Baravi Spa Opens at Yasawa in Fiji
OCTOBER 12, 2006. Yasawa Island Resort has opened Fiji's first beachfront spa on the sands of its unspoilt island, offering a sensual indulgence in one of the South Pacific's most remote locations.
To celebrate, the resort is offering a complimentary one-hour massage for two, for guests who stay between November 1, 2006 and January 31, 2007. The Baravi Spa draws its name from the Fijian word for beach and has been carefully constructed in a blend of traditional and contemporary styles, just metres from the ocean's edge on a sweep of pristine white sand.
Its signature massage, the Baravi Rhythm, is performed by two synchronised therapists, working in rhythm with the sound of the waves. Other therapies and treatments have been sourced from around the world and adapted with the Fijian sense of warmth and calm.
Yasawa Island Resort is one of the most exclusive retreats in Fiji, with just 18 luxury bungalows hidden among the palms on an island overlooked by the modern world. The resort was named Most Excellent Romantic Hideaway in the prestigious Cond'e Nast Johansens Awards in New York earlier this year.
The opening of the Baravi Spa offers guests a choice of new indulgences at Yasawa. Housed beneath a thatched roof with a 180-degree view of the ocean, it offers a choice of four different massages and a range of facials, masks, body treatments and wraps, hot rock treatments, manicures and pedicures. Some treatments are designed especially for men.
Guests can opt to have massage treatments in the open air, fanned by the sea breezes on the spa's ocean-view deck. Or they can seclude themselves inside behind timber louvre doors where the air is tinged with incense and air-conditioned.
Couples can take treatments side by side. They can relax in a soothing hot spa pool just a pebble's throw from the ocean, or refresh in a cool plunge pool outside in the sun.
Resort owners Garth and Maggie Downey have sourced treatments and techniques from around the world, adapting them to local products and Fijian symbolism. Hot rock therapies use black volcanic pebbles to reflect the fiery rift that created Yasawa Island, while aromatic oils include an essence of the native sandalwood, sought by the earliest European traders.
Body wraps make use of banana leaves grown in the local Fijian villages, while salt scrubs include a dash of powdery sand from nearby Vula Walu (eight months), a beach said by locals to have sand so fine it takes eight months to comb from their hair.
Yasawa Island Resort and the Baravi Spa are reached by seaplane or 35-minute charter flight from Nadi International Airport on the Fijian mainland.
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