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| Worst dinghy ever! I have felt more secure in some canoes! |
The trip back to Vila was the first time I’d been on a ship here. It was fun to have someone to explore and be excited with. We acted like hyper 4-year-olds for the first few hours with about 14 more hours of travel to go.
There is some unique parts to travelling by ship, especially ships that have cargo. First off, “cargo” includes live chickens. The standard method is to cut a corner off a rice bag, write your name in big letters on the side the shove the chicken in it. The chicken will eventually stick its head through the hole, which means it is ready for transport. Of course, after 24 hours, the holes sometimes rip and then the chickens walkabout smol. They are pretty well contained, even after they escape their bags. The other important thing to know about cargo is anything with a name on it counts. That includes a stem of bananas. Seriously, totally fair game.
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Note the name written on the stem.
This is a valid mailing address. |
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| This was the chicken corner. |
The ship wasn’t bad, we had enough room to nap in the chairs and there was air conditioning. I woke up when we got to Craig Cove on Ambrym and went up on deck. The volcanoes were firing up nicely so I woke up Ma and she watched the volcanoes for awhile.
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| Dawn. This country is beautiful. |
She told me she was content that she’d seen a volcano at that point. I laughed. We still hadn’t been to Tanna and Mount Yasur. The Ambrym volcanoes are pretty, but no where near as accessible as Mount Yasur.
We arrived in Vila after 16 hours on board, which was about six hours less than I thought it would be. I figured there was no reason to spend a night in Vila when we could try to change our tickets and go to Tanna a day early.
We arrived in Vila at 9 am. We were in the office by about 9:30. I got food and returned to the office at 10. I went to change the tickets, thinking it would be a 1 pm check in. I was wrong. The check in was 11:30. We made it, with food in our bellies and beer in our bags for the Peace Corps we would be staying with.
By the time we arrived at Jake’s site, we’d taken a ship, a bus, a plane, a truck and hiked in less than 24 hours. Truly, the travel Vanuatu experience.
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| This is the Efate Queen. She is a fast ship. |
