Trip to Tanna

When we got off the plane, it was clear that something was different. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but we definitely weren’t on Maewo. There seemed to be more coniferous and less coconut/palm trees maybe. Also, despite Tanna housing one of the world’s most active volcanoes, there were no mountains looming anywhere. Dan, a volunteer on Malekula, and I hopped on a truck and pointed out the differences between Tanna and other islands we’d seen during the ten or fifteen minute ride into Lenakel.

We got off at the market, and were met by some other volunteers. The market was incredible. Not too much smaller than the one in Vila, but it had a lot of produce that I had yet to see outside of the supermarket monopoly here, Au Bon Marche. Tanna is one of Vanuatu’s southernmost islands and is farther from the equator than islands such as the one I live on. As a result, Tanna is able to grow produce that I, as an American, am more familiar with. Things like carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, apples, and fried dough.

We walked along the dusty dirt road towards the stadium. At the time, Tanna was hosting an “Arts Festival” and the festivities were taking place there in Lenakel. Upon discovering that my trip coincided with the festival, I was excited to see some local handicrafts. Unfortunately, it seemed as if “art” meant kava, lots of people, soccer, trash, dancing, and group of New Caledonians. The only art I really saw were at the market. Woven baskets, mats, and naios. Naios basically look like sticks covered in colorful feathers. I believe Tannese women, also known as Woman Tanna, wear these in their hair during kastom dances. Lacking any sort of foresight whatsoever, I purchased a large purply pink one, and had to figure out creative ways to transport it around with me over the next few days of my stay.

Home base ended up being a stall in which another volunteer’s host family was selling food, kava, and coffee. After putting our bags down, we sat and watched a soccer game, helped make dinner, and marveled at how strange tourists can be. Later that night, there was kava and dancing. Around midnight, we pitched a tent and shivered ourselves to sleep.

The next day, I’d decided that I’d had enough of Lenakel and the crowds. We wanted to go to Port Resolution, which is on Tanna’s east coast (Lenakel is on the west coast), but were told it might be difficult to find transport and that it was an impossible walk. Always up for a challenge, we started walking. It was a beautiful day. Blue skies, no humidity to speak of, and a slight breeze. The hills were steep, but the views were worth the climb. There were plenty of trucks going our way, but they were all full of people and never stopped. Sometimes a truck going in the opposite direction would stop and ask the usual Vanuatu questions: “Where are you going? Where are you coming from?” The responses differed as we walked farther and farther. At first, truck drivers would basically tell us that what we were attempting was impossible. After a while, they would just apologize. Towards the top/middle of Tanna, they would shake their heads.

We encountered other people on the road during our walk. A little boy promised he’d get us on the truck that he was supposed to be taking later on in the day. A mama sent one of her sons to fetch us smoky-tasting water as her terrified youngest child cried and screamed. One kid simply gave me a high five.

When we reached the highest part of the walk, I was amazed by the view. We could see a few other islands from where we stood. The ocean glittered a deep blue color and


Yasur was dark in the distance. A tourist truck had stopped at the top as well and the driver, a Ni-Vanuatu, chatted with us. When he found out that we were trying to walk to Port Resolution, he all but pushed us into the back of his truck to drive us. After coming so far, we were reluctant to give up. We asked him how much farther it was to our destination. He pointed to Yasur and basically said, “See that? Port Resolution is on the other side.” The ride down the aptly named Snake Hill was bumpy and cramped, but glorious after walking for four hours. To the road’s, and perhaps the Japanese’s, credit, it was one of the best I’d seen outside of Port Vila and Luganville. A feat of engineering that other islands have yet to grasp, the road was constructed so that water ran into ditches on either side of it, rather than carving out potholes the size of a small vehicle. Nevertheless, we bounced along, and got a pretty amazing tour of Yasur’s ash plain. As the truck wove around the roadless sand, a light rain began to fall, creating small rainbows all over the place. I was so excited by the fact that I could see the beginning and end of the same rainbow that I struggled to keep myself from stopping the truck and begging the tourists to take a picture of me at one end and Dan at the other. It reminded me of my brother and how he always wanted to find the end of a rainbow.

The longer we drove on, the more grateful I was for the ride. So I was pretty dismayed when, after 30 minutes, the driver stopped at a bungalow and told us to keep following the road to Port Resolution. Turns out we were still about a two-hour walk away.

In the increasing darkness, we pressed onward, arriving at Sandra’s house around 7 pm. She boiled water for us to have warm bucket baths with, and prepared a very tasty meal. We set up our tent and went to sleep.

The next morning we went exploring on our own. We meandered down the beach and observed some of Yasur’s geographical features. There were steam vents everywhere. We stopped at one that was larger than the others and smelled more sulfury. The warmth of the steam was difficult to abandon, but the smell wasn’t so pleasant. We continued on and came upon some colored clay. It was warm on the top, and piping hot just a tad farther down. There were reds, blues, and yellows making up all sorts of other shades as well. We painted each other’s faces with the clay, played a little bit in the muck, and continued on.

A little farther was a rickety ladder down to a couple of underwater vents, which made the ocean water bubble furiously. The water was very hot in some places and it was here that we carefully maneuvered and washed the dried clay off of our faces.

Heading down, we realized that we should’ve packed a lunch. We thought there might be a store or something in the village along the beach, but no such luck. Instead, we found a couple coconuts and struggled to open them with a stake. Dan was doing fine, but I couldn’t seem to get one open. Eventually a couple of older Ni-Van men came along and offered to open them with their bush knives. Saved us a lot of time and energy. Conversation didn’t seem to be on their minds, so they continued on as we went to sit on the beach and enjoy our spoils.

When we got back to Sandra’s, she was still gone and her kitchen was locked. There were a couple of stores in the village, but the ones that were open only sold random items such as toilet paper and rice. We bought a roll for Sandra and a bag of rice to cook. We were so hungry, but Sandra didn’t make it home for another hour or so, so we just had to sit there. Was the wait worth the cheese and crackers she gave us? Probably. We munched on the jarred cheesy goodness and, before long, a truck came along to transport us to the top of Yasur. For just 1000 vatu round trip for the both of us. We hopped gleefully in the back of the truck and took off.

The truck took us up a windy and bumpy path up the volcano. It was a little bit like Mordor, I have to admit. It dropped us off at the bottom of a steep sandy path lined with wooden guardrails. Panting, I worked my way up the sandy slope and was reminded how windy the tops of volcanoes can be. At times I felt like it would knock me over. We walked up to the rim and looked around, wondering which side of the rim would offer the best view. There was an area down in the caldera where it looked like you could get a much better view of actual lava flow down in the crater and we wondered if we could go down there. We were answered soon enough, when a burst of Yasur’s liquid insides sent molten rock showering down on the place we were just considering standing. So we stayed where we were. I have to admit, I was a little disappointed. I liked the scenery: the large sandy volcano at sunset, but the descriptions of Yasur that I’d heard always involved people wishing they’d had hardhats, or fighting the urge to turn around and run away, or molten rocks falling behind you. I guess the volcano was just a little quieter than usual, so we stood there while, every now and then, Yasur would spit out a bit of lava. It was windy and cold enough where, after about an hour, we decided to go back to the truck.

We left early the next morning to catch a truck back to Lenakel. It was a long, crowded truck ride and my rear end felt it. We hung out at the stadium again and, at some point, walked up to the Air Vanuatu office to change our return tickets to the following day. We were worn out. The agent gave us two options: Morning or afternoon. Wishing to get a early start on the day, we chose morning, to which he calmly informed us that the morning flight was booked. So we chose the afternoon flight. This ended up being a fortuitous booking because I really enjoyed exploring Tim’s site.

After drinking a shell of kava and drinking Sprite as kale, I walked with the other volunteers down a long road in the moonlight. It was a cold, humidity-free night, and the kava was working its magic. Eventually we turned right and began our ascent to Tim’s site. About 45 minutes into the climb, the kava was kicking and I was shivering in spite of the fact that I was sweating. I began to wonder exactly how far away Tim’s site was. Almost as if in answer to my question, we rounded another corner and we were there. We worked for a couple hours preparing a creation that Dan had thought up, which was basically a steak salad with an orange soy sauce dressing. Not bad, but I was drunk on kava and very cold.

The next day we went to the third largest banyan tree in the world. Or so it claimed. It was rather large, maybe the size of a football field. We spent a little while climbing around in it, bringing back memories of climbing pine trees in my neighborhood as a kid. This was a little more challenging, as the branches of the banyan tree (known as nambanga here in Vanuatu) stood in the way on their paths down to the ground. I was almost jealous of the little kids swinging from vines, barking like monkeys. What an awesome jungle gym.

We caught a truck back to the airport and said our farewells. Tanna was fun, but I was glad to be back in Vila where it was a bit warmer and clean.