It's an old 'twin otter' (a 'twotter' according to the incomparable Bruce, pronounced 'twat-er'), a plane that was well-used before I was born. The four passengers today were myself, Bruce, the 50-some Aussie with a dubious connection to Vanuatu due to blackbirding, some dude who angrily tried to sleep for the entirety of the 45 minute flight, and Moses, the local Parliament member for Tanna. Turned out Bruce was doing the exact same thing I was, which was cool, except that Bruce (who was a very, very nice man) only had about 8 preset things to talk about, which he did at length with anyone who would listen, and if they happened to speak English as a second language, he didn't dumb it down, he just said it all VERY VERY LOUDLY.So now you get to know everything I know about Bruce, all of which I heard perhaps 10 times.
1) He works for the blood service
2) He broadcasts a radio show to the Aboriginals in Queensland
3) He has a 92 year old mother whose family and medical history I can pretty much quote from memory
4) He has another dubious connection to Vanuatu through a Presbyterian missionary who probably did a lot of awful things in his tenure there
5) His family 'adopted' a blackbirded man 100+ years ago originally from Eramango and, though his mother was just a child when he died, he felt some pressing need to photograph the island from the air and somehow pacify the lost soul of a long-dead black man.
6) He's obsessed with the general trend of displaced South Seas Islanders rediscovering their roots, and feels like a personal ambassador for those in the North Queensland region.
7) He lives in Townsville, which I could probably run tours of now, having heard the entire history of the town from convict days onward.
8) He is obsessed with "the real" and finding "authenticity" in his experiences (check the picture below for some of the "authenticity" he loved so much).
Anyway, back to our day: we landed in Tanna and hung around with Moses for half an hour because our pick-up runs on island time and didn't even pretend to care about being there when we arrived. Then it was a 2-hour drive with literally about 8 stops at various places to hand out money and buy random supplies (cinderblocks, petrol, coconuts, bread, Fanta, etc.)
The bank/mall of Tanna:
The gas station (yes, you buy it in buckets and funnel it into your truck)
The grocery store:
We got some great views of the volcano from the mountain ridge of the island
and a hilarious ride over the most stunning ash plain
and finally, our 'resort', quizzically called Jungle Oasis:
Furthermore, here was the 'washroom'
and the toilet (lacking any connection to the floor, so if you leaned too far to one side, you (and it) fell over. Also, the generator turned off at 10pm each night so if you had a drop a deuce at midnight, you did it in the dark, with all the bugs, on the wobbly toilet.)
Immediately upon arrival it was a jungle walk to learn some of the plant, animal and human history of the place, which was cool, then followed by the most offensively pandering performance at the end (Bruce loved this part-- so reeeeaaaallll!-- Dude, he's got a fucking Gibson guitar! And that dude is playing percussion on glass wine bottles!!! Further, the fucking song is in English!!!).
Then it was a well-needed nap in our bungalow (which was actually rather nice) and a 30-minute walk to the kastom village to see some traditional dancing, music, and crafts (all for sale, of course!)
Then the coup de grace-- an hour walk up the side of Mt. Yasur, a very active volcano whose percussions you could feel in your chest, and which spouted sulphur from holes along the path. We stood on the caldera for 30 minutes listening to the lava slosh back and forth and see the violent explosions. Even through the thick fog and light rain we could see the red plumes bursting in the air, and the volcano is only on level 2 of activity. Level 3 means you can't go to the caldera (ask the two japanese tourists who died there a while back after ignoring their guide) and level 4 means the entire area for miles around is covered in liquid fire. Good times.
Then it started to really rain and we hopped in the back of a truck for the ride back to the resort for dinner. It was then I was seranaded by an excited young man (the resort is run by a very large extended family) who wanted to play his brand new Bob Marley cassette tape (note to self: must write something about the universal love for Marley-- the only man rich white stoners and the poorest of the poor can agree is amazing) and through him I learned that the John Frum thing is a big tourist trap-- the cult still exists, but to make money they put on this 'all-night dancing and singing' show which costs about $7 and they sit in a circle and sing until all the tourists get bored and leave. Then they count their money. So fuck that. Instead I hung out with Bruce, two people I'd met the day before who had taken the afternoon plane to Tanna, and Isabel, the indie English lawyer living in Australia who had just done a solo one month tour of the outer islands. Ballsy shit. Then I quit and passed the hell out, because homie was tired.Too merch. Too merch. Crazy cool day.
Drink Count: 0
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