Port-Vila

I leave Port-Vila today, after two days licking my hiking wounds. Haven't done much, really. Didn't feel like doing much. It's a bittersweet goodbye.

It was down time. I had a massage, visited the National Museum (random display of artefacts and stuffed animals, but some beautiful drums and wood masks and sculptures), and went to the beach. A nice place protected by a reef, but not the nicest of days for the beach, a tad too windy and not that hot. Had a delicious beef curry for lunch, and a chat with the waiter who brought it, as he seat to my table for a while. I was the only costumer. As every time I say I'm from Spain, we talked about football. 

Same thing happened with the driver who took me to the beach. He had been to Barcelona, participating in some athletics international championship -or maybe the Olympic Games. He was Vanuatu's 150 metres hurdles national champion, he told me.

People here are very nice and curious about the outside world. They walk around with serious faces, that bright up with a smile and a hello when you cross them on the street. There's a sort of ritualised Q&A when you first meet someone: you'd be asked your name and country, age and whether you're married -"not yet", you'd answer if your single. Then, it's about your parents and whether you go to church.

Port-Vila is a nice little town. The bay is beautiful and very scenic.

There's a quite big expat community from Australia. People setting up businesses here, working on real estate, settling in Port-Vila. I met a few of them. 

The other big foreign community is the Chinese, that seem to own every shop in town. 

I wasn't expecting that Vanuatu would remind me so much of Haiti. It's different. Port-Vila is more developed that Port-au-Prince, there's much less people, it's very green. There's still a very strong local culture, dominant outside Vila, but the country is changing fast -today the papers talk about the granting of 148 licences to explore the seabed for oil and minerals.

However the differences, there is something in the air that takes me back 15 years. I'm surprised to be so far away and find so many things that remind me of the Caribbean.

Maybe it's me. Haiti is my main point of reference when it comes to tropical, exotic destinations.

I wonder if the same thing will happen with Samoa.