The Good and the Bad

We’ve been hijacked by Vanuatu, which is so lavishly vibrant and distracting that I haven’t blogged for ages.  Apologies to our fan (that’s you Mama).

And since we’ve arrived my opinions about the place have see-sawed and changed about every five minutes so that blog posts that I’ve been composing in my head have become redundant by the next day.

So, here’s some stuff about Vanuatu; not all of it, because that would take too long.

The good:

Hoist the plantains!

Fresh food! In New Cal we couldn’t afford to eat bananas, which cost about $20 a hand.  In Vanuatu, people keep giving us bananas.  We’re like, sinking under the weight of bananas.  We have banana pancakes, banana cakes, fried bananas, curried bananas, baked bananas, grated and steamed bananas.  Some of the bananas are actually plantains, but when they ripen they’re essentially a banana.  Everywhere you go you can get fresh fruit and veg.  Sometimes it comes out to you in a canoe, sometimes you have to go and find it, but it’s there and it’s cheap, local and organic.

Riding in the back of a ute!  Everywhere we went on Tanna we travelled by ute and before the novelty wore off, we all crammed in the back to bounce along dirt roads hallooing at locals, dodging pigs and chickens and marvelling at the massive banyan trees passing by overhead.  Er, then the novelty wore off, but that’s another story.

Thermal activity!  Visiting Mt Yasur, “the world’s most accessible volcano”, has been on our to-do list for two years.  By “accessible” they mean that it’s possible to misjudge your step and find yourself sliding down a vertical beach into an exploding lava pit.  The tours run at dusk, so the chances of tripping on the way down in the pitch dark, perhaps startled by the earth-rattling boom of another eruption, are actually quite high.  Some of us struggled with that.  At one point Budi went into the foetal position, pulled his hoodie over his head and tearfully refused to move.  “You’ve wasted all your money on me,” he wept.  It’s true, the volcano tour is an expensive trip and that did occur to me as I tried to cajole him to his feet and get his damned money’s worth.  But one of the exceptional guides gently took his hand and led him to the top of the crater rim from where you get the really spine-tingling experience of looking down into three lava pits, which reliably explode and toss molten rock up at you every ten minutes or so. 

“How come you went with him and not us?” Miles asked Budi afterwards. 

“I didn’t think I had choice,” said Budi. 

He’s glad he went all the way to the top though, and as soon as we got back down to the lower viewing area his bravado came back in full force and he started shouting typical Budi-like things at the volcano like, “Is that all you’ve got?  Come on big fella, show me some lava!”

Lava

Shiny happy people!  Okay, the Ni-vans are unbelievably friendly, crazy friendly.  When we wave at an overloaded boatload of folk driving by, they all wave back, some of them stand up in spite of zero freeboard, and many of them do the two-arm wave.  People are helpful, generous and endlessly amused when they see me (for example) trying to get a volleyball back over the net.  We’re talking doubled-up, legs-crossed, eye-wiping laughter.  I’ve never been so funny.

Look at the size of Morris's yam!  And look how stoked he is about it!

No plastic!  The island of Tanna officially discourages plastic bags, and the rest of Vanuatu is following suit.  Instead of plastic bags at the markets, there's these awesome baskets woven out of coconut leaves.

 

Reminy making a shopping basket with the help of the wonderful Jill.

Trading! It’s possible to get your laundry done by someone in the village for the price of a few op-shop t-shirts.  You can trade a couple of litres of petrol for a crayfish, a pawpaw, some bananas, a bag of limes, and some things that you thought at first were cucumbers but which turned out to be weird squishy gourds.  But here the awesomeness of trading starts to get muddy and it’s time I moved over to:

The Bad:

Trading! Okay.  So all we wanted was a pawpaw.  We’d anchored up in a bay on Erromango and motored in to the village to find some fresh fruit.  Before we knew it we’d been siphoned up the hill to a guest house run by a lovely couple who sat us down under their shady pergola, promised us fruit and veg “for free” and insisted that they cook us dinner or lunch the next day.  Then the talk turned to our boat.  How big was she?  How many people could sleep on her?  How much cargo could she hold?  Alarm bells were blaring in my head but Nobnuts on the other side of the table was blithely talking up the cargo capacities of our boat and before we knew it we’d been roped into taking half a tonne of Sandalwood and its grower to Vila, a 20 hour trip.

On the upside, we got two free meals (one with lobster), lots of free fruit and veg, a tour of the food gardens and permission to swim in the local swimming hole.  Also, the boat smelled amazing, especially the front cabin which we don’t use on passages and which was piled high with bags of sandalwood.

One of our trading meals.  Note large platter of lobster.

On the downside, we had to strap 8 tree trunks and their root balls to the deck, climb over bags of sandalwood to use the aft head and find room for another body to sleep in an already full boat on an uncomfortable overnight passage.  And our guest had a nasty cold, which we all caught.

Oh, one more upside: when the sandalwood was unloaded and the boat went back to housing a measly 5 people, Pandion felt HUGE.  But our childlike enthusiasm for trading with the locals has become slightly tempered with caution.

Pandion: Pacific Island Trader

Disease! Since arriving in Vanuatu gastro has swept through the boat twice, Miles has been on antibiotics for a nasty sea ulcer and we’re just weathering the tail end of the Sandalwood Influenza.  From here on northwards, we run the risk of contracting malaria if we’re not diligent.

Land ownership! Every beach, every reef, every anchorage, every piece of land in Vanuatu is owned by somebody, so dropping the pick, tendering ashore and going for a leg-stretching walk is suddenly not as straightforward as it’s been in New Cal and Oz.  I’m not complaining – I love it that Ni-vans own their land and I’m sure it contributes to their obvious well-being – but it means a well-timed conversation with people on shore soon after arrival and a possible bout of “coutume” before everyone feels comfortable.  For someone who likes to walk solitary long distances as often as possible, it can feel a little stifling.

No cheese! A 2 kg block of gouda (the only kind available) costs $56 in the Port Vila supermarche.  I couldn’t justify it, so as well as being on strict peanut butter, honey, tahini and esiyo rations, we’re also down to two small blocks of Colby, muled in by Mama and Poppy a week ago (thank you!).  

Cheese substitute.

 We're currently anchored in Havannah Harbour waiting to go diving for RJ's 15th birthday present.