Ingrid and Marcel World Journey
The Blog for the famous Journey around the world of Ingrid and Marcel
We are tired of having our nose in a guidebook and deciding where we will go, what we will do next.
We have enough of packing our bags in the morning, standing by the bus stop and not knowing where we will be putting them down at night.
We are saturated with new input, not much still causes a ‚wow yes let’s do it” reaction.
We’re going home.
On May 27th, after visiting Fiji and Hawaii, we will be landing in Toronto, Canada.
We will soften our fall by staying with my sister for a while, then we’ll head out to Quebec, where we plan to spend the summer.
Post-travel depression and regrets expected.
When we were in Port Vila looking at the possibilities here in Vanuatu, we wanted to do it all: dive in Santo, climb a volcano or two in Ambrym, watch the land diving in Pentecost, spend some time in the bush in Epi. Then we started to check the prices and flight schedules and realised we’d need to make choices, because Air Vanuatu’s schedule is not exactly that of say, Swiss. Their twin otters fly only twice weekly to each destination and there are no direct connections between the islands, which means you need to fly back and forth through the capital to get anywhere. Try seeing 3-4 islands in 3 weeks on a budget….impossible. All that to say, we opted to start by going to Santo to dive, since that had been the main reason that attracted us here. Once our diving done there, we planned to go to the volcanoes in Ambrym, but youpdidoo my neck was kaput for 3 days and then our possible connection there was gone, we had no more time to go anywhere. Adieu hiking in the jungle and visiting the locals in the bush. But then….
A group of locals attending a training on accomodation management stayed overnight at our hostel. And we met this lady who was getting organised to start welcoming visitors in her village. Happy as can be Ben, Marcel and I booked a trip to go hiking in the bush with Celia, we were going to be her first guests ever. At 8h00 on the agreed morning Celia and her niece Pascaline, 18, arrived at our hostel to pick us up. We threw our backpacks in and hopped on the back of the pickup truck for a 45 minutes ride on a forest road. We were dropped off in the last village accessible by vehicule and set out for the 2 ½ hour trek in the jungle up to Celia’s village. The path was nice enough, a few ups and downs but nothing too hard, except for the amount of mud…. In this forest the trees are quite high, so the sun rarely makes it down to the ground to dry the mud created by the daily rain. This means it was slippery, swampy, and we sometimes walked ankle deep in mud puddles. Good thing we had to cross a couple rivers, it took care of cleaning our boots a bit.
When we arrived at Celia’s village we were welcomed by her family (sister, brother-in-law and their three sons) and were offered juice (the best ever: grapefruit and passion fruit from their trees) fruits, salad and rice for lunch. Our stomachs full we went into our bamboo hut for a rest, lulled into sleep by the noise of the river flowing next to us. Later on they offered to take us to a waterfall, so we put our shoes back on (oh I forgot to say: they walked the whole time either barefeet or in thongs) and Pascaline and 2 of the young guys (the 3rd having stopped on the way to cut a bamboo) lead us down the river to a rock at the top of the river. We were told to please wait a bit, and the 2 young guys (17 and 15 years old) went in the thick bush with a machete to clear a path for us. They came back 10 minutes later and showed us the way down to a clear pool at the base of the fall where we jumped in the cool water. After a swim we climbed back up the newly made path (complete with a vine attached to a tree to help us up and down) back to the village, where the other family members were just finishing making a table out of the freshly cut bamboo.
For dinner we were served manioc patties, salad, bush cabbage, rice and fresh water prawns. Call me silly but I didn’t even know there were such things as fresh water prawns. And what a discovery! They were the best prawns I had ever eaten, much better then salt water prawns. We spent the evening talking by the fire in the bush kitchen (an open air space only covered by a roof, with a couple tables, some benches and a fire place to cook on). Celia told me that we were very special guests for her: her sister and brother-in-law were starting to complain and say that no white people would want to go to their place, etc. But then we arrived, and now they were already making plans to finish the 2nd and 3rd hut soon and believed this could work.
The next morning I asked if we could see their garden, where they showed us manioc plants, island cabbage, taro root plants, sweet potatoes, lots of banana trees, etc. After tasting sugar cane (you chew a piece of it to suck the sweet liquid out) we left with our lunch wrapped up in banana leaves (the Tupperware of the forest!) to go back for the Millenium Cave adventure.
This cave was supposedly discovered by a German TV crew in 2000, hence the name Millenium Cave. What the locals have made of it is a 3 hours adventure through river, jungle and bat inhabited cave: yahoo! And since Vanuatu is far off the beaten track, you may meet a couple other tourists along the way, but basically you have the place to yourself and the guide, which adds to the Indiana Jones feeling. We met our guide at a crossroads in the forest where Celia had agreed with the custom owners the previous day. From there we started down a muddy and slippery (sounds familiar) path, and stopped at a small clearing. to get our faces painted in mud color. The locals believe the spirits of their ancestors live in the cave, the painting when you first visit should protect you. After a while the path disappeared and we started going down towards the cave on wooden laders fixed to rocks or steep forest walls. Down and down, backwards on steep laders, until we reached the huge rocks marking the entrance to the cave. We turned our headlights on and started climbing down the river, up and through rocks, sometimes thigh high in water, through the cave. We couldn’t see them but we could smell the bats, having to put our hands in their droppings everywhere on the rocks we had to hold on to. Half an hour we went through the river in the cave, 3-6m wide and maybe 10m or more high. Then we reached the opening where the river drops into a wider one, and sat down on stones to admire the scenery. After a short stop to eat our lunch of boiled plantain bananas our guide distributed swim aids (kid sized inflatable rings) and we headed down the river. And for about an hour we alternated between drifting down on our pink and orange rings, climbing up and down escarpments and going through narrow passages through rocks and water. The whole time holding our dropping jaws in front of the so beautiful scenery: from the river we looked up the 30m high rocks carved by thousands of years of erosion surrounded by the most abundant vegetation we had ever seen. For the Quebecois: c’etait comme l’Amazone au Village des Sports mais en vrai et en 100 fois mieux).
The water being quite fresh we were not so sad to reach the end of the floating part, and climbed back up laders and steep hills to go back to the village. Another short hike brought us to our pick up point where we waited for our transport for a while. This gave us time to search our bag for ballons and distribute them to the local kids before going back to our hostel as wet and dirty but also happy as can be.
Du chunsch natuerli an hug ueber, wenn ier im August choemmed Carmela…
He, dae Mike isch au intressiert
Last Friday we rented a jeep for a day with our new friend Ben. Sally packed us a picknick (I told you she was like an aunt taking care of us!) and we went to swim in what they call blue holes. It’s a little lake formed in the middle of a river where the water is fresh and oh so blue. There was even a rope to jump in the water from. You needed to climb up some funny tree (see pic) with arm force because the steps were far apart, and then let go and swing like tarzan into the blue hole. Cool….
We then drove up the coast to a small village where people live from their garden and fishing, if they feel like it. The place is so mellow even the cows take a stroll on the beach and go dip their feet in the ocean. We walked across to a small island and over it to the other side where we swam in the ocean and watched some very beautiful blue corals with Ben’s mask.
Driving back at the end of the day was a bit freaky. Since there are no street lights here, you rely solely on the car’s head;ights to drive. Theoretically this is no problem, except there are always people walking on the side of the road, or more exactly on the road, so you need to constantly watch very carefully not to hit someone. The trip’s official driver Marcel did wonderfully, as usual: no casualties to report!
After this fun outing we stayed in the next day. We’re living life easy here with Sally and Ben, cooking meals together and spending hours talking in the kitchen every day. However….towards the end of the day on Sunday my back started to ache. I got my personnal massage therapist to try and sort that out,but by the next morning it was not any better, I couldn’t move my head and was stiff like an old baguette left out on the counter. Turning 40, I tell you….and climbing up to tarzan ropes…. After 3 days in bed or sitting up straight, some muscle rub (you know the one that smells like toothpaste?) and a couple chinese plasters, I am happy to say that I can move again! No more twing with every small movement, I can even sleep properly! So much so that we could even go diving on the reef today. We saw a huuuuge lobster. His head was around 15cm wide. HUGE!
At lunch time we sat on the beach and ate sandwiches and fresh peanuts (fresh, can you imagine!) and fruit, and at one point Ben asked the dive guides where one can see coconut crabs (yes, crabs that eat coconuts!). The guide asks for Marcel’s lighter and disappaers into the bush with his knife saying: I’ll be back in 15 minutes. Fifteen minutes later indeed he comes back, still in his wetsuit, with a blue coconut crab tied up in a liane! Oh, and while he was gone his colleague opened a coconut for us on a tree branch, easy peasy.
Marcel, Ben and I were joking the other day, that if you left a European with a Victorinox in the forest for a week you’d come back and he’d be half dead. But if you left a ni-Van in the jungle with his machete you’d come back 5 days later and he’d have a whole resort built.
Probably not too far from the truth….
?
Tomorrow we’re going on an adventure: 2 days out in the jungle on a trek and village visit. He he….
We liked so much the experience of landing somewhere and already having booked where we would sleep at least that night, that before leaving Port Vila we had called ahead at the Tropicana hostel in Santo. The lady on the phone was very friendly and even organised to send someone to pick us up at the airport, mega luxury! So we retrieved our luggage (see the modern baggage counter in the pics) and hopped in the van, together with another tourist from our flight who had been talked into coming to the Tropicana by the driver (who also happened to be the owner). We didn’t know yet we had chosen a super place run by a wonderful lady and met our new best friend Ben.
We arrived at the Tropicana and realised the hostel is completely new, they opened only a couple months ago, so everything is pico bello. Sally the live-in manager is very nice and welcoming, we feel more like we are visiting an aunt then living in a hostel. Actually when we got there she had already booked diving for us for the next day (I had mentionned our intention to dive when I had called). I call that easy travelling!
We also socialised with the guy from the airport, Ben, who turned out to be a dive instructor also here to see the underwater, and a super friendly guy, despite being German. J Wer haette es gedacht? Das gibt’s! (pour les francophones qui me croient raciste, detrompez-vous, mais c’est trop long d’expliquer la relation suisse-allemande….)
So the next morning we were picked up at 8h00 and taken to the dive shop to prepare the equipment and sign the usual forms (“if you die no one can sue us” type of thing) and drove the couple kilometers to the USS Coolidge dive site. This american boat used to be a luxury liner and was transformed into a troop ship during WWII, before it sank just off the shore of Luganville. It’s supposed to be the most accessible and biggest wreck in the world. On the 1st dive we were taken on a general tour of the outside top part of the boat and saw some funny items like a gun, helmets, a gas mask. On the 2nd dive we went inside the wreck to see one of the statue from the ball room, also saw a line of toilets (?). Funny that before going down I thought a wreck would give me the creeps, but once underwater it didn’t feel that way, even inside the boat it was not really freaky. However I realised that wreck diving is not my thing, it mostly seems to me like just old rusty metal covered by corals. With exception of the night dive, this was special: there are gazillion of little fishies living in the wreck which light up at night, some bacteria in their cheeks or something that makes like a stroboscope. That was impressive to see, tons of little light flashes in an otherwise pitch dark environment.
We also dove at a site called Million Dollar point, which is basically a huge pile of american equipment: bulldozers, wheels, tanks, crates of Coke, etc. They say after WWII it was all offered to the local government who declined, and instead of carrying all back home it was just thrown into the ocean. Go figure.
Since no more people are gessing, im telling you.
The first scale showed 89kg and the second 88kg. The average is 88.5kg pretty cool ha.
So Rony is actually closer then Carmela.
Time flies….we’ve already been in Vanuatu for 5 days and I must say haven’t done much. There is one point we oversaw when booking the cheapest flights possible from Perth to Port Vila: one night without sleeping and 20 hours in transit makes you kaput! I think we needed to take it easy for a few days anyway. So we enjoyed our real big bed (he Marcel could lay on his back with the arms on the side without touching me!), visited Port Vila, spent some time at the national museum and just lounged around in our living room (with TV!).
We were happy to have found such a nice place at an affordable price, it was a super clean apartment with bedroom and separate living room/all equipped kitchen, 2 balconies and friendly people. It was a bit outside of the city center but that didn’t matter because Port Vila has the most efficient bus system I have ever seen. No kidding. Buses here are privately owned mini-vans (7-8 seaters) with a red B on their number plates. You just stand on the side of the road and when you see one you wave and they stop to pick you up, anywhere. You tell the driver where you want to go, and he drops you off in front of the door. Since he offers this service to all the people in the van or whom he picks up while you’re in the vehicle you don’t go directly to your destination, but that’s even better, because he then takes little back streets full of potholes and you can spy on local people! All this for 150 Vatus (about 1.50$ or 1.50CHF).
We had shortly read about a local beverage called Kava, so when Liline (one of the nice ladies working at our hotel) suggested we go with her have a drink one evening we thought that was a super idea. If you read in a book it will say that Kava is made from a root and has properties like an anaesthetic, it sort of relaxes your muscles too. Now trying it is a different experience altogether!
First of all try to forget the noisy, busy and brightly lit place where you live. There are not so many buildings here, it’s mostly small houses hidden behind vegetation. Only the main streets are paved, the others are just dirt roads. At night the streets are dark, there are no street lamps. In this more quiet, more relaxed scenery, Kava bars are spread out a bit everywhere, you recognise them by the lantern hanging at the entrance of the site. What I call “the site” is a small area outside, say 5m x 10m, with either grass or dirt on the ground. On one side are a few benches, really just a couple of wood planks nailed together. On the other side is a line of little booths about a meter wide, some of them with a small lantern or a candle lit on the narrow counter. These are the ones selling kava that evening, you just choose amongst them where you’ll get your drink. I suppose every one has his favourite “brewer”. You have the choice of a 50 Vt or a 100 Vt shell (nowadays a bowl), and after you’ve purchased it you step aside and down it in one shot (I made the mistake of stopping halfway and almost didn’t make it to gulp the whole grey-brown chalky liquid down). Some people then start spitting, others take a drink of water (bottles for everyone to use on the counter). Afte rthat you return the bowl and sit down on one of the benches to “listen to the kava”, fashionable people would say “chill out”. The first effect you feel after you drink the kava is a slight numbing of your lips and tongue, not much, you almost have to actively be attentive to notice it. Then after 3-5 minutes comes the “anaesthetic” part of it. . I can’t say I have much experience in that matter, but if you ask me: it feels like if you had smoked one puff of a joint. Marcel (who is an expert about such things) couldn’t even describe the feeling: after having 3 of the 50 Vt portions he still didn’t notice anything so gave up on it.
I had one of them and was already very “easy man” in my head, although it didn’t last long, maybe 20 minutes altogether. Now we understand why there is this kava custom here: it makes you all woozy for a while and it’s cheap, it’s harmless and it’s legal. Pretty cool stuff he?!
?By the way: we are now Santo and are going to dive the biggest wreck in the world tomorrow. My first wreck dive (Boden lake doesn’t count)….wahh!
-
- Liline’s mama selling kava
-
- Liline and Marcel drinking a shell
On the road again….
Back to the roots: we transferred our wondervan to the new owners today and found ourselves with a bag on the side of the street! Funny feeling….silly as it is we’d grown attached to our van and it was sad to say goodbye to it. Although we were happy the emptying out, cleaning and preparing was over. Since 10 days went by between showing the car and transferring it we ended up doing a lot of cleaning twice. But now it’s all over, we’re basically spending time in Perth (8-10 hours) before catching the first flight for this journey.
Australia has been great. Traveling in the van for these 5 months was definitely not boring! I wouldn’t have thought we’d stay so long, but somehow once you have the van and are on the road you just get used to this way of life and always find something else you’d like to visit, and it so happens that things are often thousands of kilometers away in Australia! If we were to do this trip again we’d probably schedule it differently, flying some sections instead of driving the whole way. But then again, afterwards one is always smarter, and these long drives were part of the adventure.
So in about 24 hours we’ll be landing in Port Vila. After 3 flights and I forget how many waiting hours at airports we’ll be bagged for sure, but we already reserved a room (the 1st time we made a reservation since we left Zurich!) at a cute little guest house where a real bed is awaiting us. What a treat!
I wonder how we will find it to land in a country like Vanuatu after being here for so long, but to be honest I’m not too worried. From what we’ve heard and read, it looks like paradise.