Page 80 of The Hitchhiker in Panama
We all called back, but Elayna would strike up a conversation in French. Often, she pointed at plants and asked what was growing. At one of the houses, some older boys ran around, and after a conversation with the woman of the house, Elayna consulted with Marcella.
Marcella had packed a backpack with bottles of water and snacks for us, but also a few smaller items. “For trading,” she had said.
Elayna pulled out some small baggies of rice and sugar. She conversed with the woman and pointed to the boys. The two women agreed and Elayna waved goodbye, leaving the sugar and rice behind.
“This woman will have fresh coconuts for us to drink when we walk back. Her son will climb up the tree for us.”
Yum,I thought.
We continued on the road. Chickens pecked around the underbrush, and deeper in the woods wild pigs occasionally grunted.
A man ran past us—pale and blond. Eivind and Jonas shared a look.
“Gendarme?” Eivind said quietly.
“Maybe.”
“What’s a gendarme?” I asked.
“The local French police. We could get in trouble for being on this island without clearing into the country first. Everyone does it, but occasionally they do patrol and fine you.”
A few minutes later another European passed us, a woman.
“Gendarmette?” Eivind whispered, and I giggled.
At the side of the road, we found our first cairn, a stack of rocks marking a path for travelers. We veered off the roads and into the jungle, following the well-worn path. Huge hibiscus flowers polka-dotted the trail beneath our feet.
We followed cairn after cairn, climbing higher and higher. The whole time, we couldn’t help pointing things out to one another; we were all so wide-eyed with wonder, hardly anything went unnoticed.
The thunder of the waterfall crescendoed just before we turned the corner and spotted it. It poured down off a sheer cliff, easily a hundred meters high. At the base was a small pool with clear, cold water, deep enough for us to swim.
We stripped down to our underwear and splashed around in the pool. It was about ten meters wide by fifteen meters long, and by swimming across the length we could duck under the falls and look out from behind the curtain of water. Everything was slick with moss or algae.
When we tired—which was quick—we sat on rocks, drying ourselves in the warm air.
We walked back lazily, finding the house with the coconuts. A small pile of husked coconuts sat on the lawn. The boys hacked at the shells with machetes, cutting a square out of the top of the coconut and prying it off.
When we each had a coconut, I wondered how to gracefully drink it. Eivind put his mouth on the opening and tried to drink quickly, spilling it all over himself in the process. The boys giggled at him, and the lady scolded them in French.
The boys then went to a nearby papaya plant and pulled off leaves from the trunk of the tree. Snapping the leaf from the stalk, they presented us with the hollow petiole.
Elayna exchanged a few words. “Ah! Straws!” She put the stem in her coconut and sipped the water up through the straw. “Voilà!”
We followed her example and the coconut water hit my tongue, slightly tangy and refreshing. Eivind was the first one to chug his down.
With the machete, one of the boys took a big swing and cracked the coconut in half. He showed Eivind how to use the top square as a spoon to scoop out the flesh. He repeated his machete-swinging skills for all of us, and we ate the soft jelly from the inside of the coconut.
Before we could leave, the woman went into her house and returned with a small plastic bag full of mangoes. She gave Elayna the bag, and we all thanked her in our limited French: “Merci!”Elayna kissed her cheeks and we set out for the dock.
Unfortunately, we could not rest any further. Jonas wanted to get under sail again after dinner, which would allow us to arrive at Hiva Oa early in the morning, where we would clear in.
* * *
Over dinner, Marcella put her fork down.
“I have been thinking a lot about the upcoming time in French Polynesia. I have enjoyed being with each of you, but I think it is time for me to move on and leave the boat.”
Everyone froze. Jonas and Eivind exchanged glances.
