Hooking Up, Part 2

April 12, 2006

By this time I had moved on to a different island- Kon Tiki, AKA Nananua Lodge, on the island of Nanu-i-ra. Back to Random Encounter Theater:

More time on the beach today, with a sunburn to prove it on my chest and stomach. The day was undershot with anticipation, though, since one girl named Jody and a Dutchman named Melvin collected money from everyone and went into town, returning with food and BOOZE! I hiked the ridge of the island, which apparently the owners of the Kon Tiki also own. It’s actually quite a big piece of land, about 400 acres or so, and most of it is pasture; rolling grassland dotted with the occasional spreading tree. The batteries in my camera are dead, so I’ll have to try to preserve the scene in words instead. After a short walk you come to the ridgeline, above the lodge, where there is a small sort of observation deck and an electricity-generating windmill. From there you basically follow a cow path through the swaying grasses up and down the rolling landscape. The view of the ocean is spectacular, blue water in every direction, discolored where a reef lies below the surface, waves breaking where a shoal is. It’s a small taste of the scope of the Pacific, the sheer size of it. Down by the beach it’s easy to forget just how huge this is. The sunset from up here is amazing as well, stretching orange and yellow shades across the water.

At night some of the backpackers cooked a huge curry, and soon we all sat down at the end-to-end picnic tables to eat. It was like a small family had sprung up out of nowhere: we ate and drank rum and Cokes (made with the very potent and foul local Bounty rum). It didn’t take much to make everyone fairly tipsy, noisy, and happy. Joe and Oscar, two local employees, joined in the fun, and for a little while it was like we were all old mates, joking and palying CDs and just enjoying each other. Later there was a bonfire at the beach, but the combination of Bounty and the late hour made for a lot of people sleeping in the sand. I love how these things seem to happen, that in a very short period of time you can become so friendly with complete strangers.

Hooking Up, Part 1

Traveling solo is a little like moving to a strange city- you know there will be people there, but you don’t know how you will meet them. In a new city you may hook up with new people through work or a club, or they may be someone living in your building. For solo travelers, though, it’s a little more random- you meet up with people constantly, and you might spend a day or two with them, all the while knowing that you’ll most likely never see them again in your life. With this in mind, I’m going to do a couple RTW entries where this seems to have happened.

April 5, 2006

I’m finishing my second full day here at Wayalailai, sitting on the deck outside the kitchen. There’s a good firm breeze blowing, and the temperature is warm but comfortable. My legs, back and forehead are burned bright pink from about four or five hours of snorkeling yesterday, and I spent virtually all the daylight hours today sleeping. I don’t know why, perhaps it is the jetlag catching up to my excitement to be on the road. I felt like my head was packed with cotton or something, and at breakfast and lunch I couldn’t even make conversation.

On the good side, I’ve made a good friend during my stay here. She’s a Brit named Ann who I met on the skiff, which carried us from the catamaran to the resort. The cat was cool, except for the fact that it missed my stop and a one-and-a-half hour trip turned into a 6 or 7 hour tour of all the Yasawa islands. style=""> And honestly, the weather was rainy and lousy, and I essentially got a free tour out of it. (Note that this was very early in my trip. If this had happened near the end when I was completely burned out, I would have flipped my shit. Back to happy travel time).

It’s funny how easily you can fall in with a person sometimes. This girl Ann is staying in the same dorm, and we take meals together and hang out on the beach sometimes. The other funny part is how you have to get past the standard questions before you can have a real conversation with someone on the road:

-Where ya from?

-How long ya been here?

-Where else ya been?

-Where ya going next?

I think everyone who is on the road like me is very happy to make a friend out of a stranger, and to get past these initial, obligatory first questions and really find out what someone is like. I doubt Ann and I will run into each other again- she heads to LA in a few days- but it has been nice having a friend for a little while, and it has also been nice to find out that I can actually make a real friend on the road, even if it is only for a little while.