The Coral Isles – day five

Port Vila, Vanuatu. I was here for 24 hours in 2006, on my way to Tanna. It was fun to revisit the place, and to see some of the changes which have occurred since.
Prior to embarking on this voyage, Cath had done some research on the web as to how best handle tours of these various ports. The consensus had been not to book your onshore activities through the ship, as you end up paying around 2.5 to 3 times the face value of the activity in question, even if it only involved getting a local guide to show you around.
So, once we walked off the wharf in Port Vila, we negotiated with a local cab driver for a day’s running around, including a visit to Cascade Falls, which we’d read about and had decided needed to be seen. We paid him A$100 for the 3 of us. If we had booked the same thing through the ship, it would have cost us A$69 per head!
So, this guy takes us to various other spots that he thought would be of interest to us as well, on our way out to Cascade Falls. Sweet! Probably got to see more things than we’d have seen if we’d booked through the ship! And at least we knew that the whole hundred dollars we spent was going into the local economy, not into the cruise line’s profit and loss statement.
Cascade Falls was absolutely beautiful. As the name suggests, it’s a series of waterfalls, with an abundance of rock pools in which you can laze about. There’s even a small cave behind the main waterfall, which you can access by swimming through the tumbling torrent of water. It’s quite an experience! Once inside, you realise just how small the cave is! Anything more than about 4-5 adults and things would be getting a little squishy! And because it’s all solid rock, the acoustics are quite weird. Small room, non-porous highly reflective surfaces, and the white noise produced by the water pouring down 2 feet away!
After we left Cascade Falls, we headed back into town. Along the way, we told Charlie (our cab driver) that we wanted to find a shop that sold snorkeling gear.
He dropped us right outside the store in question, and promised to meet us an hour and a half later at the fresh produce market a couple of blocks away (a spot I knew about from my previous visit).
We went inside and managed to pick up 3 masks, 3 snorkels and 3 sets of fins for the princely sum of A$96! Much better than the A$115 the ship wanted for ONE set!!
We found ourself some lunch, had a bit of a wander around the harbourfront market, picked up some souvenirs, met up with Charlie as arranged, and then headed back to the ship.
Once back in our cabin, Max decided to get his mask adjusted ready for tomorrow’s proposed snorkeling adventures at Wala (our next port). As he went to adjust one of the side clips, it broke straight off.
Great.
You get what you pay for.
Grrr.
I said to Cath that Max and I would head back into town to get it swapped over for another one.
So, Max and I headed back onto the wharf, found another cabbie and explained that we simply needed a return trip to town, and where we needed to go.
On the way back into town, it occurred to me that I had neglected, earlier in the day, to purchase the one thing I had been hanging out to buy whilst in Port Vila!
Tanna coffee!
I tell you, this is the nicest coffee I have EVER had.
After my trip in 2006, I knew I had to pick up as much as I could while here this time.
What I did not realise was just how expensive the stuff was!
About A$50 per kilo.
And unfortunately, I only had enough currency with me to buy a half kilo.
I know I’m going to drink that in about 2 weeks flat, and then I’m going to regret not having bought more of it.
Ce la vie.
Anyway, we managed to get Max a new mask. The girls at the dive shop were very accommodating, and exchanged it without fuss.
OK, all set for some killer snorkeling at Wala tomorrow.
If only I’d known just how ‘killer’ it was going to be….

Take me to: <- Day four | Day six ->