Update #1: Our first month in Vila
We have now been here for 4 weeks and 1 day and have much to tell of our journey to date. Our long awaited adventure began on July 16th, 2001 (delayed for Renee since May 2nd) with a 40-hour long travel itenerary, Renee beginning in Halifax, and Amanda in Moncton.

After a 7-hour stop-over in Toronto, a 5 1/2 hour flight to LA, which took us right over the Grand Canyon (very cool), a 3 hour stop in LA during which we were taken on a tour of Beverly Hills and Hollywood (many thanks to Jonathon and Rebecca), a 12 1/2 flight to Aukland (sedatives and red wine highly recommended - please disregard what the warning labels say), an adventurous 7 hours in Aukland, and finally a 3 hour flight to Vanuatu (the weekly flight to Vila, which despite the 7 hours, we almost missed), we arrived in beautiful Port Vila, population 37,000.

Taken as we were getting off of Air Vanuatu's only international transport plane which brought us to Port Vila...

Our first couple of days were spent exploring the town, getting settled in our apartment and buying necesseties, and, most importantly, discovering the local drink. Alcohol being too expensive, the local fix is a drink called kava, which can be found at kava bars (or nakamals) served in coconut shells. Kava that looks, and possibly tastes, like mud, except that the sensation in your mouth is reminicent of having your mouth frozen during a trip to the dentist. It is customary to spit after consuming a shell of kava (you'll know why). Traditionally women are not allowed to drink kava, but in Port Vila rules are a little more relaxed.

"If you're asked to drink some at a village, consider yourself honoured as the invitation amounts to a formal welcome. To decline kava when it is offered is to decline friendships. So even though it may taste worse than anything you can possibly imagine, you've got to gulp it down and appear impressed." (Lonely Planet guide to Vanuatu)

A Kava Plant...

Kava is a medicinal plant and a mild narcotic, made from from a perrenial shrub belonging to the pepper family. It is used here mostly for leisure, but is also commnoly used as a muscle-relaxant, pain-killer, anti-stress drug. It can be found in natural food stores in Canada in the form of a pill. If you would like to learn more about Kava, and how to make the drink www.mauigateway.com/~kava or www.frontierherb.com/Herbs/HerbNotes/HerbNote4.html

Taken at one of the local Nakamals where we enjoyed our first kava shell...

Also during the first few days, we were introduced to island kakae (food) called laplap, which tastes about as good as it sounds. Laplap looks like thick slabs of a pasty-jelly substance, wrapped in banana leafs and sold at the market by large women in large quantities who are constantly swatting the flies away. If that doesn't make your mouth water....

Laplap wrapped in banana leafs...

This week we will have our 3rd national holiday since our arrival 4 weeks ago... it's a hard life;) One of the national holidays was Independance and the week prior celebrated Children's Day which basicaly meant that the time in between was a complete write-off. Independance Day has some ... interesting customs, not the least of which is the island pig toss ... from a motor boat in the water, the organizers throw live pigs into the water siganlling the start of the race, at which times 5 or 6 people jump in after it ... whoever gets to it fastest gets to keep the pig ... i never knew pigs could swim so well ... one of them would've swam right out to the Pacific Ocean if it hadn't been stopped by the boats ... the pigs were succeeded by chickens and duck, though the ducks didn't work quite as well because as soon as someone was seen gaining, the duck would fly just a little ahead... eventually the swimmers had to be picked up by the motor boat ...

If you look closely, the man is holding his prized possession after winning one round of the Pig Toss... according to the Lonely Planet guide to Vanuatu, some men value their pigs more than their wives...

But seriously, we have been keeping ourselves busy with many activities since our arrival: snorkling at several of the resorts and island beaches (beware of the coral), playing ultimate frisbee, squash, volleyball, singing with a local choir, playing lots of guitar, and cycling.

We've also done an around-the-island excursion, which we will most defintely do again, but not in the back of a truck. The trip is only about 130 km, but because of the road condition, vehicle condition, and a few stops, it took us from 10:30am till about 6:30pm. We stopped at a beautiful beach called Eton about an hour into the trip to do some snorkling. Then, we doubled back about a 5 minute drive to a really amazing place called the blue hole, which reminded me of the movie the Blue Lagoon. It was very cool, and a little spooky too. We continued on to the World War II museum, and then to a place called Crazy Bob's which is a natural hot spring and bar. Our final stop was to another amazing beach where you can see islands with volcanos (called Siviri), and then finally back into Vila for Pizza. It was a fantastic day.

We've also watched some Tahitian native dance and walking across volcanic hot rock (which we actually got to do). For our friend Steve's birthday, we and another girl, Isabelle got dressed up in coconut bikini top (baskit blong titi) and grass skirts and went and sang him happy birthday, and a modified version of Day-O when he was waking up... then we made him breaky...

Upcoming activities include taking scuba lessons, surfing lessons, and a 24km mass hike for an island event called piste bleu, which includes a bit of climbing and hiking through the bush. We'll also be hitting at least one of the 9 active volcanos, depending on how many islands we can afford to visit.