Catching up on Efate Adventures Part 1: Lololima Waterfall and Wading to the Grocery Store

Most of my time here in Vanuatu has actually been spent in Vanuatu's capital, Port Vila - waiting for work to get started between trips out of town.  I haven't written about many of that time - a lot of it has been wasting days on the internet, nothing that would really be interesting to read about (although maybe it would give a more realistic view of what my service has really been like).  But several adventures have been sprinkled in.  Here are some of them!

One weekend early on in my stay here, another volunteer and I decided we wanted to visit Lololima Waterfall.  He'd heard the waterfall was cool, but neither of us knew how to get there.  I asked the women who work at the hotel where I've been staying, and they thought we could probably flag down one of the "busses" in Port Vila and get it to take us there for around 400 vatu ($4).  Busses in Port Vila are actually minivans that act sort of like taxis, driving around and picking up and dropping off passengers wherever they want to go. Well, we stood by the road and flagged down several busses who either didn't know where the waterfall was or weren't willing to take us there.  Finally, we found a bus who, like the others, wasn't sure where the waterfall was - but he was willing to try to find it.  We got in, and off we went, asking for directions along the way.  It ended up being much farther into the bush than any of us had thought - the paved road ended and we bounced along a dirt track, asking for directions from a group of horseback riders and people in houses.

 Once the bus driver realized how far away it was, he asked us to charter the whole bus for the afternoon; there was no chance we'd be able to find another bus to get back in that remote area.  We agreed, especially since he was concerned that he might be harming his bus on the dirt road.  Now we weren't the only passengers in the bus; other passengers included a young woman who had been on the way to the hospital for pneumonia before we took over the bus.  I kept telling the driver that we could swing by the hospital and drop her off first, we didn't mind - but she kept saying "no, no, it's ok!"  So she came with us.  (I think she was one of his relatives).

When we finally found the waterfall it was all worth it- very beautiful, with deep, cool pools to swim in and even a small cave to explore.  We all - me, my friend, the driver, and the other passengers - went swimming together and had a great time.  None of them had been there, and the woman who had been on her way to the hospital said "Oh, I feel much better now, this water is great!"  It ended with the bus driver giving us his phone number for our future adventure needs.

A second, more recent adventure took place on what should have been a pretty ordinary errand - running out to the grocery store for supplies.  I had just gotten back to Port Vila after my time on Ambrym, and wanted to walk to the nearby Au Bon Marche (Port Vila's grocery store) to buy food.  Now, Cyclone Cook had brought quite a bit of rain to Port Vila, and the road between my hotel and Au Bon Marche has a deep dip in it.  When I got to that part of the road this is what I saw:

The water looked to be at least waist high at the deepest points.  Only the hardiest cars were crossing - making big waves in front of them as they did so.  Now the logical thing to do would be to turn around and take a bus to one of Au Bon Marche's many other locations in Port Vila, but I saw that some other people were wading across - and if they could do it, so could I!  So I made my way across, helped by the many people who called out to me to tell me the best way to go.  A group of men in a construction site helped me cut through their site to avoid most of the water, but I still waded up to my knees at one point - and combined with the heavy rain that was coming down I was completely soaked when I got to the grocery store.  

On my way back, I decided to try to take a dirt road up a hill to avoid the water.  When I asked a young woman I saw how to get back down to the main road on the other side of the water, she pointed out the way, a path between houses - but also said that there were dogs along the way that could bite me.  So she and a group of girls walked along beside me to protect me from the dogs, holding their flip flops in their hands to fend them off.  We all laughed about the situation.  I got back to the hotel safe and sound, and don't even remember what food I ended up buying - but the memory of the adventure stuck with me.  The way that seemingly routine tasks can lead to adventure and connections with strangers is one of my favorite things about experiences like Peace Corps.