A familiar face in Fiji

When you live in one of the most remote locations in the world visitors are rare and pop-ins almost non-existent.
In fact, the only company I get these days is my five-year-old neighbour, Rico, who regularly appears at my window demanding his daily potato chip ration, which I exchange for his promise to guard my house.
So when a friend from graduate school tells me he’s vacationing in the South Pacific and will be in Fiji for three days I’m thrilled.
Upon arriving he calls me and asks to meet up. He’s staying at a resort about 2 hours outside of Suva and informs me that he’ll rent a car and drive to my place the next day. I caution him that cars drive on the opposite side of the road here, but he assures me he’ll be alright having driven in New Zealand before.
But do mules, pedestrians and cows jockey for space on New Zealand’s one-lane roads? I wonder.
The next morning he calls and says his hotel doesn’t have any rental cars available.
“I don’t get it," he says, “last night they assured me there were plenty of cars.”
Sounds like the hotel suffers from the Seinfeld-esque problem: they can take reservations but cannot manage to hold the reservation – and that’s really the most important part.
He ends up hiring a driver to bring him to Suva. When he asks for my address I look outside my door only to realize I don’t actually have an address.
Although not homeless, I'm officially of no fixed address, so we arrange to meet at the nearby grocery store.
We spend the day touring Suva on foot, bus and taxi. I show him the Fiji Daily Post, the University of the South Pacific and some other local landmarks.
Noticing that he’s sweating profusely, I suggest going somewhere cool for a beer.
For the rest of the afternoon we drink ice-cold beers at the Holiday Inn bar.
After grabbing some barbeque from a streetside grill, we head back to my flat.
During breaks in the conversation our eyes glance over at the small bed that we are ultimately going to have to share.
“We could just go back to your resort tonight and sleep in the comfort of your air-conditioned room,” I suggest.
He calls his father, who he’s traveling with, to okay the plan.
“Hey dad, do you mind if Dale and I come back to the hotel tonight?” he says. “Dale’s place doesn’t have air-conditioning and his bed doesn’t even have sheets.”
Slightly embarrassed, I ask if it was really necessary to mention my lack of sheets.
But his dad says we are welcome to come whenever we please.
Around 10 p.m. our driver arrives and we leave bid Suva goodbye.
Within the first 30 minutes on the road, the driver pulls over twice to urinate.
Had we not been drinking beers in the backseat we might have been concerned.
With the windows rolled down and Bob Marley playing we lounge in the backseat catching up on old times and talking about future plans.
Although I’ve met some great people here in Fiji, there’s no friend like a friend from home.