Stunning Experience

Our "bure" at Evergreen Bungalows is at the end of the improved part of the property. It is a very scenic area overlooking the beach. There is a breeze and only a few mosquitoes. We have to order food at the restaurant since this is a place without cooking facilities.
photo #1 opposite page. Housing in Tanna.
Photos #2 and #3 We ride in a very small plane just behind the pilot.
photo #4 a very small store is in the airport building. It stocks oil, cookies, canned meat and chips.
photo #5 The stairs to the restaurant that blew away. It was over the water till the cyclone 15 months ago. From our room's front porch we can see where a restaurant used to be over the water. A big stone staircase remains but the cyclone took the restaurant.
photo #6 Ladies dresses, toys and a few treats dominate the items for sale in a small store.
photo #7 A produce market on the side of the road.
photo #8 A tree house that is for rent to tourists. We met the owner at the airport. He was looking for tenants, I think.

August 15, 2016 Monday Tanna, Vanuatu Islands. We have a full day scheduled.
photo #9 and #10 We stop to look at a local gathering place. There is a large cleared area and one end a banyan tree with shaped roots. Children look on as we explore the area and run when I look at them. We see three little boys in the bushes all making different gang signs with their fingers. One of them has a butcher knife and is holding it by the blade. The youngest is shy and runs before I get the photo of his face. They each flash a different finger sign as they leave. Too

cute. We visit a "Cultural Village". A thirty something woman with a painted face and wearing leaves for clothing greets us at her village entrance. She says she is the one from the village that went to school and she now is the interpreter between tourists and the village. She shows us her garden where there are yams planted in little hills, Yucca, cassava, corn, pau pau (papaya), thatch grass, lemon grass, coffee, peas and kava growing. She shows us how some of the plants are propagated by just sticking a branch into the ground. No watering is needed here. The soil is black, rich and moist. We are shown how they make straws to stick into coconuts from lemon grass and a few things about weaving.
photo #11 and #12 Produce at the market.
photo #13 Our greeter and guide. She is the one who paints my face.
photo #14 Manioc, or yucca, or cassava is planted in little hills.
photo #15 Our guides toddler. Notice the blond hair.

Photos #16, #17 and #18 preparation of lap lap for the oven. She squeezes shredded coconut over the prepared layered dish then wraps it in leaves, before putting it in the earth oven.
photo #19 face painted.
photo #20 and #21 Men and teens wait till it is time for them to do a demonstration of their dancing. Men are in the Kava Hut where women are not allowed.
photos #22 and #23 making fire.
photo #24 Chickens peck coconut from our hands. It tickles.
photo #25 Chick holds ball made from heart of Fernwood tree. It is about the size of a soft ball and bounces.
photo #26 Cutie climbs a tree for us.
photo #27 I join in the dancing which is about to start.
We get to watch children play "Blind man's bluff". They don't use a mask but just close their eyes when they are 'it'. I didn't see any signs of cheating. They all were having a good time. After the game we enter a hut constructed to show tourists how to make lap lap. You use a stick which has small projections all around it's surface. It acts as a grater for yam or green banana. These are the big fat bananas, almost 3 inches across. Lap lap is layered with spinach then shredded coconut is squeezed over it. Now it is wrapped in banana leaves and baked in a ground oven using hot rocks for about 30 minutes. We get to taste some made with yam and spinach. I got seconds. The shredded cocoanut after being squeezed is fed to the chickens who peck it out of our hands. It definitely is tickly and a bit frightening to let a chicken peck inside your hand.
Now we get to see the crafts that the children have made to sell to tourists. Jewelry is made of sea shells and beautifully polished cowrie and other kinds of shells are featured heavily. Nothing that will make it through customs is offered so we just give a donation and do not take any of the items with us.
After the market we are taken to an open area where men and boys

show us how they make fire by rubbing two sticks together. They take a short stick and rub it in a shallow trough in another bigger stick. The rubbing creates wood dust and the friction makes it smoke and burn. It is then transferred to some dry grass to start the fire. Finally the whole village does a few dances for us. I join in the dancing. The woman's role is to either jump straight up and down or skip around the men's circular group. Men stomping their feet makes our rhythm. Men's voices with women, singing in falsetto voices, accompanies our dance.
After the village our drive stops for us to see a couple of things like tobacco growing. We also see a tree house which is for rent to tourist. We know this because we talked to the man who built it. He says it weathered the cyclone but needed a new roof.
After lunch we take off over very bumpy roads to the other side of the island. We are going to see Mount Yasur, the volcano. It is the world's most accessible active volcano. We drive through an area that reminds me of Jurassic Park. Vegetation we pass is covered in ash as is everything we can see. We pass crops in the beginning but soon only see Ferns, Fern trees, Black Palm, and Dragon Blood trees like the one in my backyard. We have plenty of light when we approach the lee side of the volcano. It is covered in ash and looks like a single gigantic sand dune. Our driver teases us by driving straight up the side of the 'dune' and it feels like an amusement park ride. We all

laugh. We stop for a photo in front of the mountain and get ash in our hair. The ash is not just the kind of ash you would find under your fire. It is mostly irregular shaped tiny pieces of lava. They may grip each other because there is no sliding when driving on the dune. Later we will be happy it grips itself as we walk down the ash path in the dark, in the rain.
When we get to the volcano entrance we walk down a path lined with sculptures cut from an endangered fernwood tree. These people are some of just a few who are allowed to harvest the trees. It appears they have planted a large number of new trees in the park like area that has a large number of the carved sculptures on display.
photo #28 and #29 The leeward side of the volcano. Note the tire tracks up the side of the pile of ash. I really like the wind sculpted corner of the mountain of lava ash.
photos #30 and #31 two of the upward, and downward, paths that we take.
photos #32 through #39 Smoke and lava. We haven't heard of a volcano god but I think #32 is him.
photos #40 and #41 Getting shots of the caldera was almost impossible because the explosive eruptions kept the caldera full most of the time.
photo #42 still zoomed in I caught a good one at the end. We were sad to be made to leave before we had had nearly enough. Ears ringing we walk down the dark path in the pelting rain.
photo #43 Chick inspects the corner produce market.
photo #44 Two kinds of lap lap is our dinner after the volcano adventure. Note the bottle of muddy looking kava behind the water glass.
photo #45 Chick shows his full bottle before polishing it off.
photo #46
Photos #47 and #48 Donna makes Kava faces.

Chick once again is chosen the chief of our group of tourists and presents our kava root to the grumpy looking local chief. He has played this role too many times. We then are driven up as high as the road goes and walk another half mile or so up hill and beside the booming of the caldera that towers above us. When we near the top I can feel the concussion of the explosions that are happening inside the volcano that I am climbing. It is a long way up and we have 3 stops at different viewpoints till we are taken to the edge where we can see all three vents at once. The show is amazing as bright red/orange lava is thrown up in the air higher than our heads. The floor of the volcano is said to be 1800 feet below our viewing spot on the very rim, and huge, bus-sized blobs of lava are thrown up many hundreds of feet higher than our position. Lucky for us the wind is blowing the fumes away from us. The eruptions happen frequently, every few minutes the lava explodes and shoots up in the air, the concussion smacks you, and huge black or grey clouds rise. It is visually stunning as the red bits turn black and fall with a loud thud. Those pieces that we see as very small are vehicle sized and make a lot of noise when they hit the side of the caldera that is away from us. The noise bounces up at us and adds to the stimulation of the outrageous event that we are in. The open caldera is from 3 vents that have joined. One seems to be a giant bunsen burner with a flame leaping up to one side. It must be channeling all of the flammable gasses. I never got a good shot of it doing it's bunsen burner thing. The other two vents seem to take turns starting the big explosions that are followed by the concussion, then 2000 degree F. red orange lava shower, then black smoke that looks really good with the red lava dancing through it. I wish the camera could see what we saw. It missed about 1/3 of the color and detail. It was just amazing to stand there and be assaulted by the pressure, sound and visuals of all of that violence happening right in front of us. Nowhere else on earth could we get so close to a volcano as active as Mt. Yasur. Only two of the eruption photos are made with a zoom. We are really close to the action. We feel the heat from the bigger explosions.
It grows quite dark as we stand on the rim of the volcano, and big raindrops begin to pelt us. The hike back down the hill is not nearly as pleasant as the approach, though the guides do have a number of underperforming little 'crank to charge' flashlights. We finally reach the area where our vehicles are parked, and return to the park entrance, and thence back to the west side of the island.
On our way back to the hotel we get our driver to stop at the local 'strong kava' supplier to fill our two 600 ml water bottles of Kava at $4.00 US each. We drink it with our lap lap dinner and get quite the buzz on. It makes our mouths, lips and tongue numb. It makes us a little light headed and I get chatty. It is a nice, mellow high. Kava tastes very bitter and nasty and I get a little nauseated for about half an hour after drinking it. The effects of the kava last about 2 hours. The photos show Chick with the kava in the water bottle and my first sip "Kava Face". It is suggested that kava be drunk in one chug. Probably because it tastes so bad. (Photo) of Lap lap and kava glasses with a bit of kava still in one of the bottles.
August 16, 2016 Tanna, Vanuatu Islands Tuesday We sleep in an extra hour and a half. No other apparent hangover from our kava. The day is rainy and cold. Glad the the scuba trip I tried to book was cancelled, I decide not to snorkel as planned and work on this diary instead.
photos #49 and #50 are of our volcano soup lunch and a nice sunset on Tanna. We fly back to Port Vila where we can have another nice lunch at the open market.
photos #51 and #52 The signs at the airport want to remind people of the danger of AIDS. We enjoyed reading the pidgin translation.