A Dogs Head…..

Two more walks were checked out in north Malekula over the last couple of weeks…..

Malekula Island is vaguely shaped like a sitting dog, and as it happens the Dogs Head track travels across the ‘dogs head’ from one coast to the other over two days with a one-night village stay in the middle.

             

Given that our transport dropped us off at the start of the track at 5.45am we ended up walking the whole track in one day including a ‘small spel’ of a few hours at one of the villages en route and a feed of laplap for lunch (this time with banana rather than yam)

The other walk in this area is the Big Nambas Track…

Before coming back to Vanuatu, I had heard about the Big Nambas and Small Nambas people on Malekula and that villages and tribes were defined as one, or the other. A nambas is a penis sheath worn by the men, however the big and small refers to how subtantial and elaborate the garment is rather than anything else that might spring to mind....

Small Nambas

Big Nambas

The big Nambas walk concludes (or commences) with a night at the Big Nambas bungalows, perched up on a rock close to the high tide mark looking out towards Santo and the setting sun!

Unfortunately, the tourism story here is again around low numbers of people taking the opportunity to get out into heartland Vanuatu despite some great scenery, beaches, snorkelling and interesting culture.