Vanuatu (Day 3 & 4)

Vanuatu (Day 3 & 4)

A cruise ship was in town for the next couple of days, so the plan was to relax and enjoy the peace and quiet of the resort. I discovered you can order a complimentary coffee with your breakfast so that was necessary to cure my caffeine addiction. After eating (and if you are reading this mum, resting for thirty-minutes) I went out to test the kayaks and start planning my solo voyage across the lagoon. 

After the practice run, I took a dip in the infinity pool to cool off and by the pool side, read some more chapters of a really interesting book that Tanya bought for me, How to Invent Everything. We decided to skip lunch as the portion sizes are far too large. We experienced some tropical rain which kept us indoors for most of the day. Before the night’s activiites, I had a late afternoon swim. It is the best part of the day because the resort is in the shadow of a cliff next to the lagoon, so before the sunsets completely, the entire area is covered in a cool shadow.

Dinner was meant to be a French buffet on Wednesday but because the resort is pretty quiet, it was just the the usual ale-carte menu. After ordering the Vanuatuan take on a Pad Thai and a bacon Cabanora with fruit and ice-cream for dessert we found seats to watch a local performance of fire performers. The show was better than we expected, with young members of the community dancing in time with music and performing corographed tricks with fire sticks, batons, umbrellas and juggling sticks. It was a unique and memorable experience.

The next day started very similarly, at lunch however we decided to venture out by ourselves on foot to some local shops. The first destination was a famous bakery called Crave, where we purchased a couple of pepper steak pies (very Aussie I know) and a tropical slushy. The food was great and definitely lived up to the reputation. The next stop was to the largest supermarket on the island, which is much more like a Costco style shop, a combination of a Coles, BWS, pharmacy, news agent and bakery.

Tanya and I again fed our unhealthy addiction of comparing the different products and variations stacked on the shelves. Some interesting finds was Mexican flavoured twisties and pineapple Fanta. After buying some essentials like apples, bread and Vegemite, we bussed back to avoid the scorching heat and muddy puddles that littered the way home.

While the sun was setting I started preparing the kayak for my cross-lagoon trip. Tanya was standing guard on the shore in case I ran into any trouble. The journey was a peaceful and tranquil journey and the other side of the lagoon was more untouched, with plenty of starfish and coral to admire. The coral was a little bit bleached, which is a terrible sad state for the world and a small indicator of the impending damage caused by climate change.

For dinner we ordered a pizza and a lime crème brûlée to takeaway so we could setup a private nook on the beach to enjoy it in peace. We setup some candles on the beach around a wooden hut and enjoyed the pleasant lagoon breeze and the night sky unrefined by light pollution. After dinner I pulled out an engagement ring I had hid on the trip. Bending down on one knee, I proposed to Tanya and she said… Yes! I was ecstatic, the perfect way to end a perfect day.