26 July: a mini-post about the hike
We’ve returned from a place famed for cannibalism: the island of Fatu Hiva. The Marquesas, Polynesia. Folks, find the coordinates 10.27 south latitude and 138.40 west longitude on the map (and do it properly—no slacking).
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It takes all our strength just to keep our bodies from hurtling down the steep road.
“Want a lift?” asks the second driver to stop for us.
“No, merci beaucoup,” we reply bravely, and continue crawling through the hardest final mile.
“Let’s have a do-nothing day tomorrow and not go anywhere.”
“Let’s.”
And I launch into the song about how you’re a human being, strong and brave.
A couple of minutes later, the young sailor starts limping and whining again:
“Muuum, sto-op. I can’t walk any farther, my legs won’t move.”
“I feel like the Little Mermaid after she was given legs by magic. As though thousands of needles were piercing my feet with every step. Not a thousand in my case, of course. But about a hundred,” Nastya says, dragging one leg behind her.
Meanwhile, my chuckles sound increasingly hysterical.
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We are hobbling through our seventeenth kilometre down a steep descent, dreaming of how, in literally fifteen minutes’ time (though they seem endless), we will plunge into the river by our village and wash the dirt from our skin, hair and clothes. Andryukha dreams of lying down in the water in his T-shirt, shorts and trainers. We would rather undress. These bright dreams alone stand between the female part of the crew and the urge to collapse and never move again.
And it was only 16.5 kilometres today, and 16.5 two days earlier. True, there was 700 metres of ascent in rain and gusty wind, followed by the same loss of elevation back down to sea level. And a couple of kilometres through sour-cream-like rainforest mud on a 60–70-degree slope.
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The sheer cliffs rising into the clouds take your breath away. Jagged teeth sharpen the sky, hurling wind bombs of up to 30 knots down into the bays against a backdrop of utter calm. Colossal lovers frozen in stone lean into each other at the head of the valley. Near the top of the forest-clad ridge, a hole gapes right through to the other side; from the hole to the summit is no less than a hundred metres. You could only see it up close from a helicopter—or by some kind of sorcery.
The abandoned village of Ouia, on Fatu Hiva’s trade-wind-battered eastern shore. The surf pounds the rounded boulders, a shelter keeps off the rain, and a fire of coconut husks livens up the evening conversation. The river mirrors the nearly full moon and shaggy palms. Once, this very place was home to Teu Tetua, a descendant of Fatu Hiva’s kings. Under the same moon, beside the same river, a young Thor Heyerdahl would sit with him. True, it did not all end very happily for them, but that is another story—about what happens where the old indigenous world meets the modern civilised one.
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It turns out you can live for three days on roots, bananas in varying states of ripeness, and coconuts—and make a whole host of dishes from them (our fellow hikers taught us; they turned out to be from the Brazilian jungle).
The only pity was that we had not brought a shovel; otherwise, we would have carried out excavations on the ceremonial platforms of the ancient Polynesians. The entire valley is strewn with them—the platforms, that is.
Day three. Evening gloom and Hanavave Bay. Laduska greets our return home with the words:
“My little boat, how I love you!”
And the young sailor, the moment she steps aboard, honestly presses her lips to the teak deck.
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Actually, this is only a teaser for the full report. Our arms and legs are demanding rest, unaware that the head has already decided to burden them with not 20 squats and push-ups a day, but at least 50, in three sets :). Time to start preparing for the next hikes.
As for everything else, the head is not working yet. We have a mass of impressions, while the island’s internet is only good enough for WhatsApp and email. And we so want to adorn these words with photographs!
For now, we will only say that the crew is in good health, and the only dangerous creatures we encountered were a couple of centipedes. The scorpions lurked in the bushes and did not bother us; the cannibals have all died out these days—or else they are successfully passing themselves off as peaceful locals. And despite each of us eating a bucketful of wild guavas, nobody got the runs (which is very strange).
To be continued!