May 11
Since arriving to the Marquesas I’ve done some lounging, a bit ‘a boat work, a lot of waiting for Brian and Herb and Til. But the last two days have blossomed forth two unexpected mini-adventures, both due to hitch-hiking.
Hitch-hiking episode 1:
I went for a run, it decayed into a walk, and then further decayed into a hitching sabbatical across the island (of Hiva Oa).
I set out innocently enough. I hadn’t run in a month. It was roughly two and I rowed to shore, donned my shoes and a pack with water and a tee-shirt and headed up hill. The island is steep and lush, dripping with vegetation, something green for every niche and corner. Imagine Kauai—there you go.
It is always in the nineties, rainstorms roll through almost daily (at least in my narrow experience). So it is humid and muggy, but there is a bit of a breeze often times that is refreshing.
Fruit is everywhere; it seems to grow on every tree. Lemons, bananas, coconuts—and tons of others that I haven’t yet identified. Coconuts are the staple here.
Anyhow, the road I took wound around the southern coastline heading east. It was steep and narrow, beautiful views the whole way, looking way down to the surf and cliffs and islands beyond.
After thirty-five minutes or so, at a point where as a runner I should turn and head on home—I was unwilling to so I started walking and figured I could walk a while and then run more, and downhill, all the way home.
I walked on and on, same ole for a few miles, in and out of the afternoon shadows. It was like hiking through an Amazonian jungle—so thick and laden, so wet and lush and alive and green and exotic. Venezuela is the only thing I’ve seen like it, but still not the same.
It occurred to me that the breeze on my face if I were sitting in the bed of a pickup would feel sublime, not to mention how much more I could see, and I’ve already got a good run in.
So I through my thumb out at the next Toyota to come by. Everyone here stops for hitchers. Marquesians are some of the most sincerely kind people. To be in a foreign place and NOT have the locals be after my dollars—it is such a joy. People are nice for the sake of generousity. People smile, wave, one guy shuck my hand as I walked by, or say, “Bonjour”. Every woman in public wears a flower in her hair. So delightful, so elegant. And the Marquesians aren’t a narrow people; they are like the Samoans, a bit round, but theirs smiles are endearing and their faces charismatic. Of course their skin is as lovely as any.
The first or second car stopped for me. They asked me if I were going somewhere, something I couldn’t understand, I think it was a hotel or a pension or something. I said no, that I didn’t know, or care, where I was going, that wherever they were going was fine.
They laughed and we headed out. We went and went. They lived way out east on the road I had followed. We dropped through a valley then headed higher and higher. The air cooled and the vegetation changed to pine trees. I felt like I was on the Yellowstone plateau with all the lodgepoles.
We eventually came to a fork in the road and the truck came to a stop. They explained to me that they lived down in the valley yonder but there probably wouldn’t be any more cars coming that way for the night.
I thanked them and started walking back the way we’d come. It was getting later and I was a good ways from home—a bit more than walking and running would manage. But man did I feel great. Finally I was getting out and seeing this new world. This is how it is supposed to be. It’s just sometimes I forget how. Sometimes it’s just easier to sit around the boat and stare contentedly out at the water.
Yet always when I stick my neck out a little farther into the wind do I feel all the better for it. Once I get going I gain momentum. I here I was in the boonies of Hiva Oa and I was taking it all in in deep draughts.
It wasn’t long before another pickup came by and a hailed it down. There were a bunch of girls in the back so I didn’t expect them to stop—which, of course, they did. I looked and didn’t know where I would get in.
They were all young people—two young families I’d say. Two guys, mid-twenties, two girls the same and three small kids. It seemed they were coming back from the beach, guys topless, coolers, chairs, towels, boombox.
It was the driver who got out and shuffled around the boombox to make room. “You want coke?” he said. “Sure, ny’a pax du quais” which is my best French attempt at “thank you.”
I used to try and refuse hospitality (especially if you think they eventually want something for their kindness). Often I don’t like ‘taking’ from others, but I think I’ve learned that it is kinder to accept; it brings you closer; it is a sort of bond.
So I piled in, cracked my orange soda—which was damn cold—a real treat and hit the road again. The driver spoke broken English, explained he wasn’t going straight to Atuona, but if I didn’t mind waiting for a bit, they were headed home, but maybe he could take me in a bit.
Even better I thought. I had nowhere to be. We rolled up a steep clay driveway to a little place on a high knoll—incredible ridgeline view over a broad northern valley. There was an elderly lady in a green house with hundreds of potted flowers. A man was tending three little fires, burning slash, I think.
We all unloaded and didn’t really go anywhere. We hung out around the truck; me and the driver making jokes about music; I asked if he had a wife, kids the whole schpeal. He introduced me, and these was his parent’s home.
“You want food? You eat some fish?”
But of course. He opened up the cooler and forked out shreds of meat right of the fish, which looked like it had been thrown right on a fire. Rice came out of a big Tupperware. Then he held up a squeeze bottle with some sort of creamy stuff in it. “Coco milk. You like?”
“Sure” He squeezed it on and oh man let me tell ya. It was the flame, the love, what ever your epithet for greatness may be, this coconut milk was it. Thick, heavy, chunks of coco-meat in the mix.
I stood there in my little heaven. I knew it. These are my moments, those little fleeting times where things are as they should be. I was eating with a bunch of Marquesians, laughing, comfortable, sun going down over the valley to the north. A fine moment to be sure.
We all loaded up again, in two cars this time, and headed down, down, down to Atuona. They took me to the quay and said our partings, and they went to drink scotch.
Hitch-hiking episode 2
Encouraged by my success the day before, I actually sought out to do similarly once again.
I did some boat work in the morning, with some pancakes thrown in the mix and then lazed through midday. It is too hot in the middle of the day to do anything at all, really. So two-ish I packed a light bag, water, camera, hat, a snack, a few francs and road to the boat ramp were I pull my dink ashore.
There is a high spigot there for the washing of outrigger canoes and the like and it is the perfect shower. Powerful. It is sad though; I noticed I’ve lost my tan. Turns out it was just dirt.
From the shower to the road I’m already dry except for my britches. I walk a quarter mile to a fork in the road. My goal was to find a way up the mountain just above town. It is a beautiful, symmetrical towering peak, lush and green, capped with clouds, but steep and scalloped. The southern ridge looks incredible, but too cliffed-out to be realistic. Also I don’t know how to get to it. So I had to find a way.
I imagined that the northern ridge was doable and lead right down to a road on the mesa / ridge above town. This may be disappointly easy. Whatever! This day would hopefully enlighten me one way or other. Then maybe when Brian or Herb and Tila get here we can all go up.
As I walk down the road I here a car coming and through out my thumb. I look back and notice it ain’t a pickup, but a Suzuki Samarii—a Japanese CJ. I wouldn’t normally try to hitch with one of these, but, again, they stopped. And again they looked a bit full, at least there was a kid in the back. But these opened up the door and told me to climb in.
I had no idea what I was about to get in for.
They didn’t speak much English, but a little. I said I was going into town and they showed me on a map where they were going. It was a little spot above town. I thought maybe this could be a clue to my mountain so I asked if I could go that way.
“Yes, sure. Of course.”
It was a great steep, steep road. It was hard to tell the difference between the road and driveways. There was a cemetery up there. We found it and looked at a few famous graves. It turns out that the people I hitched with were tourists from Tahiti and they had rented the little Suzuki to drive around and see the island.
They said I was more than welcome to join them…..
This was just great, I thought. Here I am with a funny Frenchman and his Tahitian wife and kid (who was born in Tunisia somehow) and we’re gonna drive around this island, places I could never get to by foot.
On their little tourist map were marked several archeological sites and the like and we headed back down the hill to go find some.
This was an interesting fact about the Marquesas: as there are tourists and things geared for tourists, we never saw another tourist while there, not another soul. We stopped at an old church, very simple and quaint and traditional. I liked it. Then we started the off-roading.
We followed this steep muddy road up into the hills to find some ceremonial place where the ancients used to sacrifice people to the gods (and then eat them, I am told?). I thought Michael was a bold driver, here with his family, no tools, no four-wheel drive and road tires. And we were getting after it.
Again the views of the coast were exquisite.
The last place we wanted to see was a site that had petraglyphs, but it was a long hike or horseride. You couldn’t drive it or so said the map. But we’d go and scope it out.
We see the sign and turn off the road into a dirt/mud track and we were off. Again, I looked at Michael and was impressed. Firstly, he wasn’t a slouch of an off-road driver; and secondly, we were getting farther and farther in; it was getting knarlier and knarlier. At times it was like driving on an ice-rink.
It was awesome. There were a few spots I thought we were doomed and still we went. We drove that damned Samara across a sizable creek. I was laughing and howling and kept a hand on the ceiling least I hit my head and crack my neck. The kid was loving it to.
The wife was constantly saying, “faster…faster……..faster”—or, at least I think that’s what she was saying. She didn’t want to get stuck and figured speed was for the best.
What a riot. We eventually reached a muddy switch-back that was beyond our ability.
And we tried, by Jove. But we failed.
It was funny because just after we turned off the faithful Suzuki we heard a cracking and a big tree collapsed across the road—not fifty yards ahead of us.
We sat there and stared quietly, then busrst out laughing. “That is NOT normal,” I said and laughed some more.
We walked up a ways, around the tree, and found our path to the petroglyphs. What a strange thing! There was a sign—the first we’d seen—but we couldn’t find a trail, not a thing. There was nothing there. I’m sure there was; there was a sign, but no directions. A bulldozer had recently made a big fiasco there—maybe it buried the petroglyphs, or at least the passage there.
Typical Marquesas. Not only do you not see other tourists—you can’t even find the destination. (I did find some more ruins in the jungle, but I didn’t see any petroglyphs on them.)
The ride back down may have been more exciting. We hauled ass—no holds barred. They took me to the quay and hung out for a bit and Michael smoked a cigarette. It was a jovial parting. The lady said, ‘you did not know we was crazy, ah??”
Thank God they were. What a ruckus of a time. We saw tons and they were a real pleasure to be around.
So I earned my dinner: rice, beans and a peanut-curry sauce. I now I’m writing about it. I’m still waiting on my friends. Don’t know what’s taking them so long. But now at least I’m living well; I’m seeing this place and meeting people and participating. Ah this is good.
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