Recount

So many places got lost on my undedicated will to write a blog. Nevertheless I still have quite vivid impressions of every country we have been.

Vanuatu

A country which I didn’t even know existed until a couple years ago, but quite famous amongst Australian tourists and tasty for its French colonial past. The capital, Port Vila, is often referred to as the most beautiful city of the South Pacific and we found no reasons to contradict the statement.

The main reason for which we visited Vanuatu was to go to the island of Espiritu Santo to dive the wreck of the SS President Coolidge which was a luxury liner which was converted to a war carrier during WWII. Being 675ft and only a few hundred feet offshore, the Coolidge is one of the most attractive dive sites within the underwater community.

After our WWII history detour in the wreck, we flew into the island Tanna, where a volcano with the same name is still active and attracting visitors from all over. Tanna was a whole cultural shocking experience on itself, we booked a reservation with a local run hotel which consists of huts. Our hut was ok, but its quality wasn’t up to its price (60 USD) considering that it didn’t have a bathroom.

Our first night in Tanna was a nightmare, as I was getting ready to go to bed, David said “uh uh” looking at the ceiling, when I raised my head to look up I found a 10 inch hairy grey spider. Unfortunately our ugly friend wasn’t alone and trying not to scream I left the hut in a hurry and went to ask the receptionist to help us deal with it.

The lady in charge was laughing at us saying “spiders no problem, they good with you”, I asked her if she had them at her place and she answered yes, still we couldn’t deal with it and as we explained that we were not used to that kind of company she grabbed a broom and a can of insecticide. She successfully murdered one of them, the other one ran away out of sight, she left with us the insecticide which I grabbed on to strongly. After that we were continuously looking up and more spiders started coming out of their hide high under the effect of the spray, I freaked out and started spraying the poison all over the ceiling, more spiders came out along with many cockroaches.

We couldn’t handle it, we went to the reception and explained that even if we accepted company, we couldn’t be in the hut anymore due to the strong smell of the insecticide. The lady talked to somebody who talked to somebody else and finally gave us a key for a bigger hut with a bathroom and mosquito net over the bed, smiling she told us how some other tourists have preferred to sleep on the floor of the dining room under similar situations. We did not find it funny, we were been lodge on a stick hut for as much money that it would cost us to sleep on a motel in the US.

Carefully, we searched the new room to make sure we wouldn’t be attacked during the night. Finally asleep, the sound of a plastic bag being moved woke me up, the place was in complete darkness, the energy generator was shut every night at 11 pm, David used his flash light to discover a big rat trying to get to a bag of cookies next to our backpacks. After thinking about it carefully, we guessed that the rats eat insects and as long as we were covered by the net and hide the cookies we would be safe. Safe we were, but our guest was loud enough throughout the night going back and forth to her nest located in one of the palm tree walls where could hear her little cubs.

At least the volcano was amazing, we were so close to it that we could see the whole from where the lava was being constantly expulsed. A few kilometers around it, the landscape consisted of several mounts of ash.

Solomon Islands

As in the rest of the countries of the South Pacific, the Solomon Islands is populated by jobless starers. Literally, people sit around all day doing nothing just staring at everything and eating beetle nut.

The capital, Honiara was quite a shocking place, dirty, smelly, ugly, and hot weren’t the problem. As we were walking trying to find any charm to it, we observed several red blood colored stains on the streets, suddenly a bright red spit crosses from above us and we see a man sitting on a high up chair chewing something that looked bright red. More disgusted by it than anything we returned to our overpriced shit hotel where we hid for the whole day.

The next day we flew into Ghizo, the most famous diving destination in the Solomons. Eventhough Ghizo isn’t remarkably nice, it looked like a paradise after being in Honiara. There we were lodged in a not so bad hotel and booked a couple of days of diving. Sadly, we discovered that a year ago a tsunami had hit the area killing 90% of the coral, leaving a horrifying marine landscape of death coral structures everywhere we looked. Fortunately, we were told that most of the coral species were growing back. We were taken to a wreck called “Toa Maru” a Japanese destroyer from WWII, this ship still had all the coral growth making it look like a normal coral reef that happened to have an amazing wreck underneath.

Papua New Guinea

More people sitting around not doing anything. The problem here is that even if they get a job, everyone has the duty to give money to their relatives ending up with nothing anyway, plus their food grows everywhere and the land is plenty, why would they work?

Beetle nut is widely chewed here. This weird nut in combination with mustard sticks and lime (pulverized burnt sea shells) is chewed to obtain a red color substance that you must spit right away to avoid getting the runs. The outcome of this is a 10 min head rush that makes you sweaty, gives you red stained teeth, your mouths gets watery and in a long run it causes mouth cancer.

PNG is a beautiful country in terms of nature, still the prices for tourism are terribly high given the fact that the infrastructure for the same purpose is not even well developed like in other way cheaper and nicer destinations like in South East Asia.

In Madang, we dove some pretty amazing sites and visited villages where people still leave isolated from the advantages that our times have to offer. We found these places amazing, locals are expert gardeners and their villages are like huge beautiful gardens with cute houses here and there, they eat off the ground and are very good hearted.

PNG in a country characterized by mountains and valleys, it wasn’t until the 70’s when people discovered villages in the highlands that had never seen foreigners and didn’t know of the existence of other countries. In the highlands there are still village wars and in 1997 a rare disease caused by cannibalism killed a woman and her child.

The people here are quite proud of their cultural heritage and in attempt to draw tourism they organize festivals and “sing sings” where they dressed up in elaborated outfits and make up to sing and dance with the sound of their drums.


Singapore

Food and shopping. If you are into one or both of these things, you’ll love this place.
Just imagine a gigantic mall with outdoor areas and housing in it and you have Singapore. The perfection of the place gives you a feeling of being in the future, everything works, everything is clean, and everything is new.

The souvenir shops are occupied by shirts making fun of their strict system, you are not allowed to chew gum, dance on the street and J cross, drugdealers or drugholders could be sentenced to death if the government considers it a pertinent punishment.

Singapore is the most affluent country in South East Asia, being the most important port in the world, it has available for sale any sort of merchandise you could ever dream of. Singaporeans also love food, and they know very well how to cater it, there are food courts and restaurants everywhere you look with all sorts of flavors and cuisines from all over the world.

Indonesia

Bali has been our Indonesian experience. Of course we visited areas more to the west, but found ourselves yearning the laid back character of Bali.

After being in Jogyakarta for a few days, exploring the amazing temples of Borobudur and Pranganan, we headed back to Bali.

Tulamben was my personal favorite, with one of the best sites to do muck diving, we spent about 7 days total.

We also spent 8 days in a liveaboard in Komodo National Marine Park, one of the most popular diving areas in the world. Here we would dive 4 times a day in strong currents and eating delicious food that our chef would prepare 3 times a day to keep us strong to face the challenges of diving here.

Kuta is a tourists’ mekka, almost every girl, thin or fat hangs out on the streets on tiney bikinis. Shirtless surfers carry their boards everywhere, scooters get in your way, locals harass you to buy stuff. Still, it is cheap, pretty, fun, and good. It was in Kuta where we both began to learn how to surf.


Thailand

Beautiful and tasty, Thailand has very well earned its reputation as one of the nicest tourist destinations. Most of the south East Asian countries made us wander why the hell did we stayed in the overpriced Pacific Islands.

Our stay here was too short to truly enjoy its charm, but we are planning on going back in a couple of months.

South Pacific I: Fiji

I have been trying for the last 2 months to come up with the right words to write about our trip through the South Pacific without any success, but I’ll do my best to accurately describe our impressions.

Even though the simplicity of the place can be synthesized to slow and backwards, our experience was way more complicated.

Long before the trip, we gathered every vital item required for our survival such as mosquito repellent, medicines for all sorts of stomach ailments, water purifier, etc. What we didn't have was a guide to help us deal with the huge and sometimes frustrating cultural differences, which could be better called “the culture shock”. So far the implications haven’t gone any further than developing our innermost dark sense of humor.

After 2 days in Tonga we were more than happy to board a plane to Fiji, where everything seemed possible, people were smiley and tourism is important. Once at the airport, we noticed the most remarkable characteristic of Fijians, they are incredibly friendly and they will go out of their way to make you feel welcomed.


The Queen of the Yasawas

For the first two weeks in Fiji, we purchased a ferry pass to island hop in the Yasawas, a chain of islands located on the northwest of Fiji. Mosquitoes, bulas, vinakas, and so reigned, as well as tourists and overpriced accommodation.

There is where we met Queen, a Fijian male who honors his name with pride, character, and looks. Queen was the host at Sunrise Resort, one of the village run hotels in the Yasawas.


The self proclaimed Queen Latifah’s lost brother, is always eager to show his “skills” such as singing, dancing, story telling (which include only stories about himself) and dog style swimming.

With the purpose of entertaining his guests, Queen has accumulated a vast repertoire of acts. One of the most popular ones is “The Turtle Island Escape”. Turtle Island is one of the world’s most famous resorts for celebrities.

According to Queen, slavery was the employment style of choice at the expensive resort, and after a few songs with his badly intonated voice, the story of his escape was the starring performance during dinner. From Oprah drinking Kava, to Jonh McCain following him to his new home, Queen proudly told a story of injustice, glamour, and greed.

Queen is not only a singer, dancer, storyteller, and dog swimmer, he is also a Hero. Besides being the example for many Turtle Island escapes, he also saves lives. One day, he went with a group of backpackers to explore a cave that consist of 3 relatively easy accessible chambers. The first chamber connects with the second one through an underwater tunnel that requires good swimming skills to cross. -Normally, I stay greeting all the local people around the cave- he said – but this time I felt something was wrong, something told me I had to go in the cave – Trusting his gut, Queen penetrated the cave and everything seemed fine, when he tried to dive through the tunnel that leads to the second part, he saw two Asian girls fighting for their lives, desperate, helpless, they were drowning, they didn’t know how to swim.

Without giving it any thought, Queen swam towards them and pushed them through to the surface saving their lives, and now he has two Asian friends that will always be thankful for his heroic action.

Soon after he told us the cave story, Queen was very excited about swimming and decided to provide swimming lessons to one of the guests. As he appeared in the water, it took us a while to define what our eyes were seeing, he had a sarong wrapped around his torso covering his chest accompanied with a well matched purple wrap to hold his hair and gave a demonstration of his perfect “dog swimming” technique.

Our last day at Sunrise Resort arrived, and of course, Queen cannot let his longer-term guests leave without a deserving going away show. The day of our departure he presented himself as the dancer and vocal of an improvised band formed by his staff. With flowers in our ears and plenty of pictures, we left Sunrise with the promise of sharing his story with the world.


Fijian ADD

In Fiji, Language didn’t represent a problem to us since English is their national language. Nevertheless, ADD appeared as a big personal inconvenience amongst Fijian people. Most Fijians have perfect short term memory, they are capable of repeating exactly what you said right after you said it, but it will take about 10 different explanations before they grasp the meaning of your sentences.

One day we were trying to cancel a hotel reservation in one of the not so nice Yasawa Islands, we walked into the reception and 3 nice ladies were there to assist us. After we explained that we had a reservation with them for 3 nights next week, they repeated our words and then said "but you still have to pay for tonight"; very patiently we repeated that the reservation wasn't for that night, it was for the next week and we needed to cancel it -it is for the 31st, today is the 26th- we said, once again they said we needed to pay for that night. As our words and patience to explain our situation started to wear down, I thought that perhaps their English wasn't that great after all, but no! They would repeat exactly what we just had said and still didn't make sense to them. Eventually we started enunciating everything slowly as if we were explaining 4 year olds how to add...10 explanations and 20 min later they understood it and replied in perfect English "ok, no problem, if you want your deposit back you need to contact your travel agent"....


Bula! Bula!


We always do our best to learn some local words, and this time wasn't the exception, the regular greeting is "Bula" for which you reply "bula", to say thank you'll say "Vinaka" for which you have to reply "Vinaka". But that's not as simple as it sounds, they have a few Bula songs, they have the tourists' Bula Dance, they have the locals' Bula dance, and most of their songs say something like Bula Vinaka, Vinaka, or Bula...we spent 5 weeks in Fiji, and every single day I woke up with the Bula song playing in my mind, every time we went to a new hotel they made us perform the bula dance, everywhere we went they'd say "Bula, Bula; every time I went to bed I had the Bula song in my head...Now we are in Indonesia and I still get glimpsing memories of the Bula song every once in a while.

Fiji Time

Fijians have a very cunning phrase to justify delays and mistakes alike; this is “Fiji time”. Fiji time is very simple, just say “Fiji time if you are 1 hour late, Fiji time if after stating 3 times that you are vegetarian they served you meat, Fiji time if they don’t understand you, Fiji time if they forgot your name after being asked for it 6 times (no exaggeration), and why not? Fiji time if you punched one of them in the face after saying “Fiji time”.

Diving Fiji

After the Yasawas, our journey through Fiji was far from over. We took a plane to Vanua Levu, the second biggest Island in Fiji. There, we stayed in a town called Savu Savu, which David says is one of the most beautiful places he’s ever been to and I agree. Green hills emerge from the calm ocean with colorful little houses and beautiful gardens.

Savu Savu is located in a small peninsula surrounded by a few small-inhabited islands and other peninsulas that protect it from strong currents; unlike the Yasawas, Savu Savu has regulations for fishing and protection of the reef life, which makes diving the area completely astounding. The marine landscape there is so beautiful that during our first dive at a site called “Dread Locks” I felt like crying. SCUBA is my favorite sport and in 13 years of being certified I had never seen such beauty. Soft coral galore as well as hard coral, nudibranches, crystal clear water, big fish, small fish, colors, etc.

We spent a week in Savu Savu and got our Advance Diver certifications and then moved to Taveuni. The town is not as beautiful as Savu Savu, but diving is just as amazing. Our time in Taveuni wasn’t that enjoyable due to a nightmare experience with the diveshop of our hotel, Aquatrek Divers. I won’t get into details because I don’t want to feel angry. It is enough to say that they pretty much abandoned me in the middle of the ocean with one of the strongest currents we’ve been in and the dive guide didn’t notify anyone that I was missing. Luckily I was lost for only 35 min and the situation didn’t go further than being terrified and David yelling at the staff.


A few days in Taveuni were enough and then we took a ferry ride to Levuka, which is a very pretty little colonial town. Our hotel room made us feel like we were at the end of the 1800’s and our time there was quite enjoyable as well as diving, but nothing remarkable.


To finish our trip, we went to Bega Lagoon, a very famous spot for shark diving. Shark diving here is something to see, they don’t use cages, and the sharks are from 8 to 18ft long bulls, tigers, nurses, lemons, greys, and white tips. Brandon, the founder of Bega divers, the shop that began this shark feeding operation, explained that in order to achieve the right environment to dive with such a big group of sharks they have to begin with a few months preparation period previous to diving so that the sharks get used to the divers’ presence. For many years now, they have been successful with 0 rate of attacks and thousands of happy customers.


Once into the dive, every fear for sharks that even experienced divers could have somewhere deep inside disappears at the sight of such a professional operation. A staff of at least 6 guides surrounds the divers and makes sure that everyone stays in a safe place. Since I had the camera, I had a personal diveguard, who took me around to locate me at the most convenient spots to get good shots. Before the dive, Brandon told us that the chances of seeing the Tiger shark were low so I wasn’t expecting to see one, but there she was at the touch of my hand. She swam right above my head thanks to a good piece of tuna that the guides were holding out. I touched it, and I still can’t believe it, it was like a dream, but my pictures show it was not.

David was just as amused, he stayed at a higher spot where he could move back and forth more freely and got the opportunity to touch one of them as well. The view down there is overwhelming, a conglomeration of thousands of fish surrounds the feeding spot and the sharks break through the crowd showing who is the boss and get close, they do not mind us, they look at you straight in the eye and when they do that, you realize that they know you are there, and that they can snack on you if they please.

Bega was the perfect closure to our 5 week stay in Fiji and became one of the places in the South Pacific where we will have to go back at some point. Sadly, one day after the shark adventure willing to have more encounters, we had to pack our stuff and go back to Nadi, where we to take a flight to our next country, Vanuatu.


ODD Facts

- All through the SP David was a star, groups of kids usually gathered behind him staring at his tattoos. During a hell-like ferry ride, teenagers took turns harassing him, one by one they’d go and sit near him and stare, not talk, just stare.

- You do not need to go to the circus to see a bearded woman; many Fijian women seem to be proud of their facial hair.


- Carbolicious. The Fijian diet is nothing fancy or balanced, it was common to eat ramen noodles with potatoes on top of white rice for every meal, sometimes we were lucky and got curried corn beef. This was the menu for the all-inclusive plan at the $100 per night accommodation in the Yasawas.