On the south side of Efate island you find the capitol of Vanuatu, Port Vila. It is a clean, modern city with one main street of multistory, white concrete buildings. The street is almost always difficult to cross for the slow moving train of cars and taxis.

Most of the shops are for tourists who, once a week, are disgorged from an Australian cruise ship. The shops are filled with "native" wood carvings, expensive imported jewelry and designer clothes, and electronics; all the things that 99% of the native Vanuatuans do not need and could never dream of affording. When there is no docked cruise ship, the streets are not crowded and Port Vila is pleasant.

If not strolling the air-conditioned stores, a cruise ship tourist might take the "cultural tour" or helicopter sightseeing, jet ski tour or walk through the open air market and marvel at the flies and lack of refrigeration and that some of the vendors sleep behind their heaps of tubers with only a woven mat separating them from the concrete.

The reason a cruising yacht would stop in Port Vila, is to finish the clearing in process with customs and immigration which was started with our first stop in the out island of Anatom. Because of the exorbitant import duties placed on everything for sale,(there are "Duty Free" signs everywhere) there was little we needed, including groceries.

But Patrick and I had a day to kill. What to do? There, printed in tiny letters on a tourist map, was the word "Waterfall". It was somewhere inland well above the south east slope of this volcanic island. The waterfall was not pictured in any brochure rack or postcard twirl around. No one we asked knew anything about the waterfall. We have found it is often not the destination but at times the adventure of finding that spot on a map that makes for an interesting day.

When the cab driver asked us exactly where we were going, we told him to the waterfall. He had a mumbled response but kept driving winding our way uphill and into a remote rural area. The only other passenger in the multiseat van was a quiet, poorly dressed, twenty something Vanuatu lady who responded only with a weak smile to our attempts at conversation. It was becoming a long ride. I had sort of pictured taking the cab, getting off near the waterfall, taking a swim for 30 minutes and then quickly finding our way back to Vila.

High above all of Efate, one dusty dirt road wandered to another. There were few if any houses. The driver slowed to talk to a man walking at the roads edge. Drivers often do this to solicit more riders. Even spoken in a language we could not understand, it was obvious the driver was asking for directions. Here the driver directed us to get out of the cab and told us the fee. We waved to the lone lady as the door closed and the cab drove away.

The man walking became our guide. Indeed, the driver was lost. On his way home from work in the city, this well spoken middle aged man would show us the way to the waterfall. It was only a little out of his way.

We walked dirt paths through the highest cow pastures of Efate. There was no one around for miles. For some reason, we did not feel we were being lead astray. The man was a world of information. He pointed out the lady in the cab with us was a prostitute and the driver was looking for a place so they could be alone for a short while. No wonder why she rode for miles and never got out. We were also informed the extensive cattle farms we were passing through were all owned by the Catholic Church. After 45 minutes, there was still no waterfall in sight. We walked through more pastures of horned cows, mud, past rows of fruit trees, and over rivers. 1.5 hours later, we went through a "NO trespassing" sign and entered a grassy compound of concrete buildings, a Catholic school. Our guide told us that there could be an admission charge but we told him that we only had enough money for a car ride home, but assured him that we had a gift if need be. We worked our way along the edge of the Catholic buildings hoping not to see anyone.

But as we descended the sloping trail a stern looking Vanuatu women stepped out from her thatch caretakers house to stop us. Talking in their native language, our new friend explained that we were not tourists, and had little money, instead we had brought a gift. I pulled from my bag 6 of 12 plastic coat hangers, destined for the dumpster that morning but instead brought them as possible trading material. Her face turned to an ear to ear smile. She welcomed us to the waterfall. Down hill another 200 feet, brought us to a large ravine down which flowed one of the most beautiful waterfalls we had seen in any country. Water cascaded over rock faces, falling into blue pools of cool water. Miniature falls to the sides joined in the bigger fall. Green ferns, flowers, swallows darting around, along with yellow butterflies, made the whole scene like something out of a fairy tale. We were the only ones there.

With the sun almost setting, we couldn't linger.

But our guide had a short cut to get us back to a paved road and maybe a taxi. He took us out a different path which eventually skirted the smelly island dump, contaminating all the ground water down hill; certainly few tourists get to see that. We turned onto another dirt road which was much more populated by houses and cars. Taxis became frequent and after giving our guide a music CD and the rest of the plastic clothes hangers, we were on our way back to Vila. It was a fun beautiful day of adventure.

We later found there is a road which reaches the waterfall from the other side of the ravine with only a 15 minute walk, no Catholic troll and certainly little adventure.

Another fun thing we did in Efate was to go to the "Secret Garden", a $10 admission was fairly steep. The botanical garden included every snake found in Vanuatu in addition to a number of caged birds and bats. There were more plaques on the volcanoes, waterfalls, customs, and history of Vanuatu then you could ever read in a day.

After eating numerous inexpensive meals at the outdoor market, and never becoming ill, and a cultural festival that lasted for 3 days at the waterfront park, complete with custum dances from many islands in the country, we sailed off, bound to search for other adventures in the islands to the north.