Backpacking in Fiji, Chapter 10

Bamboo and Long Grass

Once again dipping into a valley, lunch time snuck up on us. We stopped at a stream crossing to get off our feet and down some food. The food that I had brought, however, was no longer being split up among our small group. There were now eleven of us. All of the lunch and dinner food was consumed in this one meal. The food was finished and I was left hungry and very frustrated. Ever the planner, I pulled an energy bar out of my pack and ate that to give me the calories I needed to continue. To add to the enjoyment of the meal, we had to yell at a dozen hungry, stinking dogs to stay away while we ate. 

Soon after resuming our walk, the dogs and their owner split ways with us and the air cleared, letting me smell the pure air of the Fijian Highlands again. No more than a half hour after parting ways, I heard the dogs barking. Jone told me they were barking because they had found wild pigs. Apparently, the hunt was on. We, however, were not hunting on this particular excursion. So we continued on through the bamboo groves.

Before this trip, bamboo groves always brought to mind picturesque little scenes. In reality, yes it is pretty, but there is a dark side. Bamboo, at least in these groves, has some sort of miniscule spines portruding from all over. These spines are so small, they are unnoticable. Until, that is, you grasp a bamboo tree. Once that happens, dozens and dozens of splinters embed themselves in the victim's hand and they are a pain in the butt to get out. We soon learned not to grab the bamboo trees.

Frustrations also grew during this portion of the trek because it had become very evident we had lost the track and were now simply going in the "right direction." However, we persisted and emerged from the woods in one peace. We thought the difficulties had ended, but we were fooled. From a great distance, the tall yellow grass swaying in the wind is a pretty sight. From the middle of it, the picture is a bit different.

Ah, the long grass--the new bane of my existence. The grass was a dry yellow and about a foot taller than my 5'11". There were no tracks cutting through it, so we were left to follow Jone and Oro as they wove their way between the stalks, moving downhill and, supposedly, in the right direction. There are two key phrases from the previous sentence that I will elaborate on, and you will soon understand why. 

"...wove their way between the stalks..." I am no tracker, but do have a fair bit of outdoor experience. Even I had significant difficulty following these two Fijians as they wove their way between the stalks, as in not breaking any of them. They barely left a ripple when they past through so we frequently found ourselves shouting for them to wait and finding out that we had veered a bit away from our leaders.

"...moving downhill.." is also a very important phrase here. If you have never walked through seven feet tall dry grass before, downhill, I don't enourage you to do so. There is no footing to be found on slippery dry grassy, so falling is a common event. My companion Kyle found this out over and over again, as evident from the steady stream of obscenities flowing from him. The laughing Fijians did little to comfort him. I also fell frequently, using the thick grass stems to grab onto to avoid hitting the ground and sliding. This was a necessary evil, though, for to avoid injury from falling I had to sustain dozens of tiny cuts to my hands from the sharp grass. My shredded ankles were not sad either when we finally emerged from the field.

We climbed down a bank and found ourselves in a streambed. This stream took us to an old logging trail.