Yu No Kick Part 17: Tanna

Ni-Vanuatu from other islands have something of a mystique regarding Tanna. Although it's probably the second most visited island after Efate, Tanna maintains a reputation of being primitive and steeped in custom, two of the big reasons why it is such a popular destination for tourists. Ironically, Tanna is being exposed to large amounts of western influence and is becoming increasingly western because of its reputation for being so un-western. Among other Ni-Vans, people from Tanna (“man Tanna” in Bislama) are often looked down upon for being primitive, uncivilized (and yes, it is kind of strange to hear people living in bamboo houses accuse others of being primitive. The deciding factor seems to be whether or not you have a DVD player in your bamboo house), and practitioners of black magic and old customs. There have even been several occasions where I've heard man Tanna discussed in terms that bordered on hatred and fear. Despite the best efforts of the various branches of the Christian Church in Vanuatu, strong belief in black magic still persists (or perhaps, to some extent, the church is encouraging these beliefs. Pastors often stress the importance of attending church and praying because it is necessary to combat black magic, without realizing that this is somewhat counter-productive, as their arguments are implicitly acknowledging the existence and validity of magic), and islands that are perceived as having strong magic (namely Tanna and Ambrym) are viewed with suspicion.

Any evidence of Tanna's primitiveness was not visible from the airport, however. The airport was an impressive structure that was significantly nicer than our airport in Norsup, mostly because it had not been recently firebombed, but also because it had two stories (and as an added bonus the second story showed absolutely no signs of an impending collapse on the first), two sets of bathrooms, and even a customs and immigration counter. The latter, apparently, had just been installed in preparation for the opening of international flights between Tanna airport to New Caledonia which, due to Tanna's extreme southern location, is actually about as far away as Port Vila. In celebration of (or at least in some way related to) the opening of this new flight route, Lenekel, the largest town in the area, was hosting a joint arts festival with New Caledonia showcasing Tafea (Vanuatu's southernmost province, which includes Tanna) and New Caledonian culture, which had been generating a lot of excitement over the past few weeks.

Justine, a volunteer who was accompanying me on this expedition, and I caught a truck from the airport into town and right away I was struck by the large differences between the northern and southern islands of the country. The islands of Vanuatu are spread out laterally over a length about the same as the state of California, which means fairly large difference in climate between the northernmost islands (which are essentially on the equator) and the southernmost. Tanna was noticeably cooler than Malekula, a fact that I welcomed, and the weather seemed to actually be acknowledging the fact that it was supposed to be winter. The flora was also noticeably different, gone (or at least not as dominant ) were the reckless, heat-loving, vines, creepers, and shrubs that preside over the Malekulan bush and in their place were larger, more responsible trees that see the wisdom in growing slowly and protecting their assets with things like bark. Our truck driver dropped us off at the market in Lenekel, which, again, proudly sported its differences with the one in Lakatoro as, instead of the usual collection of bananas, coconuts, and grapefruit, it was stocked with produce more familiar to the American palate. Things like carrots, lettuce, and tomatoes were abundant and I'd heard that even things like apples, grapes, and wild raspberries are sometimes available.

As a town, Lenekel was pretty similar to Lakatoro. It sported a number of stores (more stores than Lakatoro, actually), all of which pretty much sold the same thing: rice, canned food, and packaged crackers and cookies. Unelco even provides power to the town using the same pre-paid power card system as Lakatoro. Unlike Lakatoro, however, which is laid out in a line, Lenekel was more of a square, which made it a lot more convenient to get around. Because of the festival, Lenekel was crawling with people, more people than one usually sees in Vila, much less on an outer island, which made our arrival a little intimidating. Some of the Tanna volunteers met us at the market and escorted us back to the stadium, where the festival was taking place and where one of their families was running a food stall. The arts festival showed really no signs of containing any actual art, however, and looked pretty much exactly like every other event I'd ever attended in Vanuatu, except on a bit of a larger scale. Food stalls arrayed the edges of the stadium (which was actually quite large) selling the standard Vanuatu festival food (chicken wings, fish, plates of rice and meat, fried dough, and strange-tasting cakes and other baked goods), and kava. The field was occupied by soccer players working their way through a tournament and a stage had been set up on which a band was to appear later. The entire festival seemed to be served by only two outhouses with pit toilets which, judging by the stench, had filled up long ago. The only sign of any sort of ongoing cultural-related activity was a small area where representatives from various places in Tafea had erected houses built in the traditional style of their island. For the most part the construction materials were all the same, uncut wood and coconut leaves (unlike in the north where natangora, which makes an excellent thatch, and bamboo, which is naturally grows in nice, straight, beams, are abundant, in the south coconut seems to be the staple building material), and only the shape of the houses varied. Standing next to all the Vanuatu structures was the New Caledonian contribution, a large, circular, concrete building with a thatch roof that looked like it had been erected with aid of cement mixer and a union-certified construction crew. Now, I don't know much about New Caledonian history, so I suppose it's possible but that they developed cement, along with the Romans, a few thousand years ago and have been using it as a building material ever sense (granted, at least in Vanuatu, there is an abundance of limestone from the coral reefs, which is the crucial ingredient in cement), but I kind of doubt it. Really it seem more like the New Caledonia contingent was just showing off that, since they're still under French rule, they have more money than they know what to do with. On a less cultural, but more pleasant, note, we were directed by the Tanna volunteers to a food stall that was making and selling hamburgers, which were excellent as, much to my surprise, they didn't skimp on the meat and included such extras a lettuce, tomato, onion and ketchup.

The festival proceeded pretty much as expected. The main act was a Vanuatu pop band that played a set of reggae-ish music that was heavy on the synth and included mostly covers. After they finished other, more amateur groups took the stage and the music continued into the early morning. Myself, I had my fill come about 11 o'clock and Justine and I pitched a tent in a quiet area behind the stadium and went to sleep. The next day we were planning on heading to the other side of the island to a village called Port Resolution, about 15-20 miles away, which is close to Tanna's volcano. Since it was Sunday, we were outside of the schedule of the usual service trucks, and, being volunteers, we were loath to spend the money that drivers usually charge tourists for charters. It was a nice day, however, and there was a lot of traffic because of the festival so we set out on foot, knowing that we'd probably end up in Port Resolution eventually if we were patient. The road crossing the island was in excellent condition, another testament to Tanna's booming tourist trade, and trucks passed frequently. Unlike on Malekula, where two white people walking outside of town is a rare sight and cause for much consternation, we merited little attention and very few trucks stopped to speak to us (many of the trucks were even carrying other white people and some had done up their truck beds with rain covers and cushioned seating). Tanna is shaped kind of like a hat. We had a steep climb initially, but it leveled off as we got farther from the coast and then sloped down again on the opposite coast. We gauged our progress by how insistent Ni-Vans we spoke to along the way were that what we were doing was impossible. Close to Lenekel we were told that we'd never, in a million years, be able to make it to Port Resolution on foot, towards the middle of the island we were informed that Port Resolution was really, really, really far away, and by the time the opposite coast was visible we were down to people giving us pitying looks and nodding their heads sadly. The highlight of the walk was when we rounded corner and the coastline with the volcano came into view. It was a nice, sunny day and off to the left the ocean sparkled magnificently and looked invitingly calm and peaceful. White beaches were like walls separating the green of the middle bush from the patient turquoise of the ocean. To the right the volcano jutted out rudely from the coastline, smoking ominously and covering the surroundings with a dark haze, seeming to hide something terrible and mysterious. A few minutes later an SUV rounded the same corner, pulled to a stop a few meters ahead of us and a collection of tourists got out and began photographing the vista. The driver, a Ni-Van, came to talk to us an insisted on giving us a ride. Having come this far, Justine and I were somewhat set on finishing our journey on foot, if only to say that we'd done it, and were a little hesitant. “Where is Port Resolution?” I asked. The driver pointed to the smoldering volcano blanketing the landscape in fog and said “On the other side of that.” We looked at the strangely malignant peak for a few more seconds and then got into the car.

As it turns out, it was a good thing we got a ride when we did as the nice packed coral surface of the road soon gave way to the black sand of the volcanic ash plain, and hiking through sand is notoriously difficult. For a while vegetation persisted to poke its way through the sand, before suddenly giving way to a desert of ash. The landscape in front of us was pure black and quickly turned into a minefield of sharp-looking volcanic rocks carelessly tossed onto the smooth sand. To our left, the volcano rose up like a gigantic black sand dune. I had no doubt that we had just crossed into Mordor proper and would soon begin ascending Mount Doom (although it turns out that Mount Yassur, as Tanna's volcano is called, is filled with far fewer orcs and far more Australians than Tolkien's Mount Doom). Our driver skillfully navigated through the potentially tire-puncturing rocks, following some road that I could not, for the life of me, discern. We rounded the base of the volcano and came to a road junction on the other side. One road obviously led up to the summit of the volcano, while the other made its way away from it. The driver explained that he'd be taking his carload of tourists up to the volcano, but that we should follow the other road to get to Port Resolution. As it turned out, we actually weren't even particularly to our destination, as it took another two hours of walking to reach it. We were both pretty exhausted by the time we pitched out tent and went to sleep that night.

The next day we set out to experience the strange volcanic character of the area around us. Across the bay from Port Resolution, where we'd spent the night, was a volcanic vent that had led to some interesting natural features. First, we hiked up to a large, rocky rift where volcanic gases mixed with water to send up wafts of egg-scented steam that seemed oddly refreshing (or maybe it was just that when the wind brought in breezes from across the ocean they seemed refreshing by comparison). Next we were directed to a patch of volcanic mud, a stretch of strangely spongey multi-colored earth. A little digging revealed that the upper layers of clay-like mud were warm and an inch or so away from the surface were downright hot. You could dig around to find pretty much any color of clay you wanted and its consistency made it kind of like a naturally-occurring Play-Doh. Finally, we climbed a ladder down a cliff-face to the ocean below where the tide-pools were dotted with springs of boiling water that occasionally let out sulfurous belches. That evening we caught a truck up to the top of the volcano, the event that was my motivation for coming to Tanna in the first place. The black sand road wound its way up the slope of the volcano, where the air became steadily cooler and more biting. We jumped out of the truck a couple hundred meters from the summit and continued on foot. At this point, the winds were quite strong and, even though I was wearing I jacket, I felt the coldest I'd ever felt in Vanuatu. Mount Yassur is billed as the world's most accessibly volcano. I don't know if this is true or not, but it certainly seemed plausible to me. Unlike the volcanoes I'd visited in Hawaii when I was little, which were carefully controlled with areas where it was safe to stand nicely roped off and park rangers ensuring that no one wandered off somewhere where they might be hit by a bit of flying magma, Yassur (in typical Vanuatu style) was just there. You were free to explore at will. We hiked all the way up to the rim of the volcano, where being shoved in by the strong winds seemed like a very real possibility, especially given the slippery footing offered by the volcanic sands. Unfortunately, you could not, as I'd hoped, stare down from the rim into a boiling pool of lava. The volcano was essentially a very large, circular sand dune. It slowly sloped up on the outside, finally coming to a peak at the rim, and then sloped downwards, somewhat more steeply, into the the volcano. A ways downwards a sort of flat, circular shelf was visible which separated the slope of the inner dune from a giant, dimly glowing pit in the middle. It seemed possible to safely walk down the interior slope of the volcano and stand on the shelf overlooking the pit, and we briefly considered this option when a deep grumbling sent hundreds of chunks of flaming magma flying up out of the pit. For a moment these glowing fragments hung still in the air and then descended, blanketing the shelf where we'd just been considering standing in brilliant, burning embers, and we decided that the view was just fine from the rim. The volcano's activity apparently fluctuates week-to-week (or even day-to-day) and we caught it during something of a quiet spell. I was told that it's not unheard of for the volcano to fling magma up over the rim where we were standing and onto the outside of the volcano and the assortment of volcanic rocks that dotted the outside flank were a testament to the truth of this. As it was, however, while we were there the bursts of magma never came close to the rim. We watched the volcano for about an hour and it fell into a sort of pattern. It would spend a ponderous five to ten minutes plotting its next outburst. Rumblings and tremors would announce that it was about to fire up. A sort of crashing boom accompanied each flare and chunks of burning red rained upward in one mammoth firework. Then the glowing rocks tumbled downwards, their bright forms twisting and turning in the short evening light. They peppered the shelf and sometimes the inside flank with flaming dimples which dimmed slowly as they cooled before finally going out. It was an awesome sight, but the novelty soon wore off as the wind became colder with the setting sun and soon enough we were ready to head back down to our ride.

Tired of walking, we caught a truck back to Lenekel to visit the last item on our agenda: a giant banyan tree. The banyan is a strange tree, not content to grow slowly thicker with each year, its branches attempt to create satellite trunks to support their rapid growth. Thin wooden tendrils worm their way down from the banyan's branches and, when they hit ground, begin to thicken and eventually form sturdy trunks which then sprout more branches. Older banyan trees are a mess of intertwined trunks and branches that form a sort of wooden jungle gym. The giant banyan on Tanna is supposedly the third largest in the world, a fact that I'm sure some Ni-Van just made up at some point and is now endlessly repeated. Third largest or not, however, it was a pretty impressive sight. Its network of trunks covered an area on the ground approaching half of the schoolyard at which I teach and the canopy was much larger. Intertwining woodwork formed thousands upon thousands of rungs which made the tree easily to climb up and maneuver around. Basically, it was the ultimate tree fort, the kind of thing every eight-year-old wishes they had in their backyard. Even at 23, I spent a couple hours climbing around it and could easily have spent several more.

After visiting the banyan, we headed to the airport. I liked Tanna, although my Peace Corps service has made me somewhat desensitized to natural wonders and I appreciated the plate of hot fish-and-chips that I got just off the plane in Vila almost as much as I did the volcano. Really, though, the only true disappointment was that, due to the geometry of Mount Yassur, throwing a coin into the lava pool had not been feasible, and thus my lifelong dream remains unfulfilled.