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Day 5 - Culture, cascades and banana smoothies

posted Jun 28, 2013, 4:02 AM by Unknown user   [ updated Aug 19, 2013, 1:27 PM by Unknown user ]

Our bus driver Seth took us to another village where we were greeted by very happy children. Seth talked about why the coconut, manioc and  pandanus are grown in their village. Seth explained lots of aspects of the culture in village life.  It was interesting that the pig was used for saying sorry.  Helena needed this information as she had a sorry tale to rectify from the previous evening. The children were thrilled with the small gifts Lucas gave them. We presented  our sarongs to the ladies of the village.


After visiting the village we went to the cascades for a refreshing dip. The walk up was steep at times, lots of steps, wading through water but worth the effort. The beautiful waterfalls and the water cascading into beautiful pools to cool down in and discover. Everyone enjoyed cooling down. 

At the base of the waterfall there was a small cave. You had to walk under the pounding water to enter the cave. As we entered the cave we realised we weren't alone. There was a rather thick meter long eel ready to greet us. As you can see some of us got a fright but no-one eaten.

After finding a slide amost the cascades, most of us slide down the waterslide for a little fun...even Lucas. 

On the return walk we checked out the lookout with views of the Tanna coffee house which we had visited earlier at black beach and looking toward the village of Fokona.



In the evening we took the ferry across the bay to Erakor Island resort for a Melanesian feast night. Helena and Janine quickly shed their shoes so they could experience again the warm waters rushing by their tootsies! We were able to quickly tour the resort and get an idea of where the Faith College students stayed during their previous visits.


We were entertained by a band that included 7 guitars, one ukelele, a bass string box, a bottle xylophone and a bamboo pipe tom tom. The traditional dancers then encouraged the audience to get up and join them. Keith did a great job at lunging rather menacingly whilst brandishing a spear. A highlight especially for the ladies was Vanuatu's version of "Manpower", shirtless young men twirling fire around. Boy were they hot!