Surprising Santo

Vanuatu Flagged Ship in Luganville

My outer island experience is limited so when Rob arranged for me to head up to Santo with him on one of his business trips, I didn’t say “No”.

It worried me a bit that Santo is supposedly the place where the ancestors of the huge centipedes you find in Vila emigrated from on logs many years ago, but I decided it was worth the risk. These centipedes are the only land creature other than people and dogs that can really hurt you, but fortunately before Santo, and I am touching wood when I say this, I have only ever seen one of these long-ugly-leggy-disgusting creatures alive.  And, then it was only briefly, just before a waiter came and stamped its life out.  So, heading off to the centipede homeland was a concern, but I need to get over these things.  Right?

To get there in time for the meeting, we had to get up at the crack of dawn.  No surprise there,  I mean, whenever we go anywhere from Vila it is on an early flight.  I’m not sure why, but maybe it has to do with the fact that in paradise everyone rises with the sun.

Pekoa International Airport in 2001

We landed safely at Pekoa International Airport after a short 50 minute flight in the Dash 8.  The terminal is forties style and was built by the Americas during World War II.  It was one of three airstrips built on the island of Espiritu Santo as a staging ground to stop the Japanese advance into the southern Pacific.  At one point there were over a hundred thousand US, New Zealand and other allied troops stationed on Santo and the mark they left is still evident throughout the island.

Our rental car was nowhere to be seen, so we piled in the rental of a friend who arrived with us and headed into Santo.  Now, just so we don’t lose anyone, the island is called Espiritu Santo or Santo for short.  It is the largest of the Vanuatu Island group.  The main town on the island is officially called Luganville, but is referred to as Santo by most people I know.  And, just to add to the confusion some people, particularly the francophones, call the town Canal, which refers to the deep channel between the main island and some of the offshore islands.  It was that channel that attracted the American fleet to Vanuatu in the first place.  My personal preference is to use Santo for all.

Anyway, as we were driving down the main road to town – a very good road I might add, much better than Vila’s main road – Rob noticed a car with rental car plates heading to the airport on the opposite side of the road.  “There goes our rental,” he said.

Hotel Santo in Luganville, Vanuatu (2001)

A few minutes later we were checked in at the Hotel Santo.  Just as the key was being handed over our rental car caught up with us.  Stuff like this used to surprise me, but not anymore.  Santo is a small town, smaller than Vila.  The woman who manages the Hotel also handles rental cars and when she got to Pekoa International and it was less then a busy hive of activity at just after 8 on a Friday morning; she knew where we’d be.

As we headed up to the room, past the World War II memorabilia on the walls, we ran into some other friends, Michael and Elizabeth.  Michael was in town for the same meeting.  So, Elizabeth and I decided to do some site seeing while the partners were working. 

It was Elizabeth’s first time in Santo too, but they had arrived a few days earlier.  Since I had the car and she had the local knowledge we were set.  First we walked down the road to the market.  It was a Friday, but the market was almost dead.

With little to see there, we cut across Unity Park to the Women’s Handicraft Centre.  The centre was set up as a means of giving women some income and raising money for women’s development projects.  It is not huge, but there are some fabulous things from Santo and neighbouring islands to buy.  I bought two Pentecost mats and Elizabeth tried to clean them out of baskets.

After a cold fresh lime juice and some discussion with recently arrived British VSO volunteers at the Spot Café, we hopped in the car and headed for Million Dollar Point.  Million Dollar Point is so named due to a less than environmentally sound decision made my US forces as they departed Vanuatu. 

Million Dollar Point in Santo, Vanuatu

The Americans found themselves with millions of dollars worth of surplus supplies and equipment at the end of the war that needed to be disposed of before they left.  They did not want to take it all back to the States so they offered it to the British and French authorities who together controlled Vanuatu (then the New Hebrides). The surplus goods were going for almost nothing, but the colonial authorities dragged out negotiations hoping that the Americans would just leave it all behind for free. 

The Americans weren’t about to be taken in that way, so one of their last acts was to dump the lot into the sea.  Trucks, Jeeps, construction equipment, spare parts, building supplies, food and vast quantities of Coca-Cola were tossed into the sea at what then became Million Dollar Point.

So, we were off to investigate.  Elizabeth had been there two days before on a tour, but they got there at high tide and there was nothing to see.  Since she had been there before, we were confident it would be fairly easy to find.  Boy, were we wrong.

Rule number one when driving on Santo, get a guidebook with mileage information and use it.  There are not many signs to tell you where things are.  We figured we would drive out of town and then just turn right at Million Dollar Point.  With no signs to tell us which right was right, though, it wasn’t long until we were lost.  All the intersections looked alike - dirt road surrounded on both sides by jungle.  So Elizabeth’s previous experience was of absolutely no use.

We drove for a while then just started trying all right turns.  The first was a sandpit, the second took us to a spot where they were clearing the jungle, the third got us to the beach, but it wasn’t Million Dollar Point.  When we got to the canning factory several kilometres North of where we were suppose to be, we knew we had missed the turn.  We turned around and started trying left turns into all the roads we had not tried before.  Well, almost all were roads we hadn’t tried before.  We kind of ended up back in the sandpit a second time.

We were looking for a little yellow building on the beach.  When we found that Elizabeth said we would be at Million Dollar Point.  After several wrong turns we tried a road that I wasn’t sure we’d get our little Toyota Starlet down.  It had deep ruts and broken glass all along it.  We made it down without bottoming out and then there it was – the little yellow building.  Finally, an hour after we started our 10 minute journey, we had found it and lucky for us it was still low tide.

US Army Truck Remains at Million Dollar Point

The building sits on the beach side of the remains of a wharf.  On one side you could see a golden sand beach with boats and finshing nets.  The other side, however, looked like it had just been bombed.  At first, you think it might just be exposed table reef, which is always a bit bleak, with some rusting metal on it.  On closer inspection, though, you see shards of glass and pieces of metal and china welded together by some kind of black stone.  Then you see where some of the glass has been melted and you realise that what they could not get into the sea they must have put on the beach, smashed it all up then covered with tyres (my guess, but something like that) and burned it.

That huge bonfire happened over 50 years ago and the evidence of it is all still there today.  The beach is ugly and you’d get some nasty cuts if you tried to sunbathe on it, but it draws the visitors.  Diving and snorkelling at Million Dollar Point is said to be fantastic.  From the beach, you get a pretty good idea of what lies below.  Just past the low tide mark you can see some beautiful blue and yellow corals and colourful little fish swimming about.  It is quite a contrast from what you see when you turn around.

Despite the environmental catastrophes, World War II did a great deal for making Santo a South Pacific dive Mecca.  Million Dollar Point is just one of the attraction.  There are also several shipwrecks to explore, the best being the 20,000 tonne luxury liner, the SS President Coolidge.  The Coolidge had been converted into a troop ship in 1942 just after the US entered the war.  It had 5,000 men on board when it backed into an American mine in the channel and sank.  I guess a sign may have helped there too?

Crane Bucket at Million Dollar Point 

Fortunately, though, only two lives were lost.  The wreck of Coolidge is there to be explored and it is basically still in one piece too.  Divers are lead into officers quarters and ballroom, past guns and into cargo holds filled with Jeeps and other equipment.

Of course, my shark phobia prevents me from taking the plunge even in the calm waters of Million Dollar Point.  So, Elizabeth and I stuck to the shore.  We conducted an archaeological investigation of the site and formed the hypothesis that the greenish shards of glass sticking out everywhere were from Coke bottles (the words Coca-Cola on pieces of the bottles were our first clue) and the brown ones must have been beer bottles.  The labels from the brown ones are long gone, so that’s a guess.  The china they used was white with blue around the rims and for some reason they were unable to get two buckets from a crane into deep water.

Million Dollar Point Rubble

As we were conducting our investigation, some kids from the local village came to undertake an anthropological investigation of us.  As ususal, they showed up the wussy expats.  We had been walking very carefully on the slippery surface to avoid falling and shredding various body parts on the very sharp shards of glass that protruded from every surface.  These kid, however, were walking around over the same sharp glass barefoot as if they were walking on pure sand. 

After Million Dollar Point we headed back to town for lunch.  We parked back at the hotel and had a very nice lunch at the Natangora Café.  That place is easy to find, since there is a sign on the wall.  Although, there is actually a bigger sign above it 
which said, “Santo Bakery”, which I’m sure would confuse some people.  Rob had said he’d be back around two so that was about when we headed back to the hotel.  As we turned into the entrance, I saw Rob sipping a can of juice and sitting on the life-sized carved wooden pig guarding the hotel's front door.  He’d been waiting there for an hour or so, oops! 

Natangro Cafe Luganville, Vanuatu in 2001

Elizabeth and Michael had plans to go look at orchids in the afternoon.  Rob and I headed North to meet some friends at the Matevulu Blue Hole.  Forewarned, this time, we opened up the guide book and started counting kilometers.  According to our Lonely Planet Guide, the blue hole was 20.5 kms from the Post Office.  At about that point, we came to a road on the left.  We stopped.  There were no signs, there was one of those grate things in the road to keep cattle in and there were cattle standing on the other side watching us.  One of them was a very big very mean looking bull.  That couldn’t be it, so, we drove on.

Just after that, though, we came to the turn off for Oyster Island Resort.  How did we know?  Well, it seems that at least one tourist establishment on Santo has some marketing nous.  There was a sign.  Now, Lonely Planet says that Oyster Island is 20.9 kms from the Post Office, so the road guarded by that bull must have been the one we were looking for.

We turned around and the cattle parted as we entered the gate.  Well, most of them did.  We had to drive around the bull, but fortunately he didn’t trample the little tin can we were in.  We were now driving up the runway of the US airstrip, Fighter One.  It’s been decades since it had seen a plane though, so it looked more like an extremely level field than an airbase.  Weeds and small bushes had colonised the runway, but there were still patches of tarmac scattered about.  There is suppose to be a plane wreck nearby, but we couldn’t find it.  To find the blue hole, the book said drive to the end of the runway and turn left.  Of course, not being one to follow directions, Rob took the third left, which was not quite the last left.  I thought, “Here we go, lost in the jungle.” 

Fortunately, this road brought us to the same honesty box that the other road would have.  The honesty box was a small wooden box that was locked with a very small padlock.  People can be very trusting.  The sign requested 500 vatu per entry.  The box and sign were placed in the middle of an intersection.  The question now was “Where’s the hole?”  

Someone had had the forethought to put a sign up to ask for the money, but they neglected the fact that it might be helpful to know where the blue hole was too.  Just a little arrow pointing the way would have been a nice addition, but this is Vanuatu.  And, the logic goes everyone who lives in Santo knows the way, so why don’t you?

We looked around, but there was no sign of the people we were to meet.  We listened for the sound of people frolicking in the cool blue waters of the hole.  There was only the sound of insects and birds.  Obviously, our friends hadn’t brought a guidebook with mileage.

Matevulu Blue Hole 

It was raining now and we had three choices – left, right, or gaily forward.  Since we could easily have taken the car left or right, we decided the odds were it was forward.  The deep ruts in the road made the car not an option. So we left the car and hoofed it down the hill, up the next hill and along the road.  We had made the right choice and it wasn’t long until we came to the blue hole.  It was a beautiful little spot.  At least it would have been if it wasn’t raining.  We looked around didn’t see any of the huge fish we were told come up and try to kiss your face – or was that eat your face?  It wasn’t really the weather for a swim, so we went back to Santo.

That night we had a lovely dinner at the Bouganville Resort just outside of town and headed back to the hotel for some much needed rest.  We got back to the room.  I plopped myself onto the bed and the next thing I knew I was flying across the room.  I discovered that at the Hotel Santo, the floors are tiled and the beds are on very loose wheels.  I am sure it makes chasing centipedes and cleaning very easy, but when you sit on the bed, or worse plop into it like I did, it's not suppose to take flight.

Anyway, once we corralled the bed we had a good night’s sleep and the next morning after breakfast, we were back on the road.  The drive North is fascinating.  There are reminders of the war presence every where.  At Surunda, the road splits forming a boulevard with a divider studded with palm trees.  It is something like you would find in Los Angeles, but in this case instead of buildings lining the boulevard there are only palm tree plantations and cattle.  Further along there is a long concrete ruin, complete with furnaces, that was once a hospital.  The ruins of Bloody Mary’s brothel are supposed to be nearby as well, but we never found the turn-off. Surprise. Surprise.

We drove on looking for the famous Champagne Beach.  Fortunately, Rob had been there once before, because again there were no signs and we could easily have missed the turn.  Still it wasn’t an easy find.  Just past the Lonnoc Bungalows the road ends at a gate.  Rob was pretty sure that the bungalows were not on Champagne Beach, but there were no other roads.  So, we stopped for a Coke at the bungalows. 

We discovered that to get to the beach, we had to open the gate at the end of the road and drive through.  Another idea for a sign, perhaps?  We finished our Cokes and followed the instructions.  Half way in there is a sign.  It is from Chief Mr Obed asking that the proper fee be deposited in the box.  Again, a sign for the money, but no directions anywhere to be seen.  This time there was only one road though so we carried on down it. 

It turned out to be well worth the trip, once we got there.  Champagne Beach is a huge beach with beautiful golden sand, blue water and lush jungle.  What’s more, we had the whole beach to ourselves.  We were lucky though, since you have to pick your day if you wanted the privacy we enjoyed.

The 20 or 30 deserted fares on the beach were testimony to the fact that when the cruise ships come in the 1,500 people who descend on the beach make the place a little less secluded.  The remains of paper cups and the field of beer and soda cans that are hidden just behind the beach are the unfortunate evidence of visiting cruise ship passengers.

After a great day at the beach, we went back to the hotel to await our transfer to the Aore Resort where we were going to spend the second night.  We were supposed to be picked up at 5 pm, but were warned of a delay and didn’t actually set off until about 6.  It worked out fine though, because it meant that we were on the water heading to Aore Island as the sun was setting.  If it wasn’t for the sound of the ferry’s outboard, you might even have said it was romantic.

Rhino Beetle at Aore Resort

Aore Resort is by far the best resort we have come across in our time in Vanuatu.  It is in a beautiful setting, the bungalows are very comfortable, the food is wonderful and in Vanuatu terms, not over priced, and the service was spot on.  Doug and Clova are fantastic hosts and Samuel who was barman, waiter and concierge is an asset to the resort.  Oh, and the power stays on past 9 pm. 

Unfortunately, we only spent the one night.  So we didn’t get to taken in all the sights and activities available on Aore, but we got to do some sea kayaking which was great.  There is quite a bit to see and from a surface vantage point the coral and fish are spectacular.  It is easy to see why Santo draws so many divers.  And, we land lubbers really enjoyed our short visit too.

Oh, and as for those disgusting centipedes, my tally still stands at one.  Thank god!  Yes, I’m touching wood.  I did find a nice rhino beetle though.


[Note:  This tale was originally told in 2001]

Copyright 2001