The air hit me the second the cabin door opened; hot, heavy and thick, pushing its way down my throat and into my lungs, where it just sat, and stayed. Worse than back home, even, which was bad enough. On the good side, I was almost getting used to it, after two weeks or so on Viti Levu, the main island of Fiji. I stepped down out of the little plane, and found my backpack sitting on the tarmac, surrounded by boxes labeled in Hindi and beaten-down suitcases. We'd all had to be weighed (with our bags, naturally) to board the plane -- at a few points during our short flight, I'd wondered if someone as the airstrip had miscalculated.

I'd decided at about the midway point of my flight to keep moving. My last stay in Suva, the capitol, hadn't been bad, overall, but the thought of being surrounded by people again, all those hands reaching towards me, the come-hither salesmen smiles...I just couldn't handle it. I'd had enough. I was at my best in solitude, at least on the big island -- on Ovalau it had nearly driven me crazy, between the monsoon downpour and the understandable wariness of the townsfolk towards outsiders.

So, I decided to get out fast, preferably not even stopping in the city on my way back to Vakaviti, a cozy little hostel on the Coral Coast, where I'd stored some things on my first time through. I had no idea who would still be there that I knew, but spending even a quiet night there had to be better than spending another lonely night roaming the streets and the bars. Anything would be better, at this point.

A light rain started to come down as I hauled my pack through the deserted terminal. It had been afternoon when I jumped on the hotel shuttle, praying to God that the rain wouldn't keep me on Ovalau another day, but now it was night, the sun having gone down outside my window on the short plane ride. I'm still caught off-guard at how sudden the sunsets are in the tropics -- on a typical night, the whole postcard-perfect spectacle is over in barely a minute, and you're left to stagger home in the thick, unbroken blackness. Not even the moon does much to light your way here.
For possibly the first time since my initial arrival on the island, I had to seek out the taxi drivers, all sitting in a knot just past the soda machines. They were deep in discussion in Hindi when I approached, not even noticing my presence until I cleared my throat.

"How much to Vakaviti?"

That set them off. Now, sir?, they asked. At this hour? They would have to consult with the taxi stand manager, a portly, very dark-skinned man who spoke impeccable English with a hint of a British accent. He had me sit inside his fan-cooled office for a full hour while he bargained, negotiated, and argued with the drivers. No one, it seemed, was very keen to drive nearly all the way to the other side of the island in the dark. In the end, a driver pulled up at the stand with a fare, and after a quick exchange, the manager motioned to me.

"Ramesh will take you. Seventy dollars," he reported, evidently eager to get me off his couch. "He lives in that direction."

Ramesh had dark skin, as well, nearly the darkest I'd ever seen on a person of Indian descent; I wondered if he had been born in Fiji, a descendant of the Indian indentured servants (slaves, very nearly) imported by the British a century before. He watched impassively as the manager gave me the news, then threw my backpack in the back seat; we were on our way.

It turned out that Ramesh spoke decent English, as well, although he didn't attempt it much with me.
"One stop," he said, waving his hand dismissively toward a box one of the other men had put in his back seat, beside my pack. "A delivery." He steered and shifted one-handed, using his left hand to flick ashes out the window. We roared south, straight into the city, the part I'd hoped to avoid. We passed the ramshackle suburbs, headed down towards the port, to one of the few luxury hotels in town -- I'd walked right by it at least once a day when I was in town before. This time Ramesh took us in, straight past an empty security booth and into the circular drive. He leaned out the window and yelled, then got out.

Another man appeared out of a lit doorway, coming forward to shake hands, and I briefly had a flash of paranoia: I might not make it to Vakaviti. A young traveler, alone, at night, with no set itinerary and an expensive-looking pack -- several times during my stay, I'd gotten looks that seemed to be assessments, both of my ability to put up a struggle and of my net worth. This time, luckily, it was just paranoia.

After about ten minutes, my driver reappeared, retrieved the box and disappeared again, leaving me to wonder what could have been in the package. Medical supplies? Books? Statues of Ganesh? It could have been a live human heart, cooling in half-melted ice, for all I knew. The mind plays tricks, sometimes.

Once the delivery was done, we made good time out of the city, trading the lights and heavy banghra beats for the dark and stillness of the jungle. There are only three cities of any size on Viti Levu, and the other two were both at the island's far northwestern edge, beyond even where we were headed. In between there and here, there was a lot of nothing. Lush foliage flowed by on either side, illuminated for a fraction of a moment by the little car's headlights and then gone. The road beneath was pavement, at least, and not dirt, but it was nearly rippled with stress and wear; even when we weren't hitting foot-deep potholes, it felt like we were clanking our way very quickly up the tracks of a worn-out rollercoaster.

Ramesh drove fast. What little I could make out of the surrounding countryside was a blur, and it gave me a headache to even try to pick out details; it was like trying to read road signs from the window of a fast-moving train. My neck and hands tensed at every screaming turn, especially after a heart-stopping near-miss with a heavily-loaded truck coming around a blind corner. Eventually, I closed my eyes, hoping that as long as I couldn't see that I was about to die in a crush of metal and flames, at least I wouldn't know what hit us and could die in some semblance of peace.

The music jolted me out of my reverie. My driver rummaged one-handed in the floorboards, thereby leaving no hands on the wheel, since his other was still holding a lit cigarette. He steered expertly with his knees, grumbling under his breath until he grabbed the tape he'd been hunting. He put the tape in the car's stereo, and "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" exploded from the crackling speakers.

After a few verses, Ramesh turned to me.

"You like music?" I said that yes, I did, and he nodded gravely. "This is good music. My friend made me this tape." Discussion over, we rolled on, segueing into A-Ha's "Take On Me." The '80s pop melodies bounced out of the car's windows, spilling out into the night.

An hour outside of the capitol, partway through a Wang Chung song, Ramesh stabbed at the tape deck, silencing it suddenly. We passed a sign on the side of the road, printed in official-looking letters: "Quiet -- Village". The car slowed to moderate speed as we entered the village. All I could see was a collection of concrete-walled huts with tin roofs, only a few lit from within; if it weren't for the warning sign and the sudden sight of people everywhere, I would have missed it entirely. Villagers meandered across the road in the glare of our headlights, staring at us without expression -- not Indians, but native Fijians, mostly dressed in old American t-shirts and flip-flops. Small children stopped their playing to watch us come near, then ran for safety in one of the huts. Fifty more feet, and the village lay behind us. Ramesh gunned the engine and slapped the tape deck, bringing both lurching back to life, and we continued onward.

Not far beyond the village -- I never even knew its name -- we stopped once more, at a gas station stranded in the middle of nowhere. If there were houses nearby, I couldn't see them, just the station building, the pumps, and the dark trees. I could hear the crash of the surf off in the distance.
Ramesh stopped the car, but left the engine running. He ran inside, then came back out, picked up the gas pump, and proceeded to fill up the tank, with the car idling and me inside, afraid that if I stepped out my escort would roar away into the jungle, leaving me lost and alone. I stayed put. Once the tank was full, Ramesh stuck his head in the window.

"I need money for gas," he commanded, "ten dollars. Ten dollars for gas and cigarettes." Wearily, I handed over the money, and he ran back inside, returning with a new pack of Marlboros. He offered me one, then shrugged when I shook my head, smiling for the first time. Off we went.
An hour passed, and I began to feel as if my journey to Vakaviti would never end, that I was doomed to be some sort of Flying Dutchman of the jungle highways, blazing relentlessly across the darkened island for all eternity to a soundtrack culled from the MTV of my youth. We were well into side B of the tape when "Heart of Glass" came on, and Ramesh began to sing, softly, tapping his hand in time on the wheel. I joined in quietly, the two of us singing together, serenading the jungle. Outside the moon had risen and lit the landscape somewhat, allowing me to pick out trees and rocks and, infrequently, road signs. I caught glimpses of the ocean, shining like a rolling, silvery carpet off to the far left, down from the road.

And then, suddenly, we swung left at a roundabout and onto a smaller, less-cracked road. A half-mile down, and we were there -- Ramesh pulled to a stop beside the Vakaviti sign and jumped out hurriedly, eager to be on his own way home, and I couldn't blame him. I got my bag and counted out the money -- every last dollar I had, at least 'til morning, when I could find a ride into town and a bank -- then stood to one side as my erstwhile driver executed a three-point turn at a speed that would have given a stuntman pause, and watched as the battered little car faded into the night, Debbie Harry's voice echoing off the hillside.

I shouldered my pack and headed up the hill, toward light and warmth, friendly laughter and a card game already in progress.