May 22, 2020
I’m into endurance sports, including outrigger and surf ski paddling. (What’s a surf ski? Think sit-on-top sea kayak, but longer, thinner, and more tippy.) That’s why I was at Unnamed South Pacific Island to attend an ocean surf ski clinic.
Let me start by saying it’s always nice to be able to blame someone else for your own mistakes. I’d like to say Chris was a bad guy who led me astray with malice aforethought.
But he wasn’t. Chris was just a nice Australian surfer who was trying to be helpful.
“Going to Famous Beach?” he asked when he saw me at the main train station. Famous Beach is known as a paddling and surf destination. As I was carrying an eight-foot long carbon fiber paddle, this wasn’t a bad guess.
“Surf ski clinic,” I said.
“Station’s a far bit from the beach. Got a ride?”
“I was going to take a taxi.”
He gave a low whistle. “That’ll set you back some change.”
Uh oh. I had only a few coins and bills of local currency, having relied mostly on my credit card during my trip. It was early Sunday, and the currency exchange, banks (with ATMs inside their locked lobbies), and every other store other than the newsstand were closed. And cabs didn’t take plastic.
“Like how much?” I asked.
Chris named a figure that was almost double the amount in my pocket. My worry must have shown on my face.
“You know, you can get off the train one stop early and walk. Fifteen, twenty minutes tops,” he said.
In retrospect, I don’t know why I took travel advice from a total stranger. Maybe it was the Australian accent. Maybe it was because he recognized me as a paddler. Maybe it was because even though the amount in question was less than twenty dollars American, after many years of travel, I am unable to resist the insider’s tip on how to save money.
“Thanks,” I said.
I didn’t bother to double-check Chris’s advice. Instead, when the conductor announced the last stop before Famous Beach, I grabbed my paddle and duffel and jumped to the platform. Had I bothered to do so, I would have discovered a critical difference between local trains to Famous Beach and express trains.
Oblivious to the distinction, I walked through the station to the road, where a man was selling fruit. I bought a mango and pointed north.
“Famous Beach?”
“Famous Beach,” he repeated, and cackled. At the time I thought his laugh meant “You clever foreigner, you know the short cut!” Even when the beach didn’t materialize after fifteen, twenty, thirty minutes of walking, I was not fazed. It wasn’t until a hot spot on my heel, harbinger of a blister, forced me into a small shop about an hour later that I realized what the laughter had meant. That’s because I heard it again when I asked how far it was to Famous Beach.
“Famous Beach?” said the shop proprietor in a thick French accent. He barked a laugh. “Very far.”
“How far?” I said. I could hear the desperation in my voice.
He laughed again. “Twenty minutes.”
Relief flooded through me. A Band-Aid on my heel, and I’d be good to go.
“If you are driving,” he added.
My heart sank. It would be dark by the time I got to the hotel. Dark in a country with pythons, poisonous spiders, and other creatures.
“My son, he has a motorbike,” the shop proprietor announced. I followed him around to the back of his store, where a dusty blue bike leaned on a kickstand, a white helmet hanging from one handlebar. There was a dent in the helmet.
“I will take you,” he said. “For forty.”
Double the cost of the taxi ride I had done so much to avoid. “I don’t have that much.”
“Do you have American money?”
So much for needing local currency. “Yes.”
He beamed. “So forty dollars.”
Even with a bad exchange rate, it should have been closer to twenty. The French must still be mad at us.
“Twenty,” I said.
“Forty.”
“Thirty.”
In the end, I talked him down to forty, with my paddle riding free. And I got the helmet.
Twenty minutes, thirty. I tapped him on the shoulder and he pulled over.
“I thought you said the ride would take only twenty minutes?”
“In a car. This is a scooter.”
A dust-inhaling, bone-jarring thirty minutes later we pulled into the hotel’s driveway. My shoulders ached from holding the paddle—its scooped blades caught the air and threatened to flip me backward off the bike every time we picked up speed. My face was bruised from being hit with so many bugs.
On the other hand, the surf ski clinic was great. I improved my paddling techniques and got in some good training. Of course, I wish someone with more experience in these things had told me the sign: “Warning: marine life” actually means “Warning: fish will leap out of the water and bite your bare foot, leaving behind a tooth that will become infected.” And despite a lifeguard’s belief to the contrary, ice, not urine, relieves the burn of jellyfish stings. But these are small quibbles. The denizens of Unnamed South Pacific Island are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met.
Like the hotel clerk who checked me out five days later.
“Where are you going?” he asked, handing me my receipt.
“Catching the train back south. Are there cabs in front?”
He eyed my battered travel clothes. “The bus is much cheaper, and there’s only one transfer. The stop is—”
“Thanks, but I prefer a cab.” I picked up my paddle and duffel and walked out the hotel’s front door to the lone cab at the curb.
“Train station, please,” I said after stowing my gear and climbing into the back seat.
The cabbie looked in his rearview mirror at me.
“Twenty dollars,” he said, his tone a polite warning this wouldn’t be an inexpensive ride.
“Make it thirty,” I said, leaning back into the seat with a happy sigh.
