UNLEASHED
WE BRING YOU FOUR WAYS TO DIVE INTO THE SOLOMON ISLANDS. WORDS: TATYANA LEONOV he Solomon Islands is a hi-fi tropical paradise, its dusky coconut lips never bruised by the West’s thrusting imperialism. Or so it seems. But, actually, the Solomons is simply resilient. First visited by Spaniards in 1568, the Melanesian nation has fought off ravaging blackbirders, devoured missionaries and endured colonialists. In WWII,
Guadalcanal, the island of its capital, Honiara, saw 38,000 Allies and Japanese slaughter one another, downing 1300 planes and 67 ships. By any modern measure, the Solomon Islands has Seen Some Shit. But the Solomon Islands’ beauty has endured. Because the Solomon Islands knows how to wait it out. They’re just a threehour flight from Brisbane, but people in much of the Solomon Islands live like they
have for centuries: fishing and foraging in the day, and eating and laughing deep into the night. About 80 to 90 per cent of the South Pacific island group’s 575,000-strong population is involved in a subsistence, non-monetary economy. Suits, computers and deadlines are less important in this sanctuary where laughter, adventure and ‘just being’ – elsewhere a cringingly hippie mantra – are at the forefront of life.
November/December 2014
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