Day 7 - Tanna
Boarded an Air Vanuatu flight to Tanna, only takes about 30 minutes to get there from Vila.
Unboarded the plane, because the found a problem with it when the pilot started the engines.
After an hour or 2 we got back on, very comforting getting on a the same plane that was just broken.
Found my driver and started heading to the otherside of the island. The difference is immediately noticeable from Efate.
Tanna is almost entirely big, dense green jungle. There is one very small 'town' not too far from the airport. It's called Lenakel or "Black Man Town". The island isn't very big but the roads are lumpy, dirt and winding. Driving is very slow, there is no other choice. It takes about two hours to cross from north to south.
It seemed as though dinosaurs might live here still.
Roads are either in the jungle or on top of it looking at it's expanse...
Here was my first view of Yasur in the distances:
And as we got closer:
This is the entrance to the Volcano:
Perfect time of day to be walking up:
Sloppy selfie with an explosion:
It's hard to snap good shots of this thing erupting, so I didn't, here's a video I recorded on my phone though:
After it explodes sand particles blow in your face and get stuck in your eye, while pockets of sulfur gas choke you. Not that I'd expect the violent
molten opening into the core of our earth to be a pleasant place. There's rocks spat out all over the ground around the volcano rim and the flat
ground below, but they close off access after it reaches a "level 3".
After the volcano, I headed back to my bungalow to hopefully arrange some traditional masticated Tanna kava for myself, the nearest village nakamal was 20
minutes walk down a dark jungle path to the village at Port Resolution (which I was originally supposed to stay at). My hosts were helpful in finding a local dude to walk me down there and chew my kava for me, but intent on having me eat their dinner first. I obliged, as not to offend, and then headed off down the jungle track
trying to hold a conversation with my guide. We did alright, he was cool. When the path opens up into the village at night, it's like a step back in time...thatch houses
...family having fires, hanging around and talking etc... We went to the kava house where I paid 500 Vatu (about 5 bucks) to buy a clump of kava roots.
Once acquired, we went back to an area where the young men were drinking kava and preparing kava by firelight. My guide peeled the skins off the root and began
chomping away, filling his mouth like a chipmunk, and spitting the chewed wads out on fresh fresh leaves. When a pile is finished, it's about the sized of a fist, and that's only for a single shell. While he was doing this, another guy brought me a shell to drink while I wait, and then they invited me over to watch the next process.
They have laid out, all the leaves with chewed root balls ready to make shells with. A ball gets dumping in the strainer and and twisted with some water, hovering over the shell. Two guys twist and one pushes on it with a stick. I was told that once you can shave, a boy can no longer touch the kava with his hands, so they use a stick
as a loophole to this rule. They filled up two big shells, made a funnel with a local leaf and filled up my 'plastik'. While hanging out down there, I spotted another white face in the dim light, we both seemed surprised to see each other and spoke for a bit. He was a French New Caledonian Yachtie that comes ashore to hang with the locals for kava time. He said he already had 5 shells. It was a magical experience down there.
Here's the treehouse bungalow I was in. It swayed in the wind, had holes all over the mosquito net and bugs all over it. Even had a big, thick 3 inch spider
on it that brushed off, the thing hopped and scurried away with swiftness. I taped up the holes from the inside, and didn't sleep well. I was also out of water,
with no way to get more, so I reserved some of my masticated kava to try to quench my thirst. Disgusting huh?
Here's a photosphere I took from on top of the volcano:
photosphere link (you can click and drag it to see in every direction.)
Day 8 & 9 - Eratap Point, Efate
After already having spent time on 3 islands, stayed in simple villages and modern hotels, seen the volcano and drank traditional kava...I felt satisfied with my trip and relaxed in one place for a couple days before leaving. Eratap is a beautiful, less populated area outside of Vila, but turned out to be a little further than expected. Enough to make going back n forth to town a bit of a hassle. Eratap point has one of the few surf breaks in Vanuatu on one side and a nice calm, clear lagoon on the other. It was partially couldy and rainy while I was there and there wasn't much of a variety of things to photograph, so I didn't do much here. The nakamal on Eratap's main road was bit too far to walk, but my Tannese bus driver was happy to take me there. I didn't get a picture of the place, but it was basically a western style house, with a small serving shack in the yard. There was a covered sitting area, that also had several barbers chairs to sit in, and pre-made food to buy. I had a couple shells with my driver, which kicked in nicely and he bought us some chicken/rice to eat as a 'wasem mout'. This was my 2nd heavy DHM style kava I came across in Vanuatu, it also had a weird sour flavor to it that made me question if it was old or slightly fermented. My driver regaled me with stories of Tanna's traditions and celebrations involving a girls first period, a boys circumcision, weddings...and the biggest celebration, the Toka festival which basically incorporates the entire island. Here's a nice sunset from my 1st night in Eratap:
Here's a few shots from the beach and lagoon area:
Kept my shirt on in this one, just for @verticity :
The 2nd day, I stopped at the resort for some local beef and a piña colada. Got a filet mignon and aioli fries.
I know it's an atrocious thing to say, but I really wanted some A1 sauce for the filet. The resort is only a few minutes
walk from the place I was staying at, there's only a few places down that way. I had access to their restaurant, bar and used the same beach but paid 1/4 of the price for my room:
My final evening, my bus driver friend took me to one of his favorite nakamals. It's outside of Vila on the main
road, perhaps half-way between Eratap and Vila. This was definitely the most crowded nakamal I saw the whole time.
It had many colored glowing bulbs, several sheltered sitting areas and a constant flow of people buying. I can't remember for sure, but I think it was
called J&B nakamal or something like that, the kava was clean, fresh and satisfyingly potent:
Here's my final sunset in Vanuatu, taken on the backside of the nakamal:
Every night, I'd stop at the resort and order food to take back to my room. The locals seemed intrigued by my
kava consumption. Dinner typically became my breakfast for the most part.
Here's a video, walking along Eratap beach:
Just thought I'd add my general view of the fresh kava consumption in Vanuatu:
In general, I'll say kava is kava. Drinking fresh ni-van kava is unquestionably better, in every way, but it's still just kava and not a drastically different experience.
The best way I can describe it, is that every negative attribute is lessened, while all the positives are more easily attained. The taste is less bitter and easier to drink, but it does still taste like kava. There is some difficult to describe 'sparkle' to the flavor that seems unique to the fresh experience. A few months ago I had some fresh frozen Hawaiian kava, it had a distinct cucumber/vegetable juice flavor that I didn't taste so much in the fresh Vanuatu stuff. A lot of the stuff I tasted in Vanuatu had similar flavors to each other, but differed in the strength or 'depth of flavor'. There was one odd and heavy kava I had that had a strange soured finish, I think it may have been old kava, but I'm not sure.
The buzz was very easy to attain, as opposed to the trouble I have 'getting there' at home, with my dry powders. Although nausea was certainly still possible after enough shells, it was overall less nauseating, less bloating and less heavy feeling on the guts. Those things are huge obstacles for me and my personal body chemistry, when drinking dry powder. It's often bad enough to hinder me from enjoying or feeling the experience completely. It was 80-90% improved when drinking fresh kava. I'm guessing this must be due to having a higher kavalactone content while simultaneously having less root particles/sediment in the beverage. Which isn't how things work when I brew up dry stuff.
The whole feeling was generally lighter, easier and more blissful than the majority of my dry experiences, while also being generally stronger per shell and more consistent.
It appears the best time to get kava at the nakamal would be between 4pm-7pm...many places can sell out, but it seems there's always another place to go if it does.
The hacking, hawking and spitting is in full force...it actually is fairly effective at getting some of the taste out of your mouth. Next time you have a shell, go spit in a white sink afterwards and you'll see persistent brown kava-laced saliva is in your mouth forcing you to keep tasting the flavor. Beyond that, there seems to be something in fresh kava
more so than dry, that creates the need for hacking and hawking. I never felt this with dry, but many of the fresh kavas would create a phlegm/mucous build up in your throat that demands to be hawked. My bus driver/nakamal buddy told me this is normal. "In Vanuatu before kava, nobody cough. After kava, everyone coughing coughing."
Most shells are either 100 vatu or 150 vatu, which is about .90 cents to $1.33 USD. You aren't limited to these sizes though, as you can can basically hand the vendor anything and tell them how many Vatu you want to pay...and they will fill accordingly. I'd say the 100v shell would be about 6 gulps while the 150v shell is closer to 8 or 9. I found that anytime a local walked me to a nakamal they wanted to buy me a shell, I always made sure to reciprocate even though I don't think it was expected at all. They also all seemed concerned if I didn't have something to eat afterwards and would encourage me to take something of theirs to eat.
Mornings always felt fresh, even the couple times I drank suspiciously heavy kava. As far as Tudei conversations with locals (who of course don't know the science),
I was simply told things like "No, no don't drink the Tudei plant, that is no good". "Oh the yellow kava, that is no good for drink". "Tudei kava make you feel bad and no good in the morning, other kava make you feel fresh and when you wake up you feel more smart". Their point of view seems to be based simply on hating the effects of Tudeis.
If I had the option, I would drink fresh kava exclusively. Having seen and done a few of the external adventures in Vanuatu now, I can see why @nemo is okay with traveling there simply to hang around Vila drinking kava and not much else. If i were in closer proximity, I would certainly bip over on whims now and do the same thing.
