Getting Stoned With Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu by J. Maarten Troost

Author:J. Maarten Troost [Troost, J. Maarten]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiji - Social Life and Customs, Vanuatu - Social Life and Customs, Troost; J. Maarten - Travel - Vanuatu, Fiji, Travel, Essays & Travelogues, General, Vanuatu, Vanuatu - Description and Travel, Australia & Oceania, Troost; J. Maarten - Travel - Fiji, Fiji - Description and Travel
ISBN: 9780767921992
Google: t6CFD3Gt7R8C
Amazon: 0767921992
Publisher: Broadway
Published: 2006-06-12T04:00:00+00:00

I HAD ALWAYS BEEN FOND OF NATURE. PROVOCATIVE AND outlandish as that might seem, it’s true. That fondness, however, didn’t mean I had any great desire to climb a twenty-five-thousand-foot mountain—where’s the fun in oxygen depletion?—or dogsled across the frozen tundra. I just liked knowing that nature was there, out there, somewhere. Sitting in a heated living room, watching the nature channel on television, I’d find myself hoping that the animals of the world were all as comfortable as I was. If there was anything I could do for them, I’d be happy to send a check.

In Vanuatu, however, it doesn’t take one long to realize that nature might not be so benign. There are no koala bears on these islands. There are, however, sharks. And moray eels too. One day, we had been snorkeling above a coral reef in Mele Bay. I had finally mastered the skill of diving ten feet or so below the surface without inhaling copious amounts of water, and as I plunged to get a closer look at the angelfish clustered in the coral I was startled to find myself face-to-face with a moray eel. If there is a more frightening-looking beast in the world, I hope never to encounter it. This was five feet of electrically charged muscle attached to a face not even a mother could love. Immediately I swallowed a gallon of seawater.

“Moray eel,” I sputtered once I had reached the surface.

“Did you see the jellyfish?” Sylvia asked. I had seen it, a translucent blob of poison riding the current. A few moments later, as we swam back to shore, we found ourselves giving a wide berth to a brightly banded venomous sea snake.

It was the centipedes in Vanuatu, however, that had me rethinking my affinity for nature. These creatures—insect is such an inadequate word—terrified me. It was the cat who had noticed the first one. He had been given to us by our friend Adam, who had called one day and said, “I know just what you need.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I do. What you need is a kitten.”

“Adam,” I said, “I do not want a kitten.”

“Excellent. I’ll be right over.”

“No, Adam, seriously. I do not want a kitten. I am a kitten hater.”

“Fantastic. You’re going to love this kitten.”

“Please don’t do this to me. Just because you have been grossly negligent with your cat…what’s her name again?”

“Ms. Muggles.”

“Just because you have allowed Ms. Muggles to become a shameless fornicator—”

“Hey, that’s Ms. Muggles you’re talking about.”

“Adam, please, no kittens.”

“Great. I’ll be right over.”

We called him Pip. Or, rather, I called him Pip. Sylvia called him Your Cat, as in Your Cat just shit on the floor again. In Kiribati, dogs and cats had intuited that, unlike the I-Kiribati, we were unlikely to kill them, and so eventually we had found ourselves hosting a cat and a half-dozen dogs. Sylvia did not want to repeat the experience. Port Vila too had its share of wild dogs and cats. Sylvia sensed—perhaps correctly—that word would

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