Tanna Travel Guide

Tanna is crazy.  Its the southernmost island of vanuatu and very disconnected from the world.  Well, thats the case from most of vanuatu other than pt vila and espiritu santo.

The coolest thing about the place is the volcano.  You can go to the port, and talk to islanders in the village near the yacht club and they will take you up to the volcano.  Its cheap, like $5 USA.  If you have been to other active volcanoes (ie. Hawaii) this is not the same.  You basically ride in the back of an old pickup truck up to the volcano, hike up the side of it and sit and watch.  Some other yachties had told us that last year a Chinese lady got hit with a rock that came out during a medium danger day.  She was impaled and died instantly.  So the locals told us it was a light activity day, which was accurate.  Anyhow, my friends and I hiked up to the top and are watching this thing spit up molten rocks about every 2-3 minutes then one of the big ones (every 15 mins) comes up and throws a rock about 50 feet from us (we are probably 200-300 meters from the center).  Before then we were just joking about the danger, but when that happens we all totally freak out and my friend Todd is running away.  Still later that evening I ran across the bowl of the crater with Matt.  Its just insane being out there.  If you are anywhere near you have to go.

These people there are crazy; they have a religion based on a GI from wwII named john frum, as in john from america.  they think that sometime this dude is going to return to the island with ships filled with treasure.  Well, i guess it is no more valid than scientology.