Country #113: Vanuatu- Beware the Kava

I've said it before but I'm lucky af. Or reventada, as my friend Ivon would say. You know how I know this is true? Because a fluke combination of circumstances recently led to me living in Fiji for almost four months. Meaning not only was I waking up in paradise every day, but on my days off, I could book convenient getaways to other nearby paradises.

My first outing was to Vanuatu. I could babble about how it has always been my dream to visit this Pacific Island nation but that would be such total bullshit. Like most people, I had barely heard of Vanuatu. This might be why I was so fascinated when I met a couple from Australia who now lived in Port Vila. They painted such an appealing picture of this as-of-yet undeveloped tropical nirvana that I had no choice but to book my flight.

With that done, I ran into the first obstacle when you are amongst the first to the touristic party. Try as I might, there were no hostels in Port Vila. Anyone that has read this blog, met me or come across any of my kind, know I am a hostel person. I enjoy the communal nature and the wealth of information that can be gathered from fellow travellers. Not to mention, I stay in hotels all the time for work so the novelty of hostels appeals to me, as well. Seeing as this wasn't an option, I was left with no choice but to use hotel points and book a room at a chain hotel.

Only remember how I mentioned how dumb luck and I are best buddies? This turned out to the best Holiday Inn in the history of Holiday Inns.  I don't just say this because of its fantastic location right on the water... or the fact that I was upgraded to a suite... or that minutes after I got to my room, someone was at my door offering me fresh fruit and coconut water. I say this because of the staff. Nisha at the front desk and Sam and Jack at the bar made me feel completely at home. 

Perhaps it was this feeling of warmth and comfort that led me to follow Sam, the concierge to a local kava bar. If you haven't heard of kava (or yaqona in Fiji), it is a slightly narcotic drink made with the ground up root of the pepper plant.  It is pretty common all over the Pacific, as such, I'd had many a bowlful in Fiji and truth be told, it does nothing to me. But when in Rome (or in this case Port Vila), might as well try the local goods. Sam took me to what looked like someone's backyard where people were gathered in small groups. Had I been on my own, I never would have guessed that this was a bar but the man with the large bowl of kava indicated otherwise. I ordered a bowl, took a swig and immediately felt my mouth tingling. Hmmm, that normally doesn't happen until the 4th or 5th Fijian bowl. Two bowls later, I was way deep into my happy place. By the time we parted ways at the Brewery Bar, I finally understood all the hype around kava. 

The best part, there is no kava hangover, which was handy because the next morning I had a tour of the island of Efate. With more time and money, I could have gone to Pentacost Island, where at that moment, young men were engaged in the ritual of "land diving" or jumping off scaffoldings with vines tied around their legs to prove their faith. This madness, which was the inspiration behind bungee jumping, only happens during certain months but has of late become something of a tourist spectacle. Had I flown to Pentacost Island, I would not have had enough time to do anything else so watching land diving goes onto my long list of things to do next time.

As for the Efate tour, it was the driver, myself and an elderly Australian gentleman whose job working in mines with explosives had left him woefully hard of hearing. Our first stop was the Iarofa Village, where we learned of their traditional ways of life, listened to some music played on a pipe organ consisting of bamboo poles and used flip flop and watched one dude walk on hot stones. Because I had entered the village with the older gentleman, they kept looking to me to explain to him what had been said but half the time I had missed the gist myself and didn't want to be the one to scream "I THINK HE SAID THAT IS THE HUT THE WOMEN HAVE TO GO TO WHEN THEY GET THEIR PERIODS!!" Fortunately some other visitors stepped in to help. 

The bamboo barricade is meant to tell visitors that they are not permitted in until the chief grants his permission.

Our next stop was the Blue Lagoon, a limestone swimming hole that is, as advertised, very blue. I could have spent the entire rest of the day alternating between cooling off in the water and coming out to eat the fresh fruit our guide had prepared for us.

Only that would have made us late for our beachside lunch where we were met with the second serenade of the day.

Next up, the WWII museum, which is really one man's passion project. Ernest has devoted his life to gathering the detritus left behind by war, be it weapons, meal trays or most commonly, discarded Coca Cola bottles.

He is drawn to the fact that the bottles used to have their place of manufacture written on the bottom. His grandson, who was leading our tour, asked me to pick one up to see for myself and by, yes, dumb luck, I grabbed the bottled labeled "Miami" (my home town).

We finished off the day at Gideon's Landing, best known as the filming location of Survivor, the Vanuatu edition. In retrospect, it kind of makes sense that they pick locations like Fiji and Vanuatu for these shows. That way, you can have the contestants "roughing it" while the crew gets to chill on their off time in a pretty great locale.

Back in downtown Port Vila, I headed to main strip to settle in at a waterfront cafe and enjoy the sunset while making my plans for the following day.

Come nighttime, it was time to check out the surprisingly eclectic War Horse Saloon.

Day 2, once again, lack of time and money (and in this case, dive experience) affected my plans. With more of all three, I could have gone to the island of Santo Espiritu and paid a visit to the SS President Coolidge, a luxury ship that was conscripted into war duty and ended up sinking after hitting 2 mines. It is one of the top wreck dives in the world but it sits at 40 meters and is considered more of an advanced dive.

I was anything but having just recently done a refresher course. I was determined to up my diving skills so as to do a  shark dive in Fiji but truth be told, I wasn't crazy about it. I was stressed throughout my refresher dives and came quite close to calling it quits. Yet, I knew I would regret it if I missed out on the sharks so I took the opportunity of being in Vanuatu to get some practice, reassuring myself all along that if I hated it, there would be no 2nd dive. 

 I signed up with Big Blue Divers and got lucky for yet a third time by getting assigned to the fantastic Aaron.  He was both knowledge and super chill, which is the perfect combination in a divemaster.

Our first dive was to Gotham City. Don't ask me why it is called that because I truly have no clue but I do know that there was great coral diversity, lots of marine life and most importantly, no stress. I think I was too distracted to be nervous. Aaron would periodically check my gauge to see how I was doing on air, ask if I was ok and then applaud my progress, which gave me a heretofore unknown diving confidence.  He also keep pointing to these little blobs, which I later learned were nudibranchs.

Where on my prior dives, I had been eager to get it over with, this time, it came as a surprise when it was time to ascend. How did the time go so quickly?

There was no question I was doing the second dive. The next one was at a spot inexplicably named West Side Story (note: there were no rival fish gangs, I asked) and featured a massive field of yellow staghorn coral.

No photo really captures how cool it was, but trust me, it was super cool. If there was stuff like this down there, I now wanted to be a diver.

Had there been a third dive that day, I would have done that too.  If I wanted to stay in the water, I had to make other arrangements. Enter Hideaway Island, a resort that sits a short ferry ride away from the mainland. Its' chief gimmick is that they have an underwater post office, where you can mail waterproof postcards that are conveniently for sale in the gift shop.

They have snorkeling gear for rent but the first 3 leaky sets I tried had me swallowing more seawater than I'd cared to. I kept persevering because I wanted to sent my nephew a postcard but between the crap gear and the fact that anything that sits entirely underwater can be a bit challenging to find, I half expected to drown with postcard in hand. Finally, the resort's divemaster intervened with working gear and detailed directions to the post office. I eventually found the postbox- hurrah- but it was for naught. My nephew is still waiting on the fricking card. For all I know, it is sitting at the bottom of the sea with a pile of discarded garbage snorkels.

My last day snuck up on me much too quickly. My original plan was to hang out at the hotel, kicking back like a normal person on vacation.

 And then I remembered that I am FOMO personified and quickly booked a quick trip to Mele Falls. 

The Falls are set within a lovely park and are definitely worth a visit. It is possible to climb the slippery rocks to the top but I simply didn't have "run to the hospital to set a broken leg" kind of time. I had a flight to catch. Instead, I found a perch at the foot of the falls and enjoyed my last few moments in Vanuatu...like the lucky bitch that I am.