Around the World in 50 Years (42 page)

All in all, a sordid saga of the developed world's military, economic, and geopolitical imperialism, and its harmful results.

Nauru's new scheme, as explained to me by the nation's Director of Tourism and Economic Development, was to knock down the millions of leftover limestone pinnacles, grind them up, and sell that residue. The director floundered and fumfered when I asked him of what commercial use the crushed pinnacle pieces were, and whether anyone had done a marketing study or cost-effectiveness research on this proposal. He assured me the nation was not in financial straits and still had a positive balance of payments, but his irrepressibly boosterish personality made it hard to distinguish fact from hope. For example, he assured me that none of the younger people were leaving the island for better opportunities elsewhere and that its population had actually grown, to “about 20,000, maybe even 30,000.” But when I asked the head of the government's Statistics Department, he put the population figure at a stagnant 9,080, and when I asked the woman who ran the Bureau of Immigration how many had immigrated
to
Nauru in the last three years, she looked at me as if I'd taken too much sun, and replied: “None. Not a single one. Why in the world would anyone want to live here?”

Questionable conduct was so widespread on Nauru that, until shortly before I visited, it was one of the toughest places on our big blue marble to which to obtain a visa. The authorities were sure you were either an investigator or a journalist—neither was welcome—but surely not a tourist, of which they had none. In a radical postmillennial policy change, Nauru began issuing visas and attempting to lure tourists, although the Director of Tourism assured me “we are just gearing up.”

The country was now averaging 13 tourists a month, so if you really wanted to get away from it
all,
Nauru might be the place to go. Because only eight flights arrive per month, the odds are you'd only have to share the plane with 5/8 of another tourist. My flight had only one other tourist who alighted at Nauru (plus ten locals and four aid workers) and, judging from his dress and demeanor, he looked like the kind of seasoned traveler who was willing and able to go anywhere. When we both ended up at the same hotel (the island offers a choice of two), and started to talk, I learned he was Tony Wheeler, the man who founded Lonely Planet—my guide, my guru, my God, my gosh!

To be fair, Nauru is not without a certain forlorn charm for the tired tourist seeking tranquility. It has no nightlife or entertainments and almost no international phone service or Internet to distract you. The thin beaches are adorned with legions of unusual limestone pinnacles, the reef an easy swim for snorkelers, the first dive shop opened the month before I arrived, and fishing for tuna, bonito, and other big boys is among the best in the Pacific. The locals are relaxed, convivial, seemingly happy, and welcoming (except the Chinese, who tend to be dour and alienated). Almost all the locals speak excellent, unaccented English and are far easier to understand than the Aussies. There is no malaria, dengue, or other deadly bugs or dangerous wildlife. The tap water, which comes from the desalination plants, is safe to drink, and you can buy a delicious meal of 20 large pieces of fresh tuna sashimi on a giant plate of coconut rice for only four dollars, all washed down for a dollar with a Coke or a Fiji beer. Could
this
be “the next Bali”?

Since so few Nauruans can find work, they sit around and grow fat on a regimen of SPAM, fried chicken, and other fatty foods introduced by the GIs who liberated the island in WW II. The population is among the planet's heaviest, with 95 percent being overweight or obese. The portions in the local eateries are twice as large as anyone should eat. Most of the adults I saw were above 300 pounds. Their inter-island airline has configured a creative way to accommodate them: In the front 20 rows, the middle armrests do not lift up, as they do on most jetliners; instead they swivel sideways so that three seats abreast can be reconfigured to fit two fat folks.

A bonus of this visit was that I was able, for the first time in all my travels, to totally circumambulate an entire nation under my own power. (I had tried in San Marino, but it was too hilly and its border poorly delineated, and I had intended to circle Vatican City on my last visit, but that coincided with the investiture of Pope Benedict, which made it far too crowded.) I traded two worn T-shirts (NYU and Orlando) and one tired tank top (Cozumel) for the all-day loan of a thick-tired bike, on which, starting at 7:00 a.m. (to avoid the midday sun, which is brutal just 25 miles south of the Equator), I pedaled the perimeter of the country in four hours.

Content with my singular achievement, and ready for some R & R, I headed for Brisbane, but was there confronted with a discomforting realization.

I knew this was the likely last time I'd ever see Australia, that Oz was over, that I was done Down Under. I realized that, because of age and obligations, I would not be able to revisit this land I'd known and enjoyed for more than 30 years, one that had provided me with much love, beauty, excitement, friendships, and adventures. But I was not ready for the type of adventure it threw at me this time.

Brisbane is one of the world's most livable cities—sparkling, energetic, prosperous, and progressive. It boasts clean air and clean streets; wide sidewalks, inviting plazas, dozens of picturesque parks, gardens, and arbored walkways, and a superb pedestrian mall. It was the domain of handsome, flab-free, health-conscious young studs in bike shorts, and lithe lassies who were everything plus, wearing tiny cutoffs with black hiking boots or diaphanous sundresses with high heels. It's a cement South Sea paradise, 21st-century style.

First time I visited Brissie was 1981, heading hot up from the Gold Coast where I'd been practicing my Hawaiian big-board technique and Aussie slang on the local surfies—“G'day, mate. Heaps rad bra, eh?”—before dropping in on the Sunshine Coast for a bit more bronzing, then on to spectacular diving on the Great Barrier Reef. I was backpacking, bunking at Australian Youth Hostels (AYH), chowing down on kangaroo burgers and emu steaks, a wayfaring wanderer loving the beauties of Australia and blissfully enjoying carefree promiscuity in the back of long-distance buses with a series of suntanned Sheilas in those last sublime times before AIDS came along and spoiled all the fun. Oh, what a difference a day makes.

On this trip I'd shifted from the AYHs to the landmarked edifice across from the Central Train Station housing the backpacker's haven known throughout the international footloose set as X Base Brisbane, where I was the only guest over 28. It had been built a hundred years ago for the Salvation Army as a way station for homeless dipsomaniacal souls who pledged to shun Demon Rum in exchange for a tiny room, daily sermons, and three squares. It was now a popular venue for international hookups, but the women guests treated me as an interloper.

I tried, without success, to get my groove back in the basement's Down Under Bar, where much of the meeting and greeting took place. To assist the pre-mating process, the bar hosted a daily “Full On, Flat Out” nonstop, wild scene fueled by Pure Blonde Naked Pale Ale. It featured Minglah Monday, (“Beer 'n Babes”), Temptation Tuesday (“Beauties 'n Bikinis”), Wicked Wet Wednesday (“Wet T Contest”), Thumpin Thursday, Funky Friday, Sinful Saturday, and Seedy Sunday, all at cut-rate prices, but at high cost to one's liver, hearing, and sleep, which I willingly paid, but to no avail. If I'd been a narc, I could hardly have been less popular, or more the object of unwelcoming looks. I'd been shunted off to the realm of fantasy. Oh, yes, what a difference a day makes.

During the previous ten years, as I'd traveled through nations where STDs were rampant, I'd refrained from hunting quail, although it had once been my favorite sport. Now that I was back in safe territory and ready to resume the chase, I did a reality check and got the message—loud and clear—that it would be unseemly, unwelcome, and unsuccessful for me to try romancing any of the 20-something beauties who roused my interest.

I'd never been a lech or a sexual predator, even though it got depressingly lonely on these multi-month voyages. I'd previously relied on my appearance, charm, suitability, and
joie de vivre
to foster mutually pleasing liaisons on the road—where it was impossible to enter into serious relationships because I was never in one place for more than a few days. But all I could foster at the Down Under Bar was the eponymous Aussie lager. I no longer fit into the singles scene, and the harder I tried to talk and dress as the young guys did so naturally and effortlessly, the more awkward I became. This was a new kind of adventure for me, and not one I was prepared for or cared to continue.

Reality bit hard: I was no ageless Peter Pan, no timeless Indiana Jones. No longer Keats's Bold Lover, “for ever panting, and for ever young.” I'd best get the hell out of Dodge and return to my mission.

But first I drowned my sorrow in a farewell feast with an old Brissie buddy at a restaurant whose French chef specialized in “Advanced Australian Fare,” which no old drover would recognize. I ordered, and gluttonously consumed, the enormous “Native Platter” of barbecued crocodile, emu prosciutto, munchy muntries, glacé lilly pilly, dukkah, smoked glacé guandong—Spell Checker just gave up and went down in flames—lime glacé, tender greens covered with bunya nuts, seared rare kangaroo, a delicious confit of Tasmanian possum, home-baked whole-wheat damper dipped in macadamia oil, rosella chutney, anisata salmon gravlax, Moreton Bay bugs (
Thenus orientalis
), and, for dessert, at a nearby bakery, a heavenly lamington covered with coconut-crusted chocolate—all for less than the cost of a used car.

Farewell, Brissie. I'll dearly miss you and the fabulous times we've had. Good-bye, Oz. No, not my customary
au revoir
. Because, my dear old friend, I know I won't ever see you again.

 

CHAPTER 26

Second Thoughts

After visiting Kosovo and Portugal, and shifting into final preparations for the Nasty Nine, the news from those lands caused me to have serious second thoughts about the safety and sanity of continuing this quixotic quest.

Let's start with Chad. I thought the rebellion there was quiescent, but Amnesty International had just reported that both the rebels and the government forces were busily recruiting and abducting children to become soldiers, and few things frighten me more than a heavily armed, trigger-happy preteen. A few weeks earlier, the JEM rebel group accused the Chadian government of plotting with the Sudanese to begin a joint operation against them, and Agence France-Presse reported that both Chadian and Sudanese forces were on red alert because many Darfur rebels had left their hideouts in Libya and crossed the border. It was still a hanging Chad.

Rwanda had been relatively quiet after 1994's horrendous, hundred-day bloodbath in which a million Hutus and Tutsis were slaughtered, although recent elections had been tainted, and journalists and opposition politicians had been persecuted. My planned route was across the country, down to Kigali, into the Southern Province, skirting the DRC through the Nyungwe Forest, and across Rwanda's southwest border into Burundi. Then Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs issued this warning:

We advise you to exercise a high degree of caution in Rwanda because of the risk of rebel and criminal activity. Pay close attention to your personal security at all times … Grenade attacks have occurred in Kigali and Southern Province. We advise you to reconsider your need to travel to the areas bordering Burundi because of the high risk of conflict between government forces and rebels and banditry. These areas include the Nyungwe Forest. We strongly advise you not to travel to the areas bordering the Democratic Republic of the Congo … because of the volatile and unpredictable security situation in this region.

With murderous guerrillas, Islamic terrorists, rampant corruption, rigged elections, increasing poverty, disease, travel restrictions, a nonfunctioning government, and citizen discontent in the “Savage Seven” countries that I still needed to visit to complete my quest, I took time to consider the prospects, evaluate the odds, and decide if the game was worth the candle.

Uganda had appeared quiet, at least compared to five years before, when the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) was on a bloody rampage. The LRA was now mostly active in the DRC, but President Obama announced that the U.S. had dispatched the first of a group of military personnel to help the Ugandans fight the LRA. On October 14, 2011, he declared that:

For more than two decades, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has murdered, raped, and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women, and children in central Africa. I have authorized … combat-equipped U.S. forces to deploy to provide assistance to regional forces that are working toward the removal of [LRA commander] Joseph Kony from the battlefield. During the next month, additional forces will deploy, including a second combat-equipped team …