After a 2 hour truck ride (the fastest I’ve ever gotten into town) that started at 5:30am, a couple hours waiting around Lakatoro until an appropriate time to go wait at the airport, a very hurried plane boarding and an 18 minute flight I arrived in Santo at 11:35am on 25 July. When I got to the airport I called my Uncle Jackson who happens to drive a taxi in Santo and he gave me a ride to Santo East School where I was staying with Bryan and Kate for the week (or so…my departure date was undetermined at that time). Santo East is (I believe) the biggest primary school in the country with over 1000 students. It’s located right in the provincial center of Luganville and has quite a bit of money. Walking into Kate and Bryan’s house I was initially speechless, seeing and feeling the real tile on their floors and immediately spotting their oven and shower, both being inside of their house. Then there were the things I wasn’t seeing…the large spiders or rat droppings.
After I dropped my things and relaxed on their couch for a bit we headed into town to go get a snack and some internet. There’s a cafe called Allan (or Attar as it’s probably actually named) where you can accomplish just these two things! I got a coffee and some magical dessert bar–gram cracker bottom, coconut/caramel cream middle and thick, rich chocolate on top–and connected to the web. After a little while some other volunteers who live in town joined us and off we went to happy hour. I should say, off we went to one of the best happy hours ever because even though happy hour (buy two beers get one free) ends at 6:30, if you get there at 6:15 like we did you can order three beers and pay for them at the happy hour price but drink them cold at any point throughout the evening. Brilliant!
There was also a great dog at happy hour. This healthy, excited bull dog type just loved coming over to our group because we were all sitting in these tall stools with our legs at a perfect height to pet him with our feet. Now that I’m typing this it all sounds a little crazy but it’s what we did, it was fun and fun is good!
The remainder of the night involved a bit of walking around, some dancing, a few injuries from doing the worm and the most delicious grilled steak sandwich I’ve had in awhile. Luganville was really winning me over.
The next day was the Santo Rodeo. Now, I’ve never been to a rodeo before and never thought my first one would be in Vanuatu but it was. Kate, Bryan, Rich and I headed over to the rodeo around noon because we heard there would be a bull riding competition as well as fresh grilled meats. Bryan and Rich were going for the bull riding while I was just focused on the grilled meat. After inhaling my grilled meat sandwich (that was actually underwhelming and no comparison to the grilled meat sandwich I had had the night before) and watching some barrel racing Kate and I headed back to the house to relax until the boys were ready to ride the bulls. Around 3 Bryan called to say the bull riding would be starting soon so Kate and I headed back to the rodeo. We could see Bryan and Rich gearing up for their rides–Bryan full of confidence (or at least hiding his fear really well) and Rich pretty much shaking in his boots/sandals but ready for whatever he was getting into. After practicing on an oil drum swing and strapping on the bullet proof vest Bryan got right on that bull and rode it for two whole (heart wrenching for Kate as the loving wife)
seconds. Next it was Rich’s turn. Rich also lasted two seconds but unfortunately didn’t come out as cleanly as Bryan. Although we have analyzed the incident with video evidence provided from multiple angles, we can’t really tell what happened (although there is the possibility of a second bull..not really, obviously, bad JFK joke), but we do know that Rich’s ankle was badly bruised and quite swollen and for the next few days he was crawling around Luganville on crutches–mistaken once for a jungle gym by a cute little boy.
seconds. Next it was Rich’s turn. Rich also lasted two seconds but unfortunately didn’t come out as cleanly as Bryan. Although we have analyzed the incident with video evidence provided from multiple angles, we can’t really tell what happened (although there is the possibility of a second bull..not really, obviously, bad JFK joke), but we do know that Rich’s ankle was badly bruised and quite swollen and for the next few days he was crawling around Luganville on crutches–mistaken once for a jungle gym by a cute little boy.
Alison got into Luganville that afternoon and completed our crew. She had taken a far more adventurous approach to traveling to Santo by taking a 7 hour cargo ship ride from Ambae. She originally thought the ship would leave on Thursday morning but after her departure time was pushed back and back again, she didn’t end up leaving until Saturday morning. This was alright, it didn’t matter because we were hangin out and ready for a good time.
The next day, Sunday, we were supposed to bike out to the Matevulu Blue Hole but the morning was quite rainy so instead we went over to David’s school (a large secondary school in Luganville) to have a lazy movie afternoon/evening taking full advantage of his projector he has set up for times such as that. The afternoon gave us a bit of sunshine so we went outside for some ultimate frisbee practice–Monday we would be playing with all the expats in Luganville (their weekly tradition). Alison and I had both never played before while Kate and Bryan were superstars. We played for awhile, got the feel of the flow and learned the rules then went back inside to make cheeseburgers and watch another movie.
Tuesday we finally headed out to the blue hole, biking 20km out along rolling rural Vanuatu roads and passing an innumerable amount of cows. We turned off the main road onto a bumpy dirt road that was actually a landing strip during WWII. After following the road for maybe 5 minutes we arrived at one of the most beautiful little spots I’ve ever been. The road led to a small path that led to a huge freshwater pool that was bluer than blue. There were beautiful flowers and trees all around and you could see all the way to the bottom. I jumped in in the only truest acceptable fashion–by rope swing. The first rope swing was only a warm up for the big mama rope swing you could swim out to across the pool. For the big one you have to climb up a ladder, while holding onto the rope, and muster the courage to jump while balancing on a tiny platform built into the tree that happens to be on a slight decline down into the pool, 20 or so feet down. You also have to be sure you hold the rope properly or risk you arm or leg getting pulled off when you finally let go. Sounds fun right?
Well, it was fun, pretty terrifying but definitely fun. My first swing wasn’t too pretty..I swung out once, swung back and swung out again but let go a little too early (or late) and turned to splash right on my back. This was painful but luckily the water was refreshing and soothed the burn I knew would be on my back. My next swing was much more graceful and therefore much, much less painful.
The next day, Wednesday, was Independence Day so we got decked out in our red, yellow, black and green attire and hit the town. Since the Thursday before the park in the center of Luganville had been full of stalls selling lots of different food as well as kava from all over. There was even a kava stall from North East Malekula–we ended up drinking from there a good amount but not because I’m biased to my island, because it was better than a lot of the others. There were also a variety of events each night from fire dancing to boxing and even a Miss. Luganville fashion show, as well as tastes of the local live music.
For Independence we started by hanging out on the side of the park by the water. Alison entertained some kids looking for cool shells and Rich and I looked really cool by putting the peels of banana and mandarin on over our sunglasses to keep the glare from the sun out of our eyes, which also earned us some stares and laughs from the family across from us. Next we wandered around and found a co-ed basketball game and watched it’s final, heart pounding minutes and eventually moseyed on over to the kava stalls to partake in an appropriate Happy Birthday celebration to Vanuatu. This is when I met David Pacquette for the first time. David was born Connecticut, traveled around the US a bit becoming a famous jazz pianist (I believe) and is not living part time in Vanuatu and part time in New Zealand. He’s a hilarious, bluntly honest man just living and loving life and a real funny guy to spend some time with. If it weren’t for him I wouldn’t have known how delicious the watermelon juice at the Natangora Cafe is.
Thursday Alison and I got some errands done–you know, the essentials like buying olive oil, cheese and plane tickets home–used some internet and then in the afternoon headed to Million Dollar Point with Maureen, Sara and Mike who had come over from Malekula the night before. Million Dollar Point is pretty much the WWII American dump. After the war was over and the Americans were ready to leave Vanuatu they realized they had all this large equipment–tanks, jeeps and ships–and no one who wanted to buy them or do anything with them so, they casually dropped them all into the ocean. Now, tourists can pay to go snorkeling or scuba diving at Million Dollar Point to have a look at all this war garbage that the Americans just left. We had some snorkel gear and you could clearly see a tank, tires and one side of a jeep as well as the hull of a ship. Pretty ridiculous. The really cool think about this dumping ground was that there was/is an insane amount of sea glass to be collected and quite a few large pieces of old coke bottles. I found one where you can read NYC on the bottom and one with about 3/4 still intact–whole enough to now use as a tooth brush holder! There was glass from other things too like medicine bottles and of course some Tennessee whiskey.
The last few days on Santo were spent getting an internet fix and mild grocery shopping and on Sunday I headed back to Malekula. After being in Luganville, Port Vila just seems so dirty and over crowded. I loved Luganville and will definitely be back–actually, going back for Christmas with Mr. Peter Jones!–but I wouldn’t trade my peaceful little bush life for it, not yet at least.
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