Head out to the island of Espiritu Santo for the most amazing cultural experience you ever did see!
Vanuatu is made up of several islands with the main one being Efatu, home to capital city Port Vila.
But Espiritu Santo, just shortened to Santo, has some beautiful beach side accommodation, vivid blue water holes for swimming and is famous for diving of WWII wreckage or just picking over the low tide beach and coming across vehicle parts rusted and strewn where they lay when the Americans left at the war and destroyed all their equipment.
But a magical water performance is something you should definitely go and see (turn your sound on for the video below, you’ll be amazed).
I was completely taken by surprise – as you’ll from my face in this video, hoisted upon the shoulders of war-painted Ni Vanuatu men at Leweton Cultural Experience.
But the highlight is in the women’s water music.
Watch as they stand in a pool and slap the water making deep percussion sounds. This tradition has been passed down for centuries having started when women would wash the laundry in the river and learned to mimic the sounds of water passing over stones, of fish and rain and today they create their own “songs” and play them for tourists – including being flown all over the world to perform. It’s utterly extraordinary.
Oh and they tell me you can do this is any body of water! Try it…