Tanna and Mt Yasur

Your feel it first - - - - -through your feet. A vibration, a shudder. An instant later you see a plume of smoke, and the first of the rising column of exploding lava. Then the sound hits you. A deep rumble in a wave of sound and you feel it again – in your chest, in your stomach. And finally there it is, a huge spout of lava pieces rising fifty, sixty metres into the air. Pieces the size of golf balls, pieces the size of a small car. Molten rock changing shape as the airstream has its effect. Some we’ve spoken to have said the chunks of lava sometimes actually go over their heads and land on the side of the volcano behind them. We can see the evidence of this with black rock everywhere. We’re happy this is not happening today.

We’re 390m above sea level on the top of Mt Yasur on the island of Tanna around 250Km south of Vila. We stand on the edge of a 2 tiered crater, looking down into its mouth. In front of us is another shallower crater, and then, the throat of the volcano with its (currently) 3 vents. Whilst we cannot actually see the lava bed, we don’t need to, There is enough here to be awesome without it. All we can see around us is black ash and rock. The carpark is over 300m from the crater and 150m lower. It also is strewn with the detritus of eruptions. There are slabs of cooled lava up to 2 metres long scattered over 300m from the base.

On our drive to the volcano we crossed the ash plain north west of the volcano. The prevailing winds here are from the south east, so this is where most of the ash from the volcano lands. It is some 3km wide and crossing it we circumvent the volcano’s base. Occasionally you will see the adventurous ash-boarding down the slopes. There are rocky outcrops here, evidence that, in the not too distant past, there were solid lava flows here. It’s all very pre-historic. And yet, a number of villages are quite close.

We visited two of villages during our stay here. One, called Tapu (we think) allowed us to see the men of the village doing some of their kustom dancing. Fascinating to watch – and their dance brings echoes of the volcano as they stamp their feet in unison, making the ground vibrate. They also show us some firemaking, using Hibiscus wood and finally entertain us with flute playing. The old man with the flute is almost mystical, playing from his perch up in the Banyan tree as the children watch, mesmerised.

The second village is one belonging to the John Frum Cargo cult. Every Friday, they gather from sunset to play music and dance until dawn. This village is a recent split from a larger village so the dancing is not as spectacular as we’ve heard. Nevertheless a fascinating insight into the culture of this island and its people. And I find I have a link to them. For they believe that, one year, on February 15 (my birthday), John Frum will come and deliver them a cargo containing all they will ever need. I observe that, in their simplicity and abundance of food, in the way they all work together with so very little conflict, they probably don’t need much more.

Such was our stay on Tanna.