Ximena, me and Alejandro on my first night in Port Vila. It was their last night.
Vanuatu is a newly independent country, only since 1980. Each of it's islands has different nature and associated tribes. The capital, Port Vila, is located on Efate Island. I spent a few days touring around the Port Vila area and checking out the nature highlights of Efate. I did not go too far from Port Vila as my private taxi driver I hired for the day did not want to drive so far. I saw most of the highlights on this day but it was a real struggle getting the driver to go where I wanted. He seemed like he regretted offering the idea almost right away. We stopped by two beautiful waterfall parks, a few beaches for photos, and the famous Blue Lagoon.
I stayed in an empty, gigantic hostel on a lake front in Port Vila. It was at the edge of town on Cook Street. This street is named after Captain Cook, who "discovered" this region. The hostel was cavernous. Finding a shared taxi outside on the street to get to town was not a problem. My first shared taxi driver of the day offered to be my private guide the following day. We negotiated a great price and I was very excited.
I wanted to start in the local market. It's a great place to get a sense of quotodien life. Alejandro and Ximena, whom I had met in Samoa, recommended getting the giant coffee and toast spread with peanut butter for a truly authentic experience. From there, the driver waited for me to take me to Blue Lagoon. I guess the funny part of the story is that I had a list of attractions and when I listed them, he decided we could only do one of them. Eton Beach was too far. Ok, what about the beach we just drove by on the way to Blue Lagoon? Oh, they aren't nice enough for him to stop by... even though I politely asked.
Blue Lagoon was a beautiful site. I wanted to see the lagoon feed into the ocean. As I started walking towards the ocean, I encountered a barbed wire fence. That's a very clear sign that you cannot pass. However, it was also clear that Blue Lagoon does not just suddenly end where this fence is. There was no signage and if you go down to the rocks by the water, you could easily continue onward, so I did. I was alone. I walked by a family arriving and hopping out of a van. I politely waved and said hi as I continued onward, exploring where I should go to get my photo of the Lagoon and the ocean together. Suddenly, the patriarch of the family comes up behind me and tells me I have to leave. I asked him to clarify. He said this area of Blue Lagoon is not for tourists. I said I understood and I asked him for permission to take a picture of the ocean. He said ok but then I had to leave and he had a big smile on his face.
When I went back to get my stuff, I asked the local tour operators what that whole situation was about. They said there is an area unofficially designated for locals where they prefer not to see tourists. I did not feel like this was a very friendly encounter.
After Blue Lagoon, I knew from the ride up, there were no other beaches we would pass. Because the driver didn't stop at them on the way up and we were going to go to Eton Beach, I asked him to stop at the beaches now. He drove right past the first one. So awkward. So I had to ask for him to stop yet again and he said he was taking me to a nicer one. This second cove was about 2 minutes away but unfortunately it was not as nice, in my opinion. The original beach we passed had some cool rock formations I wanted to get a closer look at. I had to ask him to turn around so I could got my beach shots. He started resenting me, it seemed.
He took me to Rarrua Waterfall, a newly opened tourist destination. The nature walk was incredibly enjoyable. They had built a waiting area for drivers to play pool and chill. I did not feel too rushed knowing that the driver would be able to socialize.
Earlier, the driver had come up with the idea of seeing "turtles". He could not describe to me more of what that was. At Blue Lagoon, I saw some local tourist guides and asked them about "turtles" and they explained that there are some famous turtle feeding sites. I quickly looked it up and saw that they were all the way at the north end of the island and considering the driver did not want to take me past Eton Beach, there's no way that's where we could be going. Alas, after 25 minutes of driving into the island, off the main road, we arrived at a small zoo. When I got to the entrance, the lovely receptionist asked me for money right away. I asked for a pamphlet first. The pamphlet was a series of three photos of a husband taking pictures of a wife holding baby turtles out of a fish tank with the heading, "Great Photo Opportunities!". This would be a hard pass. I told the driver "no, thanks" and asked to go back into town for lunch instead. Now he really hated me.
Bislama is the name of the version of pidgin English spoken in Vanuatu. The word blong is used for possession and is almost like the phrase "belonging to the".
It did not really get any better from here. He asked me where I wanted to go to lunch and I told him Numbawon Cafe. He told me Lava Lounge has good roast chicken. I looked up some TripAdvisor reviews and saw that Lava Lounge is really a bar with a bar menu, so I thanked him for the recommendation and asked him to take me to Numbawon Cafe anyway. He just got so frustrated. I don't understand why. He asked how long I wanted to eat lunch, I said 45 minutes. He was aghast. I almost cut the estimate down to 30 and then I reminded myself that it was his idea to be my driver for the day.
I was looking for the bathroom when he was supposed to pick me up at 2:15pm. He wasn't in the parking lot yet so I figured I could find the toilet. Of course, I could not find it and when I got back to the restaurant parking area at 2:18pm, he confronted me angrily saying he had been looking for me. I was pretty disappointed that even after lunch, he couldn't blow off some steam and let go of whatever was bothering him. He must have just arrived in the parking lot and, boy, he really wanted this day to be over.
The next stop was supposed to be Mele Cascades and we would end at Hideaway Beach. Instead he took me directly to Hideaway Beach, I don't know why. So I had to politely ask him to take me, again, to the place I had asked him when we got in the car. This story is making no sense at all, even as I type it, but it happened. It's real. Mele Cascades has a longer nature hike before arrival at the falls. The series of falls are smaller until you get to the big one! It's so peaceful and lovely out there. I had told the driver I wanted to spend an hour there. I felt rushed.
The reason why I included all of the honest details of the day trip besides the descriptions of the nature sites is because I want to convey my perspective and experience to you. The narrative above might seem like this is really a story about an argumentative driver, regretful of his plan to make some cash for the day, with some nature in between. That's because this is how I experienced it. Even though I have beautiful photographs and I am very grateful for what I saw, it came at the expense of feeling mostly rushed and having to argue with the driver to take me to all of these places. It was such a mental challenge to separate the stress of the driver relationship saga with simply being able to enjoy the beauty of the nature. I tried my hardest.
I got back to the car park at Mele Cascades and the driver had picked up a few Australians who were also heading to Hideaway. I was not upset by this but I imagined that had I not been on time, I would have been greeted angrily. Also, I guess I was paying the guy for the whole day, so technically those passengers should have been paying me, not the driver, but who cares.
Hideaway Beach sunset.
At Hideaway Beach, they were preparing the set for the weekly Fire Show. This is a famous performance. It had come highly recommended by others. I could see the unassigned seats filling up quickly, even two hours before the show started. There were reserved tables behind the unassigned seats. I watched as a Chinese couple was forcefully removed from the table because they did not want to get up and they did not have a reservation. So super awkward.
The Fire Show was the best show of all of the performances I had seen in the South Pacific. The performers are self-managed. They perform to the tune of pop music and they have one number with a mashup of local music. There are twelve synchronized fire dancers. For the first time, I saw female fire dancers. Sometimes the dancers blow giant flames during a climactic moment of the song. Other times, there are sparks flying in the air during the chorus. I was so engaged and impressed.
After seeing the natural beauty of Efate Island, I knew that I wanted to really take in the nature of Tanna Island, famous for its active volcano and that I did not want to feel rushed at all. I would spend four days on Tanna.