I’ve noticed a pattern when traveling that the last night of a trip tends to feel lackluster, sometimes downright unenjoyable. If all has been going well, I’m probably not ready to go home. More often, however, in recent years we seem to be at best simply exhausted if not actively sick by the end of our trips. Travel brings with it inherent risks – notably of illness – and for me, that’s just one thing you accept when heading out your door. What our Fiji experience encouraged me to consider is that travel is fundamentally a balance of challenge and comfort. Not only does that balance vary for everyone, but it also varies for individuals over time, depending on the specific situations in which they find themselves. My brand of travel has been pretty challenging at times, which is why my biggest challenge in Fiji was allowing myself to seek guilt-free comfort when that’s what I (and my husband) needed.
You Can’t Get There from Here
Our second stop in Fiji was Vanua Levu, their second-largest island; our third stop was Taveuni, their third-largest island (among more than 300). We had booked stays online in more populated areas near the airports on both islands, which was not my ideal scenario, but at least we were avoiding some of the country’s biggest tourist areas, such as Nadi on the main island and some smaller islands to its west. I wanted some “off the beaten path” adventure while we were there, and to that end we tried to leave as many options open as possible, especially when it came to travel between locations. It wasn’t until we were in Savusavu (on Vanua Levu, site of ukelele lessons and stargazing [1]) that we learned there were actually no direct flights to our next stop – just a very expensive connecting flight through Nadi, in the opposite direction.
Christian was already concerned about the lack of a firm (and confirmed) schedule to start with, but this distinct lack of options from which to choose was definitely not something he was used to. Fortunately, there was a bus that traveled from Savusavu, east along the coast, to a ferry that went to Taveuni, after which we could probably catch a cab north to our next hotel. That bus/ferry combo didn’t run every day, but it did run on Tuesday, which happened to be the day we needed it. Our host Clark drove us into town on Monday to buy tickets at a convenience store across from the bus station, but the woman behind the counter told us we should just hail the bus as it drove past and pay en route. (Note: there was no bus stop along the road where we were staying, nor – as far as we could tell – anywhere between points A and B.) We were told that the bus would leave Savusavu around 6:30 am, and the rest was up to us.
We got up earlier than needed on Tuesday and waited along the road between our guest house and the beach in the pre-dawn darkness. The occasional car or pedestrian passed by, and as the minutes ticked on I did wonder what we would do if the bus didn’t show. Obviously, we would have been able to figure something out, even if it meant staying on Vanua Levu longer (which, as I said, was our favorite part of the trip). But the bus came eventually, barreling around the curve, not expecting two foreigners with luggage practically throwing themselves into its path – fortunately by then it was light enough that we were visible. We boarded after confirming it would take us to the ferry going to Taveuni and spent the next two hours bouncing along on narrow, sometimes unpaved roads, watching the sun rise into the sky over water and between palm trees.
The Life Aquatic
All this time we were unaware that our digestive systems had become ticking time bombs in the days since the waterfall trip with friends outside Suva the previous Saturday. [2] Our cups, which had unfortunately made their way into the river, had not been sufficiently cleansed despite a thorough rinse with the rum we were drinking, and at least the two of us contracted an infection from a bacteria called Campylobacter. We know what it was because Christian landed in the emergency room after we got back to Pittsburgh, and the test results confirmed what is a common infection for international travelers who drink untreated water. (By the way, I’m for some reason greatly amused that the Center for Disease Control website uses the word “poop” instead of “feces”. [3])
One of the big reasons why our time on Vanua Levu was our favorite part of the trip was because symptoms didn’t make themselves apparent until we arrived on Taveuni, and that’s fortunate because after our two-hour bouncy bus ride we had a lengthy wait on a dock until our ferry arrived, followed by a two-hour boat ride across the Somosomo Strait. Aside from the fact that there was nowhere on our journey that morning where we could have relieved ourselves had we needed to, I was thrilled that we were able to have some “real” adventure time, notably being the only non-locals we saw anywhere until checking into our next hotel. Christian was mostly grateful that the plan had worked: we had made it onto the bus, and the ferry made it to the port on Taveuni in one piece.
Taveuni is known as “The Garden Island,” [4] with beautiful scenery on land and in the water nearby, and I was very disappointed that we had limited ability to enjoy our already limited time there. We had signed up for a waterfall hike on Wednesday (the only full day we were there) but canceled when we started to feel sick, incorrectly blaming our dinner from the night before. I spent the morning snorkeling a short walk from our bure but skipped the cumbersome wetsuit I had lugged along from Pittsburgh just in case I needed a quick exit. Christian, already running a fever, attempted to keep his temperature down in the pool after discovering that there was no electricity on site from 11am to 4pm (and therefore no air conditioning in weather that was consistently over 90 degrees and 90% humidity).
Calculated Retreat
We had originally planned to attend a dinner on the beach with traditional Fijian food, dance, and a kava ceremony. Christian wouldn’t be going anywhere until our flight to Nadi the next morning, but I didn’t want to miss this last chance to savor the island experience, no matter how sick I felt. By the time I got down there, however, I had no desire to be there without Christian or to sit with tourists for whom this performance would likely be their most authentic experience in Fiji. I could already imagine others there trying kava for the first time, drinking it just to say they did, not to participate in talanoa [5] with each other; waiting to be served unusual (but not too unusual) foods and be entertained by dancers on the sand, not unlike the awkward luau Christian and I attended on Maui. [6] I realized that if I didn’t have a 100% authentic experience staying in a Fijian village, I certainly wasn’t going to have one organized by a beachside resort. Choking back tears, I made our apologies to the staff and walked back to our bure as the Southern Cross began to twinkle overhead.
Our last night of the trip was in Nadi, which Christian had requested so we would have some options for things to do in a city environment, but again, he wasn’t fit to go anywhere. I ventured out to mail postcards, visit a Hindu temple, window shop for last-minute souvenirs, and pick up McDonalds (a tradition for me when visiting a new country), but we ultimately spent the evening in our hotel room watching the first season of “For All Mankind” [7] on Christian’s laptop as I turned into an icicle. It felt like such an immense waste of time and opportunity, but we both clearly needed rest – and easy access to a restroom.
The next day before our flight, a driver took us to some local sights (a hot spring [8] and an orchid garden [9]) but – reminiscent of that awful New Yorker article I keep referencing [10] – as enjoyable as those stops were, it did feel a bit like we were checking boxes until we could check in at the airport. For the next 30 hours, Christian and I sat in airport lounges and on airplanes, double-fisting water and hot tea, trying to stay hydrated and calm nausea. At some point during that journey, I picked up my very first COVID-19 infection, which I generously shared with Christian the following week after he was finally recovering from “Campy.” [11] It was not our best week.
Seek Challenge; Seek Comfort
Would I go back to Fiji? Christian clearly has no desire to, but I would in an instant. I regret not having learned as much about Fiji as I seem to have learned about myself while I was there, even though self discovery is a significant aspect of travel. I regret not having delved deeper into the opportunities I had while I was there, even though I was probably operating at (or over) my capacity for most of the time. And now, whether it was catching COVID or turning 40 (and I’m unsure which because both happened in the same month), I’ve noticed that I’ve been slower to recover from a few drinks or a night of poor sleep than ever before in my life. No matter the cause, I know I will need to shift my balance of challenge and comfort moving forward – and I don’t like it.
Maybe these thoughts are the whisperings of a mid-life crisis, as I begin to realize that I’ll need to make some choices about how I spend my finite time on this planet instead of trying (as I always have) to do everything… and maybe that also means that I need to stop judging myself so much for seeking a more humane balance in my life. We’ll see how that goes.
In the meantime, thank you for coming along on this introspective journey from the other side of the world.
[1] https://radicalmoderate.online/southern-cross/
[2] https://radicalmoderate.online/travel-vs-tourism/
[3] https://www.cdc.gov/campylobacter/about/index.html
[4] https://fijiguide.com/destination-fiji/taveuni-fijis-garden-island/
[5] https://www.communityresearch.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/formidable/robinson4.pdf
[6] https://radicalmoderate.online/kokua-for-maui/
[7] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7772588/
[8] https://sabetohotspringandmudpool.com/
[9] https://www.fiji.travel/deals-and-offers/experiences/garden-of-the-sleeping-giant
[10] https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/the-case-against-travel
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