Continuation from yesterday”¦.
There were quite a few shops, most selling a strange assortment of random goods, kind of like mini Targets with just a few food items, a few clothes, a few home improvement items, etc. It looks like they stock whatever they can get their hands on to sell. Eric did manage to find a used propeller for Kosmos that he thinks will help with speed.
We walked the length of town and Continue reading
Once it was light out we could get a better look at the bungalows. The floor is covered in woven floor mates, the kind that we watched the lady make on Waya Island. The frame is large bamboo rods. The interior layers of walls are made up of thin bamboo stalks lashed together. The exterior layers of walls look to be similar to the woven mats on the floor. The roof is palm fronts with a relatively tall pitch. The roof extends over the porch. The roof fits snugly at the corners where the roof is lowest, but there is a big gap between wall and ceiling in the center of the little hut. This provides good air ventilation, and with the roof extending so far beyond front walls, no exposure to rain. We have seen this style of construction even in modern buildings all over the south pacific, particularly in the Marquesas. The beds have a mosquito netting over them that you can put down to protect yourself from bug bites. There is a small gas lamp at the bedside.
The restrooms are separate buildings that are shared by a few of the rooms. There is a small stall with a toilet and a basin with soap and water. There is a second stall with a shower. If you are looking for first world luxuries, you probably wouldn’t like it too much. If you are looking for a unique experience in a picturesque setting, this is the place for you.
Breakfast was at 07:00. They served Continue reading
One of the biggest tourist attractions in Port Vila is the Mele Cascades Waterfall, located a few miles outside of town. Jaime had gone to the Cascades before we arrived and he said it was worth going to a second time, so we knew they had to be good.
We caught a bus. The buses are odd for us. There is no regular route. You simply hail down a minivan with a “B” license plate. You tell the driver where you want to go and they eventually take you there, after a few stops along the way (and out of the way) to deliver other passengers.
The bus dropped us off at a nice park looking area. From the entrance you can see a nice footpath paralleling a stream. The path slopes upward gently and is nicely landscaped. As you walk up, there are quite a few small drops little, tiny waterfalls — in the river that are quite pretty to look at. There are birds chirping. It is really serene.
We were up again at 07:00. The information we had downloaded said Yacht World would help us with the check in process, and they opened at 07:30. We got them on the radio a little before 08:00. They told us to sit tight and they would bring the quarantine officer to our boat around 09:30.
Port Vila bay has two small islands in the center of it. This is a scan from a postcard
The quarantine anchorage is located Continue reading
Lat 17.44S, Long 168.18E. Vanuatu is made up of 83 islands over an area of 450,000 square kilometers. Like Fiji, some of the islands are volcanic and some are raised coral islands. Like Tonga, Vanuatu lies on the squarely on the Pacific Ring of Fire. There are nine active volcanoes and earthquakes are commonplace.
The vast majority of the population are native Vanuatu (called ni-vans), and most live in traditional rural villages that are much the same as they were before the arrival of Europeans. Both culture and language vary greatly from village to village. Vanuatu has the highest concentration in the world of Continue reading
