Vanuatu

Today it was birds rather than butterflies. You could hear the various voices in song and melody even over the sound of the morning’s captain’s announcement. The port is out away from the city. Even though it is Friday, apparently 0800 in the morning is too early for most of the local port operations.

Thirty minutes later there were forklift drivers everywhere and security people trying to look busy. If you were on a ships’ tour you headed right to the holding area from where they loaded the buses. Otherwise you headed left, past the gauntlet of men trying to see you tours, taxi rides or the water taxi into town. Oh, yes – and the local market souvenir stands – can’t forget the several dozen (well over a hundred) local stands carrying all the latest and greatest in plastic grass skirts, coconut bras (yes, really) pareos, bright colored shirts and skirts along with various shell, wooden and seed items (none of which are allowed to be imported into Australia.

After walking out to the gate in the blinding sunlight accosted by the hucksters, taxi drivers and the humidity, Margo and I made a U-turn and ambled through the shops back toward the ship. Sidewalks? not a chance and it turns out to be too far to safely walk into town so the best part of the morning turned out to be a lovely coffee in the lounge followed by knitting on the E.L.F hat (Harry Potter reference. If you have Ravelry, go look it up).

Afternoon we joined a ships tour up to the Mele Cascasdes. There were four scheduled times but by the time I figured out that ships tour was going to be safer than doing it on our own, the only time left was 1330. Go me (grin).  Mini-bus to the falls, swimsuits under hiking clothes, water shoes on the feet. Easy walk up (unless you are over 70 and rather mobility impaired) to a lovely falls where there were pools, small cascades and waterfalls. The upper area (where I didn’t climb) were lovely. There were a couple of groups that went absailing down the waterfall. Looks interesting but banging into rocks is not my idea of a good time so  that particular activity isn’t yet on my “need to try it” list.

I didn’t really do much wading around since I had the good camera with me since taking a risk with that valuable an item would have been outside even my foolishness limit. Wandering down a bit ahead of the group, Margo and I wound up talking to a lovely older Australian couple. Both of us were independently a bit entertained by their perceptions of the rising obesity in the US and the issues with food, portion size and eating out. Now I agree on all of the later, the US has issues but frankly (and unfortunately) the UK and Australia aren’t all that far behind and attempting to catch up. But when the person speaking is also having problems walking, getting out of bed in the morning and generally can’t move around as rapidly as they used to, one might think that they would recognize that their own weight might just play a significant role in their activity reduction. Perception I guess is everything and the person we are least likely to be objective about is ourselves?

Arriving back at the ship, it was a causal evening. More progress was made on the ELF (now up to hat 4) and Consider the Fork by Bee Wilson is now on the audio. As it turns out, she is discussing the development of kitchens, kitchen utensils and eating implements, not just forks……

Tomorrow is Isle of Pines