Essentially, Big Killy was my own private bodyguard. I lay in a hammock under the stars as he kept watch. “The thing about coups,” he said, “is that we really don’t care about them. Life is okay here.”
“It looks, though, like tourism’s suffering,” I said.
“Off-season,” said Killy, as we sipped our drinks, waves lapping against my secluded South Sea shore.
In the morning, I asked Maria (which, according to Killy, is pronounced Mara-iah), “What should I do while I’m here?”
“You could go to McDonald Beach, on the mainland.”
“I’ve got a beach here,” I said. Maria shrugged.
By day three, I had pretty much surveyed my entire domain. I’d walked the island width- and length-wise, through grass, bush, and mangrove, and circled it in a kayak, battling the open ocean. Then, most foolishly, I set out to circumnavigate it on foot. Because of the mangroves, the only plausible route was a good twenty metres offshore, through the ocean, over coral reefs the whole way. After an hour around the far side of the island, my flip-flops had torn, shredded, then floated off. Two hours later, with bloodied feet, clinging to the reefs, I crawled back up the sandy beach to the bar.
“I don’t think anybody’s ever done that,” said Maria. Killy laughed from a nearby hammock. Then — beaten and exhausted, with one of eight Fijians fetching me a drink — I felt close finally, to the other side of the world. And suddenly, I wanted more, as much as I could explore: 330 islands, and only a day and a half left. I said to Maria, “I feel like I should go and see something else — you know, for my last day. Like a day trip.”
That evening, she brought me a pamphlet. “I think this would be perfect. See how nice it looks. They take a whole group with a guide and everything. It’s only $120 each. They said they can pick us up at nine in the morning . . .”
“Um . . .” It sounded like she’d said us. “What?”
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