Maewo: Hiker's Dream / Casual Walker's nightmare

Maewo has a single “road” which runs from the north end of the west coast to about the center of maewo. The reason they call it a road is because a truck can, occasionally drive this road when the rivers are too big or a land slide hasn’t just ruined a section of it. This means that anytime you go anywhere on Maewo, you take a boat which is expensive, or you walk. Not having much money and in general being a cheap person, I much prefer the walking option.  Now, I’d like to believe that I am a fairly competant hiker. I was hiking very regularly in the states before I joined the peace corps. I loved all the challenging and difficult hikes I could find around Tucson as well as a few that were a little farther away. All that being said, Maewo makes me feel like I am just learning how to walk all over again. The only road that you can easily walk around on is the truck road, and that feels like an average hike in the states. All the rest of the trails on Maewo make me feel like it’d be easier to just walk a greased balance beam. I’m finally starting to get the hang of walking around after having been here almost 3 months, but Maewo is not friendly. The trail that goes from the school up to my house only takes a bout 10 minutes, but it goes up at about a 45-60 degree incline, and when there is rain, I feel like going down might be safer if you just treated it like a bobsled shoot. The road to my garden would put any seasoned hiker to the test. It takes about an hour of walking through jungle so thick a lot of the time you cant even see your own feet, on a trail that is about as wide as a two by four and is littered with sections of quicksand like soft mud, hard packed clay and moss covered stones that are more slippery than a bannana peel. All of that being said, I love hiking around on Maewo. A simple trip to the garden makes me feel like I’m exploring some untamed wilderness, and when you hike to the east side of Maewo it feels like an epic journey out of lord of the rings or something. Maewo is not a friendly island to travel at all, but I am very happy to be in a place where walking anywhere almost always is an adventure.