By The Traveling Wizard
There are certain things you expect when visiting a tropical island in the South Pacific. Palm trees. Beautiful water. Friendly locals. Maybe a little beachfront bar where you can sit with a cold drink and contemplate how lucky you are to be in paradise.
And then there’s Nauru.
Nauru is one of the smallest countries in the world, a tiny island nation in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It’s also frequently described as one of the least-visited countries on Earth. There’s no bustling tourist district, no resort-lined beach, and certainly no Señor Frog’s.
In fact, there’s not a whole lot of anything.
But that’s precisely why I wanted to go.
I’ve spent years traveling to some of the world’s most obscure destinations, and Nauru was one of those places that practically screamed, “Come see how weird I am.”
And weird it was.
An Island Built on Bird Poop
Nauru has one of the strangest economic histories of any country I’ve visited.
For thousands of years, seabirds deposited their droppings on the island. Over time, those deposits contributed to the formation of rich phosphate reserves.
Phosphate is valuable stuff, especially for fertilizer.
So Nauru became extraordinarily wealthy from mining it. At one point, the tiny country had one of the highest per-capita incomes in the world.
Unfortunately, mining also devastated much of the island’s interior, leaving behind a bizarre landscape of jagged limestone pinnacles and stripped earth.
Imagine taking a beautiful tropical island, digging out much of its middle, and leaving the surrounding ring of palm trees.
That’s Nauru.
You can drive around the entire island in about an hour, even if you aren’t particularly motivated.
And with so few tourist attractions, you have to get creative.
Which brings me to the bar.
The Legendary Buada Lagoon Bar
Before arriving, we’d found information online about what sounded like a delightful little drinking establishment near Buada Lagoon.
There were descriptions of people enjoying drinks, and it sounded like exactly the sort of place we needed.
Buada Lagoon is a small freshwater lake surrounded by lush tropical vegetation. It’s one of the prettier spots on the island, and the idea of enjoying a cold cocktail beside the water sounded wonderful.
We were excited.
Not Las Vegas excited, mind you. More like we’ve finally found something to do in Nauru excited.
So off we went in search of the legendary bar.
We arrived at the lagoon.
Beautiful water. Palm trees. Tropical greenery.
No bar.
Perhaps it was on the other side.
We drove around.
Still no bar.
Maybe we’d missed the entrance.
We drove around some more.
Nothing.
We asked the locals.
“Where’s the bar at Buada Lagoon?”
Blank stares.
“The bar? You know, where people go for drinks?”
More blank stares.
Now, Nauru is not exactly Manhattan. This is a country with a population of roughly 12,000 people, and Buada Lagoon isn’t exactly Lake Michigan.
If there were a popular bar here, somebody would probably know about it.
But nobody did.
It was beginning to dawn on us that we might have been victims of one of the world’s most obscure internet hoaxes.
Somewhere, someone had apparently invented a tropical drinking establishment in a country where tourists are already desperate for entertainment.
And we’d fallen for it.
Enter the Pigs
Just when we were about to abandon our quest, we spotted some locals who seemed completely unconcerned with our predicament.
Pigs.
Actual pigs.
Wandering around the lagoon, going about their daily pig business.
At this point, we’d exhausted every reasonable method of finding the bar.
We’d searched online. We’d driven around. We’d asked people.
So naturally, we decided to follow the pigs.
“Maybe they know where the bar is.”
It seemed as reasonable a plan as any.
After all, pigs are intelligent animals. They have an excellent sense of smell. Perhaps they’d detected the unmistakable aroma of spilled beer and cocktail garnishes.
And unlike the people we’d asked, they seemed to know exactly where they were going.
I pulled out my camera and started filming.
There we were, in one of the most remote countries on the planet, following a group of pigs in search of a nonexistent bar.
This was travel journalism at its finest.
We followed them just long enough to get some video footage.
And where did they lead us?
Nowhere.
Absolutely nowhere.
The pigs, it turned out, had no more knowledge of the legendary Buada Lagoon Bar than anyone else on the island.
They weren’t heading to happy hour.
They were just pigs.
The Bar That Never Was
Eventually, we accepted defeat.
There was no bar. No tropical cocktails. No bartender waiting to welcome the world’s most determined customers.
Just a beautiful lagoon, a handful of confused humans, and some pigs who probably wondered why tourists were following them around with a camera.
We did eventually find other things to do on Nauru, although entertainment options were decidedly limited.
And the experience became one of my favorite examples of how travel doesn’t always go according to plan.
Sometimes you visit the Eiffel Tower and it’s every bit as magnificent as you imagined.
Sometimes you discover a hidden beach that takes your breath away.
And sometimes you fly halfway around the world to a tiny island in the Pacific Ocean, spend an afternoon searching for a bar that doesn’t exist, and end up following pigs through the jungle.
That’s the beauty of travel.
The best stories aren’t always about the places you find.
Sometimes they’re about the places you don’t.
And if you ever visit Nauru and somebody tells you there’s a wonderful little bar at Buada Lagoon, don’t believe them.
