Vanuatu for One

Three days in Vanuatu is all I need. Just to get a little colour back and give my bones a break from shivering. Yes, I’m aware it is a honeymoon destination and, no, my boyfriend will not be joining me. Sometimes a girl just needs to get warm.

As soon as I step off the plane and feel that blast of tropical air – wrapping around me like a warm, wet towel – I know this was a good decision. I’m surer still when I reach my apartment, which has its own private pool overlooking a lush green valley. I could happily spend the entire day here, reclining on the lounger and ordering fruity cocktails to the room, but first I’ve got a postcard to send.

It’s a short walk down the hill to Port Vila – the scruffy, bustling capital of Vanuatu – where I catch a water taxi across to Hideaway Island.

After buying a plastic postcard and scrawling a bad joke on it in pencil, I wade backwards with flippered-feet into the water. It’s the first swim in months, and a superior one. As the ocean floor drops away, white sand becomes a sun-speckled garden of pastel corals, sponges and sea fans. Gaudy fish zigzag through the blue: the unwitting stars of my private snorkel show.

At some point I spot a concrete capsule down below, with 'Vanuatu Post' painted in faded blue letters. It’s usually manned by some brave soul in a scuba suit (an odd job, if ever there was one), but today it’s just me and the fish out there. And I’m glad no one can see me because it turns out I don’t know how to duck-dive. I kick and thrash and choke water through my snorkel, but can’t get more than a few inches deep. Eventually I swim back to shore and ask a kid, who did it earlier, for help.

“It’s easy” she laughs, clearly dealing with an amateur. “You’ve just got to kick your legs in the air.”

There are 83 islands punctuating the warm waters of Vanuatu, and it is common for tourists  to do a little hopping. I meet an Australian couple who have been gaping down the throat of a volcano on Tanna, and a Frenchman on his way to dive the wreck of a converted luxury liner off Espiritu Santo. With just a few days in the country, however, and no goal beyond relaxation, I’m sticking with the main island of Efate.

The local 'buses' are the most fun way to get around. These are really rattling shuttle vans which pick passengers up from bus stops and, for a few vatu, take them wherever they’re headed. On several occasions we take elaborate tiki tours around the island, dropping locals off in villages built from corrugated iron sheds and thatched huts. Most Ni-Vanuatu people live in simple communal villages like this, farming pigs and chickens, growing greens in the family garden and cooking without electricity or gas. I see billboards for iPads and cell phones around, but wonder who would be buying them.

One day I take a steep and winding dirt road – aptly named Devil’s Point – to visit a real-life Garden of Eden. Perched on a gently sloping escarpment, The Summit Gardens’ pathways meander through tranquil bamboo corridors, terraces brimming with strange, juicy flowers, and a forest of sandalwood and vanilla trees. Throughout the walk there are heart-stopping panoramas of ocean, which I run my camera flat trying to capture.

At around five the sun sinks quickly into the Pacific, its brief orange glow signalling cocktail and kava hour. I stroll along the seafront promenade to scope out dinner options, passing women in long smocks playing cards, canoodling couples and young men lazily tossing a rugby ball. Vila looks its prettiest at dusk.

As the ocean floor drops away, white sand becomes a sun-speckled garden of pastel corals, sponges and sea fans.

I'm nervous about dining alone, but it proves to be quite fun. I visit a hilarious Texas-style saloon – think Elvis replicas, singing deer heads and cowboy movies – where I’m fussed over by staff in oversized American flag shirts. Unsurprisingly, they do a mean rack of ribs. Another night I tuck into a plate of oysters at a romantic spot on the water’s edge, and snort, giggle and guffaw my way through my David Sedaris book. I’d endured pitying glances from the honeymooners on the way in, but I swear after a while they look envious.

The one experience I really want to share with someone is the trip to Mele Cascades, a series of waterfalls tucked inside the jungle. To reach them I follow a dappled dirt track alongside the river, trudging determinedly uphill in midday heat. By the time I labour up the last stretch, I’m desperate for a swim.

The falls are like something from a shampoo commercial: water plunging from a great height over a mossy rock face, filling terraces of clear green pools surrounded by bush. Within seconds I’m lying in the cool water, looking up at the trees and pondering a riddle: if someone goes swimming in a jungle oasis, and no one is there to take a photo, did it really happen?

At the end of three days the short flight carries me back to winter, and it doesn’t take long for my tan to fade or to forget what swimming in the warm ocean felt like.

But then, a reminder arrives. Slightly bent but miraculously unspoiled, it’s the postcard I sent my boyfriend from Hideaway.

“I’m under the sea,” it says. “Fish you were here!” And next time, I’ll make sure he is.