Land of volcanoes
Vanuatu was not on our list of places we planned to travel to during these five and a half months.
Many of the South Pacific islands have their wet season during these months and some are more cyclone prone than others. Vanuatu is the former, receiving as many as 2–3 tropical cyclones per season. One of the most devastating storms in the history of the islands, cyclone Pam, was a fairly recent one. Winds reaching 250 km/h hit the islands in March 2015, reportedly killing more than 10 people and leaving over 132 000 without a shelter.
Neither of us were particularly keen to get caught up in a cyclone, having seen what cyclones can do, and hearing what they sound like during our visit to Darwin. Cyclone Tracy hit the city in 1974, flattening 70% of the buildings. The Museum and Art Gallery of Northern Territory dedicated a large room to a permanent exhibit presenting the havoc with before and after photos, illustrative relics, personal accounts, and a sound room playing a pretty terrifying recording of Tracy.
So Vanuatu didn’t make the cut.
And then we met John in Taveuni, Fiji. We were sharing travel stories one evening, when he started talking about a family vacation he took with his two teenage kids to Tanna island in Vanuatu a few years back. They climbed to the rim of an active volcano and witnessed first hand the smoking mountain sputtering red hot lava into the air. My ears were pricked up! The scene from the Madagascar — Escape 2 Africa sprung to mind, where King Julian takes Melman, the giraffe, to the volcano to sacrifice him to the gods in exchange for rain. I wanted to know everything about the place. I wanted to see it for myself! That night we briefly discussed it, but got to the conclusion that we probably should not do it.
And then, few weeks on, there was Mariano. A journalist we first met on the Cook islands, then again on Tahiti, and on Hiva Oa. He showed us his pictures from Tanna and related his adventures from the island in detail when we caught up with him for a drink on the Marquesas. It was time to revisit our plans, yet again, but at the end we still haven't taken a firm decision that we should make the voyage.
Soon, our quest was coming to an end on the Marquesas and we were due to fly to New Zealand in a couple of days. One of the entry requirements to NZ is that you must have a return or onward ticket. So far we were travelling on one-way tickets and making up our next steps as were going along. No exception this time, we had no onward ticket as yet. But from our previous stopover in Auckland, when they actually would not let us use the automatic check in counter until someone physically checked our itineraries, we knew they are taking it seriously, at least when you are arriving from certain places. We thought it was best to book something to avoid any unnecessary hassle. The search commenced. Where should we go? Ticket prices to all the other destinations we had in mind seemed extortionate. A last-minute attempt on Skyscanner to destination ‘anywhere’ brought up Vanuatu as the cheapest option. Must be faith, or a happy coincidence… but we ran out of excuses why we should not go! 15 minutes later we had our tickets. It was official: we were going to Vanuatu!
We arrived to Port Vila on a Wednesday afternoon. Going by the Lonely Planet’s description, we were expecting a charming, french colonial town with a beautiful harbor not yet impacted by pollution, one of South Pacific’s most attractive towns. We were disappointed. We found ourselves in the middle of horrendously busy traffic, hustling streets and shabby, crumbling colonial buildings. Our impressions of the place improved by early evening once we had a stroll around, poked our heads in the market, spoke to some of the people, and tried the local specialty, the poulet fish. Clearly our disillusion was driven by, at least in our minds, ill-suited description of the town. Our Port Vila was a lively island town, filled with wide range of shops and restaurants, colorful streets loud with car horns and chatter, where vanuatuans, and surprisingly equally as many westerners, were going about their daily business in a fairly relaxed manner among a mix of new and decaying buildings, seemingly paying little attention to tourists. Fun, but not what we call charming.
First thing Thursday morning we finally flew to Tanna. Less than an hour flight from Efate, the main island of Vanuatu, but a whole world apart!
We were supposed to be collected by out host, Richard, but there was no sign of anyone expecting us at the airport. We started asking around and quickly found a local gentleman who, although did not know who or where Richard was, offered to take us there. He spoke French, several other local languages, which were not very much use to us, and his English was just as broken as our French. In a few minutes, after a phone call, we were on our way. What could possibly go wrong?
Vanuatu has three official languages — Bislama, English and French, the former being a creole language derived from English. Some of the words are remarkably similar to English. Few examples: “nambawan” means “the best”, or “yu go wea?” translates as “where do you go?”. But don’t worry, apart from the occasional word here or there, you won’t understand what is going on. In addition to these three official languages, there are hundreds of other local languages spoken, making Vanuatu the country with highest density of languages in the world. Some of the tribal languages are spoken by only a handful people today.
The drive was approx. 40 km and it was going to take one hour and a half. We soon understood why. The paved road ran out after about 15 kms. The rest was a narrow dirt road through the thick jungle, steep at times, with deep grooves, and embellished with the occasional boulder the size of my head (not that large, granted, if you consider I have a pinhead….). At one point even the small track vanished and we were driving on the ash plane of the volcano, crossing what used to be a lake, and on soft grey sand dunes, with only a small white arrow marking where traffic should be going in each direction to avoid collisions. In the jungle, every once in a while, you had to slow down, or stop, to wait for the people to get out of the way, which sounds easy enough, but it is actually harder than it sounds. At places there is nowhere to go. The thick vegetation starts immediately at the side of the road and sometimes the ledge can be as high as one meter or more. Everyone wonders around with a machete in their hands, so they can clear their way. You see young kids coming home from school barefoot, schoolbag on the back, and a machete in hand. Since they can be walking as much as two-three hours each way, it can be handy, should they become thirsty for a coconut or get hungry on the way.
Upon arrival we took up residence in our villa.
We were content. We had the best view in the house!
In the afternoon we headed up the spewing mountain. A 40 min walk to the foot of the volcano, which takes roughly the same time by car, as we found out later on that evening. Mary, our guide, showed us the village briefly — her house, the church, which is a tent now in the aftermath to the cyclone, and we walked past a few “nagamals”, which are the men’s meeting places for important events, such as evening kava sessions. These are essentially just cleared up places in the woods, sometimes with a basic shelter.
Following our presentation of the customary kavaroot gift to the chief of the Karumene tribe, meaning “Forgotten tribe”, who are the traditional custodians of Mount Yasur, and who then in turn gave his permission for us to enter, we were on our way.
We went up in a small group and our guides took us all the way to the rim of the exploding crater. Mount Yasur, meaning “God”, has been erupting continuously for the last three years. Although it usually can be approached safely, the volcanic activity is being continuously monitored for safety reasons and classified from zero to level four. Above three access is not allowed to the crater or, in some cases, even to the summit zone. The day we were there was a 3, but no one seemed concerned. So we decided we should not get concerned either.
At first you could only see smoke. And a lot of it. The wind occasionally turned and suddenly we found ourselves engulfed in a sulphuric gas cloud. Luckily this did not happen all that often, nor did it last long. The wind soon died down altogether with nightfall and we started to get a gimps of the glowing lava and the burning fire down the crater through the cloud of ash and smoke. It was spectacular!
We were there for several hours, but could not get enough. It was time to leave anyway. A freshly cooked dinner was waiting for us when we arrived back to our place, which we were quite ready for. With no electricity, at 8:00 pm we found ourselves with nothing else to do than to retire for the evening. The fireworks continued in the unpolluted darkness and we fell asleep to the view of the gleaming lava and the occasional soft rumbling of the mountain.
For the remaining two days on the island we decided to just wonder around aimlessly and see what, and who, we bump into. We met a lot of friendly locals — children giggling and waving happily to us everywhere we went, showing us their drawings they made in school, men shaking hands and gleefully stopping for a few moments to chat with us before continuing on their way, and old men beckoning us to their nagamal. We came across a river where we decided to go for a dip. As we were looking for the right spot to enter the water, a kid appeared out of nowhere with the mandatory machete, and a coconut under his arm. Tomax appeared very happy to see us, shook our hands, asked us where we were going, and then announced he will show us the best place for a dip. We found out later that local use this river to bathe themselves and to wash their clothes, rather than for recreational swimming, as most have no running water in their village, or near their bungalows. Richard looked rather puzzled when he heard our choice of afternoon activity to visit the river, and politely inquired weather something was wrong with the shower.
Tomax was very confident talking to us and skipping barefoot across the rocky terrain. We were clearly on his territory. His English was surprisingly good for a 10 year old. He showed us places where you can jump in the river, where the locals are planting vegetables etc., and his stories were growing wilder as the day progressed. Either that, or our English let us down…We made a date with him to rerun for another swim the following day and meet him there. Which we did, and took some fruit bars we had brought with us from NZ to give to him. His reaction was less than pleased…
Somewhat puzzled in the beginning, we understood he was rather hoping for some money instead for his “services”. We also met another old man on our way, who very enthusiastically greeted us and shook our hands when meeting us, then proceeded to ask for photo money for this picture.
It is true, that as soon as you make a move in Tanna, it will cost you money, for transport, for guides etc. — and you do need guides, otherwise you do not stand a chance to find your destination if you do have a specific aim. But randomly asking for money does not seem to be a commonplace. Prices are surprisingly high in general in Vanuatu, but fairly transparent and you don't feel you are being conned. Apart from the airport, where stamps seem to have a surcharge to their face value….
As you probably figured from the pictures, clothing are a problem for these people after the cyclone. Looking after them properly, when you are surrounded by ash all the time, and using cold river water, is also not very easy. Clothes are not easily accessible and expensive. Wish we would have understood this before our trip, we would have taken few shirts etc. with us instead of the fruit bars. Maybe would have stood a better chance for a smile.
Nonetheless, Vanuatu strikes us as a happy country, despite the troubles they have had over the past years. While waiting for our plane back to Port Vila, we watched kids playing — they were trying to pick some beans off the trees, which were sitting rather high. Jumping, climbing on each other's back, launching each other in the air. Such simple thing, lots of creative tries, all encouraged by the grownups, then laughing together each time a human tower collapses, or, yet another, jump fails. No sign of worry from the parents that they will get hurt, or discipline in fear that this is not appropriate behavior. Just simple, uncomplicated friends and family fun. Lots of smiles everywhere.
We spent a week in Vanuatu and we feel it was not nearly enough. Wish we could have spent time on Pentecost, Malakula or Ambrym to experience some of the local customs from here as well.
