To be honest, I'm not ready to leave Vanuatu. I've spent the past two months getting my life ready for Paraguay (Fulbright paperwork galore!) and wrapping up my duties here with Peace Corps (reports, medical exams, reports, surveys, grant writing, meh).
The weekends have been lovely and sunny, and the mornings were filled with calls to home and writing followed by a good "spel" in the sun in my great backyard, watching the papayas turn, the tropical flowers bloom, and enjoying the smell of sun-kissed bedding. A chilled, freshly squeezed grapefruit juice for breakfast and eggplant tacos have kept me going, although I am slacking on the running/swimming side of things, it is HUMID!
October: Early was my adventure to Tanna to hike active volcano Mt. Yasur and sleep in a breezy treehouse (at least 2 stories high) with a shaky staircase (they replaced in on my last day). Encountered some great Kiwi ladies and went up to the volcano at night to see the works:
This was our night hike. The ash and acid rain were crazy so yep, I wore my sunglasses at night! Took some great footage with my GoPro that I'm working on editing. Wasn't too cold though! We had a few shells of kava after which made it all good :)
Our day hike up at the top. Once the rain and sulfur kicked in I had to cover myself! I look like I have a hazmat suit but I swear it's just a rain jacket!
Surfing down the ashy side was great! Ok so it was really steep and I slid on my butt most of the way.....I still have ash in my pants!
On top of a Martian land....really does remind me of the pictures you see of the Mars Rover, just more gray...
Banyan trees are the best! There were many on Tanna that had been built around a wooden structure and the roots grew around it to create a natural nakamal (special place to drink kava and storian)
barefoot hike to the East coast.....great idea at the beginning, but my soft Western feet were so sore! There was black sand for most of the walk (1 1/2 hours) but the cool saltwater felt GREAT!
This place was AMAZING and you could just hike up to the volcano after breakfast! I highly recommend Thomas & Janet, they are amazing hosts!
Our treehouse....a double decker! If it had a toilet it would be perfect, did have electricity though!
Gorgeous morning view of Mt. Yasur from the treehouse (on the left).
drive back to the airport, there's no point in making a road because it gets covered in ash everyday, very ghostly at night when we drove to John Frum's village for stringband music.
Didn't celebrate Halloween much this year besides a "pusskat" costume that some PCVs sprung on me! I was busy assistant stage managing Vanuatu's National Music Festival, Fest' Napuan! Was the 20th anniversary so it was a big 5 day celebration!
Day 4 and I'm exhausted! Everyone worked SO hard!
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