Sunday In Port Vila

The day starts early in Vanuatu. At around 3:00am, the local rooster, who clearly has no concept of “dawn”, or “daylight”, starts up. This rouses the dogs, who start to bark. In amongst this, the geckoes, sated by a night’s happy hunting (and thankfully keeping the mosquito population down), give a loud chirrup. At around 5:00am, the rest of the birds decide, against the evidence, that it’s now dawn, and start their chorus. The mynahs are particularly vocal.

Eventually we arose, and after a quick wash in the open-air shower, we head to breakfast. This is a buffet-style affair. Afterwards we went for a swim in the warm and clear sea, then lounging around to get dry.

At 10 o’clock, there was a presentation by the Tour Manager of the resort, Frita, who gives us details on what, and what not, to expect. The island is recovering from the damage inflicted by Cyclone Pam, but one of the consequences was a loss of nearly all their fruit crops for the year, so the full range of fruits isn’t available unless imported. Another thing she warned us about was bus drivers trying to extract cash from tourists. The bus system is fairly basic – private minibuses will pick you up from the side of the road (you don’t need to wait at a bus stop) and take you where you want to go for VT150 (around 2NZD) anywhere in the capital. Out of town will cost you extra. She also told us about the bad review they’d had on TripAdvisor where someone had complained about the gecko poo. Hey, people, you’re in a tropical country - gecko poo goes with the territory. It’s not as if there’s great steaming piles of the stuff all over the place! 

We changed some of our cash into coins so that we’d have the right change for the bus, and, after a quick lunch by the pool, decided to hop on a bus and explore the capital, Port Vila. Vanuatu is quite a traditional country, and most of its commercial activity ceases on a Sunday. However a few shops were open – mostly of the “tourist accoutrements” variety, and we were able to pick up a couple of items we’d neglected to bring with us – a useful day pack, for example.

We also found Big Blue Dive, and arranged a twin diving submersible trip for Monday, as well as a journey into the jungle to do the jungle zipwire experience in the afternoon. Tomorrow will be a day of action!

We stopped by at the Nambawan Café for a refreshing drink, then toured the rest of the capital’s mostly closed business precinct, before stopping another bus nd getting back to our resort. Neither driver tried to swindle us. I felt cheated.

Back at the beach, the tide had gone out, so we wandered up and down the edge where sand and rock pools had formed, observing the wildlife. There seemed to be some gigantic struggle going on between a sea slug and a hermit crab. A sea urchin then crashed the party. It was all very David Attenborough, but we didn’t hang around to see who’d won.