acre serrated sliver of paradise nestled among the 333 bejeweled Fijian islands.

Wakaya is widely-hailed as the paradigm of the luxury resort experience. My otherwise understated travel agent said I ought to brace myself for “an experience beyond your wildest dreams.”

I arrived at Wakaya by way of a 35-minute plane ride -- or more accurately, a luxuriant custom flying limousine -- from Nadi airport. Being the only person aboard, my pilot (nice to say) took aim at what looked like the island from the film Jurassic Park. As we approached the airstrip, I thought: “Could a place in today’s disarrayed world possibly be so pristine?"

From the moment I touched down on Wakaya, my heart was stirred (not shaken), and I felt a palpable surge of energy come right up through my feet. It was vaguely magnetic. I later learned this was not imagined. The geomagnetic polarity at Wakaya is unlike anywhere in the world.

A rumbling 4x4 was on hand to transport me across the island to the resort. There are no paved roads on Wakaya; this place is so undisturbed, I was half-expecting a gentle brontosaurus to peek through the thick foliage and offer a prehistoric welcome.

After a 15-minute drive, we arrived at the Wakaya Club. Within seconds, I was gracefully greeted by a radiant Fijian woman and subsequently shuttled to my room by another. I thought to myself: “Could that possibly have been check-in?"

As I approached my bure, which is an authentic Fijian thatched roof cottage, I spied a smooth, round rock bearing the name: “Eric.” That charming welcome brought a smile to my face.

Once inside, I was agape: woven bamboo wall covering, soaring ceilings, native timber flooring, a gossamer-soft bed, carefully-selected objects d'art, a deep soaking tub and the pièce de résistance: a 10 foot-high outdoor shower assembled with lava rocks.

Every inch of Wakaya speaks to a tireless dedication to quality, comfort and elegance: from the Tibetan rugs that grace the bures and soothe every toe on your feet to the ambrosial, island-grown organic produce that nourishes every cell in your body.

And nourishing your body comes easily at Wakaya. While there, I dined on chilled cucumber and crab soup, grilled walu with sushi rice, maple-glazed Wakaya venison with kumala mash and sautéed local spinach and of course the Wakaya trifle with crème anglaise. The caliber of food is so high at Wakaya that if you eat with any degree of mindfulness you will gain nary an ounce.

My stay at Wakaya was a relief -- and a release. I lead a healthy life, but not until you come to Wakaya do you realize how much you need it. In the first 24 hours on the island, the ringing in my ears stopped. After 48 hours, the tight knots in my shoulders unraveled. And, within three days, every worry and concern had all but vanished from my (well-stocked) psychological file cabinet.

In the past decade, our noisy world has been given a violet shove into deafening. Each day, traffic worsens, pollution rises and the news media assaults our senses -- and insults our sensibilities -- with a blitzkrieg of negative images. Human beings are resilient and, without thought, we adapt to these stresses. But, in walling ourselves off from the world, we grow disconnected.

That is manifested in the unprecedented health catastrophe in America. Some experts believe we are reaching a moment of unbearable physical crisis, that we are dissociating from our human nature.

That is why it is more important than ever to seek out peaceful places of refuge; they serve as spiritual ballast in a turbulent world.

Sadly however, as the world modernizes, bona fide places of refuge become rarer. Most travel destinations have grown so commercialized they resemble the very world we seek to leave behind. That may explain why we can arrive home from a vacation as bleary and bedraggled as when we left.

That is what makes Wakaya so special -- and so important.

The two people we have to thank for this precious, unfading gift to the world is Canadian-born entrepreneur David Gilmour and his wife, Jillian, who is largely responsible for the utterly tasteful elegance woven into every crevice of Wakaya.

“The more the world changes, the more we gravitate to places that don’t,” says Mr. Gilmour.

In 1973, Gilmour bought a wild Wakaya which had then been uninhabited for 140 years. Since the purchase, he has been tireless and uncompromising in preserving its natural grandeur.

“I believe Wakaya to be the last bastion of ecological sanity in the world,” he says, “and I have made it a personal mission to make certain it remains that way.”

And, it has. In Wakaya, the Gilmours have created a place of unqualified beauty that permeates your soul and anchors you to the best part of yourself.

Early on, the Gilmours took steps to preserve the entire reef system. Step off the beach at Wakaya and you are immersed in an explosion of color and sea-life.

Wakaya is so untouched and protected from the ravages of traditional tourism that in the midst of a mountain hike, my guide stopped and reached into the Earth. In his thick hand were dozens of small, white seashells. He explained that the warriors who resided there 150 years ago delighted in the meat contained in these tiny shells. After harvesting this seafood, they would tote it up to their mountainside homes and cook it in giant pots. Then, they would dine on these delicacies and flick the casings into a big pile. These shells sat so intact inches beneath surface that it looked like the feast had taken place just days ago.

After the hike, it was back to my bure, then to another sumptuous meal and over to my beach-front hammock for 80 winks.

As so goes life at Wakaya: effortless -- almost ethereal. There was no resistance, nothing to pierce my idyllic reverie as I floated blithely from one setting to the next: morning run, outdoor shower, breakfast, hike, outdoor shower, “10-handed massage,” (yes, it is what it sounds like; otherworldly), lunch, snorkel, nap, tennis and…another outdoor shower. You can do it all at Wakaya because at Wakaya, hours draw on for days.

And more days, I wish I had -- for I would have partaken of deep salt-water soaks in the body temperature water shiatsu/plunge pool at the new jaw-dropping Breeze spa. I would have ambled over the 9-hole golf course that cuts a swath through a 19^th century copra plantation. I would have donned Wakaya’s professional scuba gear and sought out the sea turtles, trigger fish and manta rays trolling any one of the dozen prime dive sites just minutes from the resort.

Who knows, I may have even tried my hand at professional croquet.

For an exclusive paradise resort that welcomes a mere 12 couples at a time, Wakaya’s list of leisure activities outstrips most resorts many times its size.

As I meandered past one of the two boule courts on the island, my mind was whisked away to Villefranche-sur-Mer, in the South of France, when I played my first round of boule with a 91 year-old French poet named Cyrille.

Wakaya does that to you: while it grounds you in the magic of the moment, it also summons up your sweetest memories.

That enchanted atmosphere is orchestrated by the Fijian staff who are at the summit of their art. The staff-to-guest ratio is 12 to 1. And while your every conceivable need is met, it doesn’t feel one bit overbearing. Guest privacy there is regarded as “sacred.”

Perhaps that explains why Wakaya is where “those who have it all come to get away from it all.” When you visit Wakaya, and you must, you will likely find yourself in the company of luminaries from every walk of life. These people travel great distances to Wakaya, I believe, because it gives them what they need most: peace, privacy and beauty in an unchanging ambience of authenticity.

In the dying light of a warm Wakaya evening, I met a special friend of the Gilmours who upon learning I spoke French said to me: “Quand je pars ici, une partie de moi meurt.” It means: “When I leave this place, a part of me dies.” As night fell, I sat in my hammock and lost myself in the moonlit sea, allowing the whole experience at Wakaya to sink deep into my bones. I knew I’d be home soon.

The next morning, with bags packed, I stood listening to the entire Wakaya staff sing their rapturous farewell song to me. It was a strange juxtaposition: On one hand, I had never felt more alive; on the other, a part of me was dying. That man was right.

Wakaya is a haven to which I will never fail to return each year because I know it will never change. In a world that feels increasingly insane, I find warm comfort knowing Wakaya is out there, just as I remember it, and that it will forever remain my oasis of sanity.