The Island: a traveller's guide

This island paradise evokes memories of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, but recently it has attracted a different kind of visitor…

Like Joseph Conrad's Congo, The Island is a cauldron of idyll and mystery, where beauty juxtaposes violence. The first time you wade through the soft, white sand that frames this awe-inspiring land mass, it's difficult not to feel dizzy as you gaze up at the midriff of a brooding volcano, its peak obscured by clouds and its base clothed in dense jungle.

The few explorers brave enough to trek into the thick, humid vegetation do so in pursuit of the deep lagoons and untamed waterfalls that represent the harmonious marriage between the exquisite and the treacherous that The Island represents.

Evidence of a once booming economy of tourism and sugar production is evident for those who look hard enough. The entire population was driven away in the late sixties as The Island's crowning volcano stamped its claim over the land, inundating idyllic resorts like Paradise Beach, now an eerie ghost town of half-entombed buildings and rusting fairgrounds.

Yet this year, visitors are gathering in their thousands; a swarm of ships settles on the shore and releases a vast sheet of fire as the pilgrims disembark, flaming torches in hand. Within hours, the pristine sand is buried beneath a sea of tents. The piercing screech of cicadas is drowned out by hard rock, drum and bass and the roar of a thousand engines.

This congregation are here for the MotorStorm Festival; a competition where the skilled and the fearless race ATVs, motorbikes, rally cars, trucks, buggies and monster trucks across the planet's most unforgiving terrain. Previously held in Monument Valley - an arid scar in the landscape between Arizona and Utah, USA - the festival's organisers are unknown, yet the masses flock to the intoxicating blend of music, speed and danger.

Most seem unperturbed by the legends surrounding The Island. "I don't go in for that hocus pocus," sneers one woman, with her head and hands deep in the bowels of a monster truck. But walk around the camp site and you're sure to hear whispers of trucks consumed by bottomless pools of lava, and of motorcyclists smashed from their saddles by trees with minds of their own.

The 16 courses that have been etched onto The Island take in the exquisite and the lethal in equal doses, winding through fast-flowing streams; along sharp cliff faces; and into yawning caves, buried deep inside the volcanic rock. Competitors arrive with their choice of vehicle and regale their rivals with boasts of its unique suitability, when in truth, nothing is safe.

Motorbikes may be quick and agile, but it only takes one rogue log to send the rider flying towards the canopy; trucks can plough through the thick undergrowth, yet they are one slippery corner away from a tumble down the unrepentant mountainside.

And in the face of such danger, the spirit of the competitors is admirable. This international community is as diverse as the music that pumps from each vehicle, chosen from the driver's personal collection. Friends are forthcoming and rivalries are forged in the spirit of healthy competition as each racer strives to see their name on top of the leaderboard.

Visiting The Island alone is unsettling; the inescapable gaze of the volcano and the opaque jungle give a constant sense of foreboding, like Lord of the Flies or a modern Paradise Lost. It is unclear why the pilgrims have chosen a location so shrouded in mystery and danger for a racing event, but then the MotorStorm Festival is no stranger to the mysterious and the dangerous itself, so perhaps the two are a perfect marriage.