Hell can be beautiful

We are about to interrupt the chronology of the blog (we mean we have still a couple of stories from Indonesia, that we will do our best to post shortly) as we've just had a couple of unusual experiences that we'd like to share as they're still 'hot'. In short, we have seen one of the most spectacular sites of our trip, we took an 'air-taxi' to get there; on the way back we had our first ever emergency landing; then we moved to the island where a prototype of bungee jumping has been practiced since at least 200 years and as regards the clothing of the local people - thatch skirt and (only) a leaf wrapped around the penis are still in fashion for women and men respectively.

We are in the country called Vanuatu - the archipelago located in the Pacific Ocean with New Caledonia to the South, Fiji to the East and Salomon Islands to the North West. If these names do not tell you very much, just bear in mind that the country is more than three hours flight away from Sydney, the opposite direction from Europe :). Vanuatu is located on the Pacific Ring of Fire so it should not come as a great surprise that the most amazing place to admire on the archipelago is ... an active volcano. The volcano, Mount Yasur, is situated on the Island of Tanna. Tanna's airstrip can only accept very small airplanes, so to get there we hopped on an air-taxi - a nine-seater, twin propeller engine driven aeroplane (actually it is an eight-seater, but the co-pilot place was taken by our fellow tourist, so the machine got upgraded to a nine-seater) . 

The outbound one hour flight was surprisingly stress-free, apart from the fact that the sole pilot looked desperately young (in case you were ever wondering why you see so few young pilots in Europe and where the best place for them to gain experience is...).

Once in Tanna, we got on a pick-up truck, and off we went to see boiling and splashing lava. We drove past extraordinarily lush Oceanian greenery that looked very different from the plants we were accustomed to. When we talked about Flores, have we mentioned the Wallace line? Yes or not, a short reminder - the Australian flora is very different from the Eurasian one and the dividing line (called Wallace line after an English naturalist) cuts the Indonesian archipelago into two; Flores and all the area that is to the West of it lies on the Australian side of the line. Hence, it's a constant pleasure to look at the greenery in these parts as it's always full of surprises. 

This photo was not taken on the way to Mt Yasur, though it shows well that the South Pacific flora is unusual :)  

At some point while we were driving (or rather 'bumping' up) up, rather suddenly, this abundant vegetation gave way to a totally barren, black and grey land, laden with volcanic ash. This undoubtedly meant one thing - we were getting close to one of the world's most active volcanos. And this landscape was the best witness that this one indeed kept on erupting every now and then. A short drive afterwards the cone of the mighty Mt Yasur emerged and it was biggie, biggie.

Can you see a white car at the cone of the volcano to the bottom right?

The tip of the cone was covered with an equally biggie plume of steam mixed with volcanic ash. We hopped off the truck and walked up a narrow footpath. As we approached the edge of the crater, the unmistakable smell of sulphur reached our nostrils. After a short hike we reached the rim of the cone (they say that this is the world's most easily accessible active volcano) and then we had our first look straight into the volcano's mouth, it was ... stunning, out-of-this-world, captivating... 

Every now and then (more or less every five to ten minutes) there was a frightening rumble, almost as loud as a thunderbolt during the storm, and lava splashed out form one of the two burning vents (i.e. holes in the ground).

The whole 'spectacle' was remarkably beautiful and at the same time spine-chilling. 

It brought to mind the eerie sight of Mordor from J.R.R. Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings'. 

The time went by and we just stood there, watching down into the crater, as if it casted a spell on us, infatuated us; the sight was so captivating that it was hard to move on. We looked into hell and could not believe that hell can be so beautiful! 

The next day we experienced hell once again. However, this time it was not so beautiful any longer. On the return flight our small air-taxi got trapped amongst very thick clouds. Our brave young pilot was desperately looping and zig-zaging, trying to find a hole in that grey mass of steam ambushing us from every corner. He made so many circles that without the GPS, most likely, we would lose track of where we were going and would get lost somewhere in the Pacific infinity. The fuel gauges looked less and less reassuring and the visibility in Port Villa airport continued to be close to zero. Fuel running low - another brave decision by the pilot: ''hold on tight, re-read the safety notice, we are going to land on an old air-strip'', on the other (sunny) side of the island. So we made another U-turn; shortly after a long, rather rectangular stretch of grassland appeared through the windshield of the cockpit; the plane went lower and lower, a usual couple of shakes meant we were approaching the ground, engines roared even louder (making the whole experience even more spooky) and the plane touched down, and given the circumstances it did that rather smoothly:). Bravo to our pilot – as far as we are concerned, he passed the test to steer larger machines ;). 

As our small aircraft moved along the airstrip overgrown with grass it got very bumpy (not surprisingly as it was just a field), we were being jolted up and down until it came to a stop (at least once the safety belts served their purpose of keeping us in the seat). While driving down the airstrip, we contributed unintentionally to the 'welfare' of the local community by mowing one-and-a-half meter grass with the two propellers of our plane. 

The locals they never miss an opportunity to check out what's going on (when something is going on) and within five minutes half of the village came to say us hello.

So everything ended up well, within an hour a minibus came to pick us up and we got a free 'tour' of Efate Island on the way to our destination. The weather patterns on small volcanic islands makes us wonder - how come one village can enjoy a beautiful sunshine, whereas another village 20 kilometers away (still on the other side of the island and on the other side of the mountain) is bound to endure a torrential rain lasting for hours at the same time? We also found out some interesting facts about emergency landings (since while waiting for the minibus the pilot was eager to get involved in a 'question-and-answer session' on the perils of aviation) – theoretically even if the fuel goes completely down and we need to land on water, we still have 85% chance of survival, though in a small aircraft it is crucial to open the doors just before landing (or rather before touching the sea) as otherwise the pressure of the water would be too high to push them away...

The liana jumping and the traditional clothing are still to come, watch this space...