Here is the late posting of our last trip, in Oct. 2006:
For our last trip whilst living in the Southwest Pacific we decided to go to Vanuatu. It sounded pretty exotic and the diving was meant to be spectacular. We flew on Air Vanuatu from Auckland to Port Vila, the capitol city of the country on the island of Efate (pronounced ‘ef-art-ay’). Vanuatu is comprised of over 80 islands and has more languages per-capita than any other country in the world, at 109. The most common is Bislama, a kind of pigeon English.
Our first day, after settling into our room at Le Meridien Resort, we went to another, smaller resort on a private island called Hideaway Island. It was meant to have great snorkeling and a nice café on the beach, both of which turned out to be true. It was just a 5 minute ride on a small boat from the edge of town. Hideaway Island Resort claims to have the world’s only underwater post office, from which you can mail waterproof postcards! We visited the post office, but the mailman was off duty at the time.
On day 2 we decided we needed to rent a car to explore more of the island. Avis had a small Korean made car for us, brand new. The friendly Aussie folks at Avis told us we could take the car on the “ring road” around the island but to beware of the bad roads. They said to take plenty of water with us as there would be no real provisions outside of Vila, and to allow 5 hours for the trip, even though it was only 138km (86 miles), due to the bad roads. We first stopped at an open-air market to buy a big bunch of small, sweet bananas, then to the one modern grocery store for bottled water.
Avis wasn’t kidding about the bad roads. In some places the road barely resembled a road. The fasted we were able to go at any one stretch was about 30 mph. The scenery however, was spectacular. We drove counter-clockwise around the island. Our first stop was a small, white-sandy beach with crystal clear turquoise waters called Banana Bay. No one else was there, but there was a man-made, thatched roof on wooden posts to provide a shady area, and a sign saying admission to the beach was 200 Vatu, though no one was present to collect it.
Continuing along the rough route, we passed a number of small villages. They were all clearings in the lush bush along the roadside, with thatched huts, chickens, and children’s smiling faces. Near the village of Forari a group of kids flagged down our car, coming into the road with waving arms and big smiles. It turned out they wanted to high-five us!
Further down the road near the villages of Epule and Sara we saw a sign advertising a place called Vatupau and decided to stop for a drink. Following the sign's arrow, we pulled over onto the side of the road to walk down a road/path to the beach. There was a sort of restaurant / bar right on a sandy beach under palm trees, with a nice looking house above on a hill. Although the restaurant was closed, there were a couple local women there who welcomed us. One continued to sweep the sandy beach. We noticed a sign posted on a tree that read in Bislama: “No kilem mama totel long sanbis ia”. We roughly translated this to mean “No killing mama turtles on sand beach here”. We hiked back up the relatively steep path to the road where we were greeted by a gentleman. He was wanting us to come and see some sort of lookout on the other side of the road. Not sure about this, we told him we needed to continue on our way. He didn’t pressure us, but then offered us each a coconut for 100 Vatu. We accepted, and he hacked off the tops of the coconuts with his machete so we could drink from them. The sweet juice really was a treat in the hot sun!
The rest of the drive was dotted with lazy villages cut off from the rest of the world by geography and lack of technology, playing children and bare vegetable & fruit stands. Some attempted to attract tourists, though there were really no facilities of any kind, which made the place all the more special. One village on the north shore of the island had a sign posted that read “Mautarau Nature and Cultural Village, visitors are welcome…”, though as far as we could tell, there was nothing to see.
Day three was spent relaxing at the resort. The drive really was the highlight of Efate Island. We did have some amazing dinners in town each evening. One was at Rendezvous, an open-air island style place perched on the water’s edge, right across from Iririki Island. The other was at the upscale, romantic Vila Chaumieres. It sits over the water of Emden Lagoon. The water below is lit, so you can see the fishes swim below.
We were looking forward to day 4, which was a flight to Espiritu Santo, the biggest (but more remote) island in the northern group of Vanuatu islands!
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