surfing, running life and stories

Circumambulating Rodrigues
I have always wanted to be a teacher on a tropical island and ride my bicycle through the forest, past Orang-utans to work. Mauritius is a little bigger and more developed than the island of my fantasy. My commute to teach English in Rosehill is on a Suzuki 125 and instead of dodging apes and falling coconuts I am dodging maniacal drivers in souped-up GT Toyotas and Hondas, trying to perform like Subaru’s. The life I enjoy here is very close to my utopia. And yet when I could not drag my forty-nine year old body to paddle out on my long board when the last big swell wrapped into Tamarin Bay, I knew that there was a deep set problem.
My growing waist line is a source of depression. So after a late morning inspection in front of the mirror I would need cheering up. In order to do this I would head down to local hang-out spot Mafiosa for an early lunch. This involved doing the crossword, a few large Phoenix Drafts and a very cheesy pizza. By the next day, the pizza and beer were immediately visible on my waistline, and as this led to further depression. 11am saw me listening to post-humus Amy Winehouse, contemplating rehab, then settling for a few beers and another pizza.
The British Council who employ me to explain the future perfect continuous tense to five year olds were on a 3 -week holiday. During the first week, afternoon snoozes would leave me unable to sleep at night, so the next day I would be dog tired and need to have an afternoon snooze. I knew that the rot had set in deep when I kept my shirt on as I hid under my Panama hat and Raybans while I assessed the large variety of bodies on display at Flic-en-Flac Beach. This was a far fall from Surabaya, Java, when emaciated by a chest infection, terrified of the Jakarta salmonella and shaken by a 7.3 earthquake, I had lost 10kg and danced the night away in a gay night club, shirtless wearing only skinny black jeans, energised by the second vowel in the alphabet.
As an avowed hedonist, long lunches and gallons of beer should surely lead to great happiness. But there I was with a sore back, feeling like a very old man. So one Sunday, after a debauched evening discussing haggis throwing with some wayward Scottish Settlers and an ethereal local, I knew that what I needed was the old Victorian concept of a “rest cure.” Actually I needed less rest, so I packed up my one-man tent, a (borrowed) airline blanket and my walking shoes and headed off to circumambulate Rodrigues.
With a tourist map, fashion rucksack and three litres of water, I left Port Mathurin, the capitol. Hugging the rocky coastline, I scrambled along the black rock shelf, with the odd detour up grassy slopes. There is something other-worldly about meeting cows on a beach. These huge animals, destined for our dinner plates, seem to have adopted a very Buddhist, meditative life style. I did not dine on beef, as I felt the need to maximise my caloric intake on grilled octopus. However, one night, with my sea-food level at maximum I settled for chicken. This was a huge mistake. No longer can I even look a supermarket chicken in the drumstick. Rodrigisean free range chicken is real, its sinewy, firm, chewy and delicious, and a far cry from the mushy battery hen which takes one month from egg to plate.
Beach sand is not a good sleeping surface. It solidifies, imitating its cousin, concrete. However, I cannot not be amazed, that there I was, lone white man, stolen blanket, walking stick but no dog, sleeping on the beach and feeling safe an unbothered. After a weekend in St Francois, I decide my next stop is Gravier. I mis-interrupted the tourist map and what I thought was a three hour walk takes me an hour. In addition, I had set off at seven a.m. so eight a.m. was way too early to set up camp. So doggedly, I marched on. Its low tide and the lagoon plain is an ugly kilometre wide muddy stretch, so I don’t feel like stopping. And then by late afternoon I have reached the other side of the Island, so basically have done 75% of my 10 day walk in one day. I watch the sun set from my night spot of Bai de Nord and spend the evening watching night fishermen rig up their sails and set out to the reef.
By 10 the next morning, I am back in the rather haphazard shambles of Port Mathurin. I have circumambulated Rodrigues and only caught one bus for less than 10 minutes as it was getting dark and my tourist map was vague on distance. So, having missed spending a night at Gravier, I return there (by bus) and spend four nights and days being a beach vagrant. My penultimate night in Rod. turns out to be the night an anti-cyclone descends on the Indian Ocean. My one-man tent withstands the lashing but I wake up before dawn feeling like I have spent a night in a wind tunnel and wimp out on the last night, booking into the Mourouk Ebony Hotel and spend the day watching European kite-boarders lapping up the on-shore winds. To atone for this luxurious indulgence I hike the three hour stretch to the airport to jet home to Mauritius.
Its been two weeks since my return. The monopoly that Phoenix Beer has on the population of Mauritius (ex-pats included) accounts for the general non-shrinkage in the waist line, however, 10-days in Rod has breathed back life, energy and exploration into my thick tropical blood. The Australian legend of a ‘walkabout’ should be built into our life calendars. Being out, one my own, I allowed myself to breathe life back in grab onto hope and a love for life.