Backpacking in Fji, Chapter 2

Rope?

In Fiji you don't follow trails, you follow tracks. I can honestly say that in my nearly three months in the south pacific, I never once heard a local say the word "trail." This was true here, when Josese led us along the correct tracks to the waterfall. We kept a strong pace, moving steadily up the mountain. Occassionally we stopped at a clearing to admire the views and snap some photos. As we got close to the falls, boulders became larger and more frequent. Between these large boulders, we needed to take care not to walk right into the webs of the biggest spiders I have ever seen. These spiders--green, red and black, quarter sized, saucer sized--spun webs ranging from small insect traps to giant yellow nets nearly capable of catching small birds.

Carefully skirting past all these dangerous looking--but thankfully not poisonous--spiders and climbing over and around house-sized boulders, we arrived at the waterfall. It was beautiful. The cliffs rose about eighty feet, the river falling from the top, hitting a ledge about halfway down and finally crashing into the supposedly deep swimmin' hole below. I was excited to not only jump into the water from various heights, but to also solo climb over the water. For anyone unfamiliar with this climbing term, solo climbing refers simply climbing rope-free. Some individuals do this regularly. They are often considered foolhardy even by the best climbers. However, solo climbing offers a feeling of weightlessness and freedom that roped climbing cannot. It is dangerous, but over deep water it simply becomes fun. Well, a bit scary, but fun nonetheless.

I made my way to the cliff, to the side of the waterfall, and denied Josese's attempts to get me to follow him to the top. Don't get me wrong, I love my adrenalin, but I've got limits. If Josese had limits, he didn't give any hint of them. I didn't see the whole jump, but I was told from someone who did that it was from about sixty feet with approximately two and a half seconds of freefall. I saw and heard his landing, though. He entered the water like he had been jumping from these cliffs his whole life (which he has)--vertically, arms in tight. The sound and splash, however, was that of a cannonball jump from a diving board. It even had that distinctive whump sound. Needless to say, he set aside any worries I had about the depth of the swimmin' hole.

I soloed out to a good place to jump and climbed up about ten feet. I jumped. Normally, I have poor form that causes me to land on my side, or my leg, or on one of my butt cheeks. This time, however, I had quality form, landing painlessly. I climbed around for about twenty minutes more, jumped a few more times, maxing out at about fifteen or twenty feet, then put on my Tevas and headed out, following Josese not the way we came, but down the river.

If you remember from the beginning of this chapter, we climbed up a mountain to reach the waterfall. This means that if we were to follow the river back to the village we would climb down and around cliffs and waterfalls. We did. Kyle almost fell off a cliff. Phil ended up missing a jump and taking a swim. Josese and Oro seemed to share blood with mountain goats, never losing their footing.

On the way we saw a flock of bats from above. Each had a wingspan of about a foot and a half. Josese said they tasted good. I took his word for it.