Tropic of Kava: A Journey to the Rootlands

First Stop: FIJI

As told by the Lairo — a Collared Lory of the Pacific, born on the wind, gliding above yaqona fields and sleepy villages.

I wake with red-gold morning on my wings, high above Vanua Levu. The scent of damp earth and fire-cured root drifts upward. Below me, people move slowly—like the kava they’ll soon stir into cloudy water, thick as lowland mist.

In this first dispatch of Islands in the Shell, we begin where the water speaks softest and the root runs deepest: Fiji. Not a dot on your travel map, but a place where kava is not a drink—it’s a bloodstream. I should know. I’ve watched it swirl in coconut shells long before anyone gave it a Latin name.

Pull open the jingling door at Awa Kava and you'll find the day’s cast of characters already gathered:
a sunburned hotshot firefighter nursing a shell after a shift clearing canyon brush,
a handful of undergrads locked in high-stakes trivia combat,
and a few weary travelers from Phoenix, still shaking the city dust off their boots.