A Boar, Two Horsemen, A Jar of Mango Jam
A Vintage Backpacking Adventure in Fiji
On a sultry day in May, 1982, Mark and I landed at Suvu, Fiji expecting an island atmosphere similar to the tropical paradise of French Polynesia. But what we found was more of a “third-world” feeling.
On our first night in Suvu, we hiked outside the city limits wearing our 45-pound backpacks. Dusk was quickly descending on us as we searched for a place to set up our tent.
A Boar
As night advanced, we settled at a city park where we hoped it was not illegal to camp out on the lawn. Inside our tent, feeling exposed in the circle of light below a street lamp, we finally relaxed and fell asleep around midnight.
A few hours later, a strange sound woke up Mark, who in turn roused me. “Ssshhhh,” he whispered, “do you hear that?”
I listened. What I heard chilled the hairs on the back of my neck. “What is it?” I whispered back, my body poised, stiff.
“A pig? A boar?”
The grunting was unmistakable. Moonlight threw the creature’s shadow against our tent. We could see a boar’s shape pacing and pawing the ground. It looked as though he wanted to charge, but was intimidated by our immobile tent.
As he neared, his shadow loomed large on the tent’s nylon fabric. Then he backed up, grunting in confusion.
“He thinks the tent is alive,” Mark whispered. “I think he’s afraid of it.”
We held each other, holding our breaths for another five minutes until the animal half-charged one more time, then retreated once and for all.
After a collective sigh, Mark and I fell back to sleep until early next morning when we emerged into an innocent park, its grass sparkling with dew.
We decided to get out of the city and head to the beaches.
Two Horsemen
We wandered from the market in town where we bought fruit and rolls for breakfast, to the road where we caught rides north by hitchhiking. We queried everyone we met about where the prettiest beach was. Four out of five said, “By far, Natadola Beach, 45 minutes southeast of Nadi,” so that’s where we went.
Natadola Beach was true to its reputation. There its crystalline white sand stretched like a horseshoe around a tourmaline bay. The beach was framed by a tropical forest. As Mark and I, encumbered by backpacks, wended through the narrowly-spaced trees and broke through to the beach, two barefoot, bare-chested Fijians on horses appeared in front of us.
We smiled and waved in greeting. They appraised us briefly, nodded and rode away.
We found a spot to set up our tent, near a pile of driftwood which we would use to build a campfire later that night.
Looking about, up one end of the beach towards the other, we were amazed to be the only people here to enjoy it, other than the horsemen, of course.
We changed into our bathing suits. Then we stowed our backpacks into the tent, zipped it up against mosquitos, and went frolicking in the sea. The water had such a high salt content, we drifted on the surface of it for half an hour.
When we tired of swimming, we walked up the beach on an exploratory mission, then back to the tent.
At dusk, we built a fire using the abundant driftwood and sat behind the flames, telling spooky stories and sharing our dreams for the future.
We slept soundly that night, lulled by the roll of the surf, although a boar attack now hovered silently in the realm of possibility.
A Jar of Mango Jam
The next morning I reached for my boots to find them gone. And I noticed a jar of mango jam was also missing. Mark and I realized we had been robbed. It must have been when we were chatting by the fire last night, fifteen feet away from the tent. We suspected the men on horseback.
Later, when we mentioned our adventure on Natadola Beach to new acquaintances, they would say, “Oh Natadola, the most beautiful beach on Fiji, but also the most dangerous. Thieves everywhere. You were lucky they did not slit your tent or your throats and take more. Yes, you were most lucky.”
A cheap price to pay for a private beach stay there... Love Mark :)