Second Day in Port Vila

On my second morning in Port Vila, I woke up around 0600 came out and sat on our balcony for a couple hours. The place we are staying in is a B&B so the owner brought out a full spread for us. We had baguettes, Nuttella, jams, and honey, along with some bangers and a little sausage that reminded me of chorizo. Then there was the plate of fruits, papaya, mango, grapefruit, little bananas the size of fat fingers, and breadfruit. Breadfruit is wonderful.

After breakfast we headed down to the water were Ryan and myself went for a swim. The water is so salty that a literally was floating on my back with my hands resting behind my head, just as if I was laying on the grass to take a nap.

Due to everyone being spread out in Vila, we decided the night before to meet up at Irriki resort. There is a free ferry that takes you to the island and runs 24 hours a day. The ferry picks up next to the Mamas numbawan maket, which is the largest “farmers” market in Vanuatu, about the size of the produce area of Denios. This too is open 24 hours a day except on Sundays when they are closed.

So the resorts are free to use as long as you buy something. And no one is coming up to you asking whether you did or not. The beer is expensive at about 400VT about $4-. But when you factor in you are using there five tiered swimming pool it makes it well worth it. We stayed there through out the day. Just as we were about to leave a massive dumping of water came through so we all opted to give another 400 VT to the bar tender and sat out the heavy rain drinking another tusker.

Yeah I know, 3rd world developing country, so apparently in the Peace Corps world they actually refer to us as the BEACH CORPS. I can not describe to you how beautiful this place is.

Later in the evening we ventured out to the rainbow nakamal. Kava is almost an expected event, at least for the men. The women can only drink Kava in town. But in the villages this is how most things get accomplished, drink some Kava and talk with the local chieftains.

Today was our first day of class. Nothing too exciting, until lunch that is. Because it was our first day they had a huge potluck of local food. There was so much food, I tried to take one bite size portions so I could try it all, but still only made it half way down before my plate was full. A couple of the dishes were kind of bland, (lap lap) however, everything else was amazing, tropical fruit salad, baby coconut, some tulak, which reminds me of a hearty stew but in solid form. It was incredible.