Looutopounga

Getting to the place I booked was quite the ordeal. Even booking the place was quite the ordeal haha. I found it on Booking.com, for only CA$17 a night, but with not a lot of information about where it actually was, and they were not responsive on booking.com at all. Thankfully, one previous commenter had left an email to contact them with, so I sent an email and got more info. Still with no address or coordinates though.

They said they would send a taxi to pick me up at the airport and bring me to the place, but for 5000VT ($60). I decided to take the cheaper route and bus/truck there, with minimal explanation on how to do that through email.

I caught a bus from the airport into Lénakel, the main town, exactly like I did in Port Vila, for only 150VT. Having not eaten much, my next goal was to find some food, which I did! A little place tucked away, with a sign on the road with two menu items for the day. I got a delicious fish curry for 500VT.

Next was getting to the town where the accommodation was (turned out to be a village rather, with a population of ~300). All I had was the name of the village, Isaka, and the owner of the place, Grem. Thankfully this was enough that people knew who/where I was talking about. At least generally. There’s a place where all the trucks going across the island pick people up (we’re using 4x4 trucks now instead of buses cause most of the island is so remote that’s what you need to get around). After some asking around, they found me a truck going toward Isaka, toward the volcano.

The driver said it would cost me 2500VT although I knew it shouldn’t be more than 1000VT so I said that’s all I had and he said okay. He said he would drop me off toward Isaka, a bit further than where he was planning on going. Through the broken English, a lot of this was hard to understand or trust, but I figured getting closer to my destination is what I wanted.

First order of business though, was stopping for a quick taste of kava before driving. I opted to stay in the car as I was already feeling pretty socially tired. After a beautiful drive across the middle of the island, towards the south east side of the island with the volcano, it turns out “closer to Isaka” meant dropping me off in the ash plains of the volcano, in the middle of nowhere with no one around, and saying “keep walking, you should get there in… maybe less than an hour” with the only directions being, follow the riverbed, then turn left, then turn right.

After being dropped off in the blazing sun I watched as he drove off, feeling like I was left stranded in the desert. Already tired and feeling a bit overwhelmed in general, this challenge wasn’t exactly what I needed in the moment.

Thankfully I had all my things with me, a full bottle of water, a charged power bank, my phone had service. So I knew that even if I had to camp out here in the middle of nowhere, I would survive. I wrapped one of my damp laundry shirts around my head and started trekking!

https://strava.app.link/xHwzV79h3Rb

After about 40mins of walking, following the river bed and his directions but also the maps on my phone. I came to a clearing with an intersection of three paths, with the first sign of human activity I had seen the whole walk: a small table made of bamboo a log to sit on. Not knowing which path to take, but hearing voices to the right, I headed there. I saw someone cutting down some bushes with a machete and asked “Isaka?” He obviously didn’t speak much if any English but pointed back toward the direction I had come. So i tried the left path where I also heard kids playing. After the same scenario, I was left with the middle path as the right option. The middle path I didn’t try first cause it looked like a gruelling climb, and after all the walking with my heavy bag I didn’t want to try it unnecessarily. But know it was the right direction, I hiked up the hill toward the village at the top. What actually was most helpful at this point was Google satellite imagery, where I could see where the clusters of houses were.

I was happy to see the first real buildings of the walk, albeit just thatched roof huts. Soon after, I passed a sign that said ‘Isaka Aid Post’ which was a relief to know i was in the right village. I finally saw some people by the road/path and now that I was in Isaka I asked “Grem?,” hoping they would recognize the owners name. Someone did, and told me to follow him to Grem’s house.

As Grem was working in Port Vila, just his wife Mai was here, and she was out gardening so her daughter was there to greet me. The place was very bare bones, with no running water, solar power that was quite iffy as soon as he sun went down, an outdoor pit toilet, and just a bed in a room with no mosquito nets. I see now why they had described it as camping on the booking page.

Today was definitely the hardest day of the trip, and getting to the place really craving western comforts when there were really none was a pretty tough adjustment. Definitely the first time I really felt like crying. But I was happy to finally find the bed I’d call my own for the next three nights.Read more