The United States of America

The United States of America...the United States...the U.S....the USA...America...

At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km²) and with about 306 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and third largest by land area and by population. The U.S. economy is the largest national economy in the world, with an estimated 2008 gross domestic product (GDP) of US $14.3 trillion (23% of the world total based on nominal GDP and almost 21% at purchasing power parity). In 1507, German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere "America" after Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci.

Interesting you say? My thoughts exactly.

5 days to go!

...California, here I come...la-la-la-la-lalala...

Cascade's Waterfall

If you like water falls, this is probably one of the best you will ever see. You will need to walk up about a kilometre while criss-crossing the water fall as you reach the main watefall at the top. Because it rains so much, the water just thunders down the mountain and you really have to hold on to the ropes in parts where you wade through the water.

When you reach the top you can actually go right on into the main water fall which is awesome! Once you reach within about 50 metres of the waterfall, you are being hit with a wall of spray as the force of the water falling explodes in a gush of wind, noise and of course water. Once underneath, you can get a nice back massage for as long and you can hold yourself up under the force of the water falling on top of you. Definitely would go back for this one.

We had some coconut crab that night. Apparently these crabs live in coconut trees and each coconuts. I dont really like coconuts but they seem to produce nice crabs :) Yumm.

Lelepa Island

For about $78 they will take you on a day trip to Lelelpa Island. Ironically over the years there have been lepers on this island which were confined to living in some caves for fear of infecting others with the disease. Our day started with an hour bus ride up through a steep and muddy tracks to get to a ferry landing. It rains every day here during the wet season, so the bus driver seemed to know what he was doing. Thankfully. There was another bus along the way that was bogged.

Once at the landing, a ferry picked us up and took us to the island just a couple of hundred metres to the east of Etafe Island. The water here is a rich aqua blue which is a stark contrast to the hazy brownish green we are so used to in Sydney. They took us snorkelling at a couple of different locations around the island which was amazing too. There are heaps of coral reefs and the fish just swarm around you having a look and going about there business.

If you really look hard enough you can see the fish. Trust me you had to be there ;)

The locals still live in their local villages spread around the islands. The houses are very basic, usually made out of metal sheets or if your lucky concrete. Our tour guide, Reuben, was part of the "royal family" on Lelepa Island and so had a nicer concrete on which had been half painted white. But despite being seemingly lacking materially, these people look truly happy. Just satisfied with the simple things in life. Living in paradise wouldnt hurt much either. About 300 live in the village on Lelepa Island which has a church and a primary school too. Everyone seems to wear those fake Crocs around here. Apparently during WWII the Japanese fought the USA here aswell. There have been heaps of atifacts found around the island. Especially those old Coke bottles. Apparently the Americans went through ALOT of Coke. I guess war makes you thirsty.

As a consequence of the rain too, the entire place is incredibly green. When you fly over in the plane, you will see dense forest and thick jungle all over the islands.  Hardly a patch without green.

Island Paradise

There are litereally hundreds of islands in Vanuatu and many of them you can visit in a day just off the main island of Etafe. We went down to Erakor island on the southern side of Etafe island. Theres a little resort and a restaurant on the island you can stop at. Theres a little ferry that takes you over the water about 300 metres to the island. There was HEAPS of starfish on the beach which was really cool. The water too is so crystal clear that you can see right to the bottom almost all the way to the island.

Around Port Vila there are dozens of resorts that you could stay at. The one pictured below is Iririki Island Resort. The entire island is one huge resort. Theres also a 24 hour ferry that will take you there from Port Vila and you can eat at one of the several restaurants around the resort.

The people in Vanuatu speak Pidgin English and most of the signs are in this language. If you try hard enough you can understand what they say. The French at one time colonised this place (until they kicked them out), so some signs have French on them too.

Welkam!

The flight from Sydney took around 3.5 hours on a Virgin Pacific flight. Basically all the people on the flight are Australians going on holidays to Vanuatu. In fact in the main city or Port Vila, probably every 10th person is an Aussie tourist! There are about 50,000 people in Port Vila, which works as a good base to explore Etafe Island. 

We stayed in a little hotel called Sunset Bungalows which is a 10 minute ride from the town along one of the lagoons. The "buses" which are vans fitted out with 7 seats in the back are pretty good as they are more like taxis. You just ask them to go whereever you need to go and theyll pick up other people along the way. Quite cheap too...about $2 to get from our hotel in to town.

Ok I remembered!...with the help of Google...

"The flag of Vanuatu was officially adopted on February 18, 1990.

The Vanuatu chain of islands is in the shape of a Y, and the yellow horizontal Y on the flag is representative of same, as well as yellow being symbolic of sunshine; green symbolic of the fertile lands, red symbolic of bloodshed for freedom, and black represents the Melanesian people that originally settled the islands."

Apparently Vanuatu is the happiest place on earth (a title hotly contested by Disneyland) and the Vauatuans..Vanuatians..Vanuatus?....claim to be the happiest people in the world. I guess this is one case where "bloodshed for freedom" has a happy ending?

Where is Vanuatu?

I, like most people would be able to tell you that Vanuatu is ....sooomewhere...in the Pacific Ocean. Perhaps a more accurate description is by means of Google Maps as shown below.

View Larger Map

Vanuatu is shaped roughly like the letter "Y". Hence on their flag there is a sideways "Y" much like the South African flag. The other colours on the Vanuatu flag means something too but that escapes me at this moment so Ill include it in another post :)