Cruise ports! If you think it's fun on the ship just imagine how thrilling it is to step ashore in a foreign land for the first time.
Walking down the gangplank onto the wharf at Luganville (Santo) and seeing the crowds of locals waiting to ply us with souvenirs or take tours was exciting. The sounds, the smells, the excited chatter of the locals, the colourful clothing, children with huge eyes and big white grins, coconuts in piles too high to peer over, fresh caught crabs all trussed up ready to cook and people, so many people everywhere! There were rows and rows of buses, all ready to take those who had booked shore tours and what seemed like hundreds of other vehicles of all shapes and sizes, the local taxis.
Well we hadn't booked a tour, we had decided to wing it. First we headed to the markets that were lined up on the other side of the vehicles, stretching right up to the main road. There was all manner of items for sale. Brightly coloured sarongs, beads of all shape, colour and size, a man with a green lizard that you could hold for $5 and take a photo with, grass skirts and coconut bras, wooden spears and long knives. It was different and it was exciting!
Before I had a chance to spend some of the $5 notes I had bought ashore to trade for souvenirs my girlfriend dragged us over to a "taxi" and driver she had engaged for a private tour. Sounds grand doesn't it, a "private tour". For $50 for the 5 of us, she had also roped in another wide eyed-hopeful, we got a driver and his offsider, a 10yo well used and battered double cab ute for the day and a tour to the interior of the Island of Espíritu Santo. We had a choice of travelling inside the ute or in the tub tray, naturally being the free spirit that I am I was first in the back, along with my girlfriends hubby and our wide-eyed hopeful. That left the driver and his offsider, my hubby and my bestie in the cab. We each found a comfortable perch on spare tyres, tool boxes and tarpaulins laying around the tub tray. The sun was shining and excitement beckoned!
The first stop was just down the road, we needed to convert some of that $50 into fuel to get us out of town, but we also found some supplies at the attached shop for our adventure. Including some sort of minced meat served on a crusty roll that only Laurie, my BFF's hubby, and I were game enough to try. Hey we didn't die and it was tasty, everyone else settled for the crusty roll with a piece of cheese and a bottle of water.
Many other passengers from the ship had also engaged smiling locals and their double cab "taxis" for a tour. Just like them we were too excited to sit quietly in the back, so we stood up grasping the roll bar over the cab with one hand and waved madly at anything that moved as we barrelled down the road. Million Dollar Point here we come!
All of the main tourist attractions and beaches are privately owned on Santo, in fact on most of the islands, you will find someone beside the road at the entrance who will charge each person, except guides, to enter, usually $5/head. Tip, always carry plenty of $5 notes they do not have change.
Million Dollar Point is a crushed coral beach. It got its name after WW2 when the Americans bulldozed over a million dollars worth of equipment into the bay, everything from cranes to trucks! Now the wreckage has formed a home for marine life and made a brilliant snorkelling and diving paradise. Tip, wear swim/reef shoes, I am still picking the coral and shell out of my poor heels!
Back in our trusty vehicle we headed off to visit a blue hole. Wow, not at all what I expected. Once again a private property with a $5 entrance fee, well worth the cost. Jackies family, who own the land, treated us like royalty. It was a tropical paradise. The blue hole, which is basically a sink hole that can be over 100m in depth, was spectacular! The water was an amazing electric blue in colour and so clear you felt like you were looking straight down into the centre of the earth! We swam and feasted on the tropical fruit provided by the owners. It was heaven.
Loaded up again we headed to a Custom Village. The welcome we received here was truly wonderful. The locals, dressed in colourful traditional costume, danced and sang and proudly showed us around their village. These people have so little but are so happy, they take enormous pleasure in their day to day activities, we have much to learn about appreciating what we have from the Ni-Vanuartu people. I felt honoured to be called friend by their chief.
We were privileged to be invited into the house of the chief and to be shown the woven burial cloth that would, in time, be his. We also had a chance to observe sand pictures, the art of creating pictures using a clear bit of ground and handfuls of sand. Art that lasts only a moment to the eye but forever in the heart. Before we left we got the opportunity to dance with the tribe. I must admit not my best performance, even the local ladies were having a bit of a giggle at my moves.
Off again, this time heading down a dusty, pot holed road far into the wilds. The village we visited next was nothing like the Custom Village. The former was all light and smiles, this one was the complete opposite. The road that ran through the middle of the scattering of lonely huts was little more than a goat track. The children were very shy, peering from around corners or behind their mothers. All of the tribe were in primative dress, virtually a few leaves and a vine tied around their waist. They were a very small people, not Pygmy but not far off. We noticed that all the villagers bar two were on one side of the track that ran through the village. On the other side, by a large long house style of hut that was next to a huge tree, were an elderly lady and a younger man. We were to find that they were the wife of the recently departed Chief and his son, the new Chief.
Our guides asked us to wait while they made arrangements with the Chief for our visit. While we were waiting a few of the villagers ventured over, they couldn't speak any English but were quite friendly. They seemed to be fascinated by my blond hair and also by our light skin tone. One of the ladies kept rubbing my arm, as if trying to rub the colour off, another was running her fingers through my hair. We were later told by our guides that very few, if any of them, had ever seen white people before!
The Chief and his mother were amazing, with our guides as interpreters, he took us around his side of the village, none of the other members of the tribe were allowed to cross the track. We learnt about the plants used for both food and medicine, the meaning of the huge tree that was where the tribe would meet when called and finally we visited the long house beside the tree.
Our guides told us that this hut was their "hospital" and that as well as being Chief the leader of this tribe was also the Medicine Man, assisted by his mother who had formally assisted the previous Chief and Medicine Man, her husband. There were a couple of rough beds inside and many vessels made of stone and coconut shell that held various herbs, roots and strange smelling liquids. The hut was fairly dark and cool inside with a high, steep ceiling. I looked up into the roof of the hut and noticed what looked like a long thick branch extending from one side of the hut to the other fairly high up. The branch had some sort of artefacts hanging from it, all the way along. I asked our guide what they were, after conversing with the Chief we got the answer, they were human jaw bones, dozens of them!
After exiting the "hospital" we offered the Chief the usual $5 each, plus a handsome tip, we wanted to get out of there with our jaw bones intact. He had no idea what money was. We had no gifts to give so ,after a three way conference, we made arrangements for our guides to bring some things back to the village that they could use the next day.
Time to head back down that dusty road to the dock. We were all a bit tired by now, it had been a long day, plus our visit to the last village had been a bit thought provoking.
Taxis on the islands are a bit different to anywhere else, if you are on the side of the road you can wave down any vehicle and get a lift for around $2. So basically every vehicle is a taxi or bus. So even when you have booked the vehicle for a private tour they will stop for passengers along the way, this is how we got to meet a Presbyterian Missionary somewhere out in the back blocks of the island.
After paying the usual fare he jumped in the back with the cool crowd. We exchanged names and then he asked us what we were doing way out there. We explained that we had booked the owners of the vehicle to take us out to see the real people of Vanuatu. He looked at us in shock and said, "You know they eat people?" I laughed and said, "They haven't eaten anyone in 60 years!" He shook his head and replied, "They just haven't been caught."
Next: They rolled us down the gang plank!
