They told us we’d be picked up for the tour at 9:00am at our accommodation - so they turned up at 8:30am and were astounded that we weren’t ready to go. They said they had to pick up some more people so we sent them off to do that while we finished doing important things like getting dressed. When they came back for us (at 9:10) we discovered that “more people” meant one other couple. Who were a bit old. But they seemed very nice so we set off for our Grand Tour. Our guide was Mary who told us that Robert, who was our guide on the waterfall tour, was supposed to be running this tour but had been late for work so she had to take over. Naughty Robert.
Our first stop of the day was at a small traditional village to watch them do fire-walking. Getting there basically involved us turning off the main road and then driving down a mud track next to a jungle. When it seemed that we had arrived in the middle of nowhere. the minibus stopped in the middle of the mud track and we go out. Then our guide shouted into the jungle and after some shouts came back we set off down a tiny path into thick jungle. As we walked further in Jen decided to take a few photos of the jungle and after aiming her camera at a particularly thick part, nearly shat her pants when a scary tribal man who was hiding there starting shouting at her. We were both a little terrified that we’d inadvertently gone the wrong way and strayed into the territory of a tribe who would probably murder us with spears - but the smile on our guide’s face reassured us that this was all part of the experience and we had no need to fear a speary death. On the walk into the village more scary tribal men jumped out and shouted at us and hid behind trees and things. Then the chief came out with a big leaf that meant that they wouldn’t kill us - which is always nice to see. Once that had happened they all stopped being so terrifying and shouty and welcomed us into the village where they told us about how they make fishing nets out of spider webs and showed us some traps they had made for catching lobsters and chickens and things. They also showed us a massive hollow tree that they hide in if there is a cyclone, and a sort of pit that they can store bananas in during the cyclones to make sure they have food afterwards. It was all very interesting!
Learning about spider web fishing nets.
Inside the cyclone tree.
Then we walked through to the area where one of the blokes did the fire-walking. They had a fire burning on top of some stones and that was what he actually walked across, barefoot, with only some chewed up leaves that he spat onto the soles of his feet to protect him. He walked back and forward on it about 4 or 5 times and afterwards they tipped some water on there so that we could see how hot it was when the water turned instantly into steam. Very impressive. When it was time for us to leave their village they walked with us back to our bus and helped us to get all the mud out of our shoes with some handy pointy sticks.
Our next stop on the tour was supposed to be Blue Lagoon but when we got there the gates were locked, and despite our guide doing some more shouting into bushes nobody came to let us in, so we moved on to our next stop Eton Beach which was a very pretty little beach with nobody else there. We did a bit of swimming but the weather had been a bit rainy so the water was quite chilly. After swimming they served us morning refreshments which was an awesome selection of local fruits including passion fruit, lady finger bananas, wild apple and grapefruit. They’d obviously catered for a lot more than 4 people so we ate our body weight in fruit before getting back on the bus to head to our next stop which was a boat ride up the river to another traditional village. On the way there it started to hammer down with rain so we donned our trusty pack a macs before getting into the boat which was made of two hollowed out trees held together with some planks of wood. Very cool. They also gave us headbands to wear made of leaves and flowers - Chris looked particularly manly in his.
The boat ride was really nice and when we arrived at the next village the chief was there blowing on a conch shell. Another guide met us and told us to stand in a particular place with the men on one side and the women on the other and told the men to get their cameras ready. After already being scared shitless once that morning Jen thought she was dead clever because she’d spotted some guys hiding in the bushes before they had chance to run out. However she didn’t see the two who were standing right behind her and ended up screaming like a massive girl for the second time that day.
The chief welcoming us.
Jen after being terrified again.
Traditional dancing.
All the men in the village then performed some traditional dances for us including a war dance and one where they pretended to be a dragonfly. Then they welcomed us into their village where they played some music and sang for us. We were expecting traditional songs but the first song they did was “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” - they looked a little baffled when we chuckled at it but we had a little dance and it was all very nice. They also gave us some sweet potato and yam to eat that had been cooked in an underground oven like the hangi in New Zealand. They served it on banana leaves and we drank coconut milk straight from the coconuts. As we were leaving some of the boys in the village shouted “Bye! I love you!” and then ran to eat all the leftover sweet potato and yams. It was very funny.
Chris drinking from a coconut in his lovely headband.
Sweet potato and yams cooked wrapped in leaves in the ground.
We were then driven back down the river to a small shack where we were served lunch which was made up of traditional dishes including more yams, a kind of savoury banana, rice, chicken curry and chicken stew. There was also a kind of coleslaw made of coconut and wild apple and some bread. It was all lovely.
We like lunch.
Our next stop was a cave but we didn’t have any torches. Our guide shouted into some bushes and an old lady came out with a very cute little puppy and a torch that was crap. Inside the cave we could just about make out a kayak in some water and the old lady said we could paddle through to another cave but due to the lack of light and the fact that our guide didn’t seem to think it was a great idea we gratefully declined.
The final stop of the day was Gideon’s Beach which is also known as “Survivor Beach” as they filmed some of the Survivor Vanuatu series there. It was a beautiful secluded beach and we did some great snorkeling there but Jen decided it was time to get out when we saw a banded sea snake which we had been told are deadly and did some of the fastest backwards swimming ever seen. Not backstroke you understand, just mainly splashing whilst moving backwards and shouting rude words through our snorkels. Chris knows no fear so after composing himself did some more snorkeling and saw an octopus which kept changing the colour and texture of its skin. Very cool. After tea and biscuits it was time to head back to our accommodation. We had a brilliant day and we made sure we told them so. Our guide Mary told us that their tour company is one of the few that is actually locally-owned - the owner is also a pastor - so the money they make from tours gets put back into the community to help with building schools and improving roads. This made us feel warm and fuzzy.
That night we went to a free barbecue at Nautilus, the place where we were staying. We were invited by the owners so we assumed that there would be loads of customers there but it turned out to just be the instructors, the owners and a couple of their friends. They cooked some fish that had been caught earlier that day and some marinated steaks - it was all bloody delicious. Afterwards we went out into Port Vila with the instructors Harry and Emma - on previous nights when we’d gone into the town it all seemed very quiet and empty but they took us to two bars where it seemed that everyone else in Port Vila had gone too. We had lots of drinks, a bit of a dance and an all round good time.
The following day it pissed it down with rain all day, so apart from a quick run to the supermarket we hid in our room all day watching shows on the laptop and nursing our hangovers.
The sun came out the following day so we headed back across to Iririki island to us their posh infinity pool, eat a delicious lunch and generally spend the day pretending we can afford to stay at a 5 star resort.
On our last day in Vanuatu Chris treated us to one more dive with Nautilus. On every single dive that we’d done beforehand we’d been hoping to see turtles and we’d always been disappointed. At almost every place we’d been diving, both in Vanuatu and Australia, people had told us there was a good chance of seeing turtles but so far no luck. But on this day we felt particularly hopeful as we had seen two turtles swimming in the distance whilst we were on the boat. It was a very long dive and we were about to come up as we were running out of air, when our guide Emma spotted a green turtle! It was about 80cm and came really close to us! We were very happy to see it and popped up out of the water with big smiles on our faces. And almost no air left in our tanks…!
That afternoon we were going to spend more time at the posh infinity pool but it decided to continue pissing it down with rain so we hid indoors again apart from a walk down to City Lodge, where we had stayed on our first 4 nights to ask them why they hadn’t refunded us yet for the other 10 nights we paid for didn’t stay there. (We are still waiting for said refund but have been assured it is in process…hmmm).
On our last day in Vanuatu we walked down to the fruit market in the centre of town and had a mooch around. At the back there were a load of old ladies cooking food and selling it so we had an absolutely bloody delicious lunch of home-made chicken curry and rice for about £3.50. Then we headed back to Nautilus to get our bags and say our goodbyes, before another quick stop at City Lodge to remind them about our refund we headed to the airport feeling a bit sad to be leaving Vanuatu.
The flight back to Nadi was only about an hour and a half and they gave us a nice little sandwich. When we arrived we headed back to Nadi Bay resort where we had stayed for our first 2 nights and they promptly upgraded us to a double room with air-conditioning! Hooray for free upgrades! We had some dinner and talked about watching a film in their little cinema before deciding it was a much better idea to go to bed at about 9:30 as we were pooped.
That was a week ago now so there is still a lot more to say but we this entry is getting a bit long so we will leave it there for now and post again in a few days!
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