We came to Tanna to see Vanuatu’s most popular tourist attraction: Mt Yasur, a volcano that erupts regularly every few minutes – a spectacle which can be observed from the crater rim, very close to the action. Unfortunately the whole Yasur tourism area is managed by a kind of mafia organization, asking way too high prices for transportation and entry. We tried to get past these costs as we usually do – but it was pretty much impossible this time. When we landed on our tiny 8 passenger aircraft, there were no other tourists to share a van to Yasur with, and no local trucks either. So we were stuck with chartering a truck for 5.000 Vatu to get us to the accommodation near Yasur.

On our first afternoon we went for a walk around the ashplains which was quite impressive. However our main reason for the walk was to find out if there’s a way we could climb the volcano by ourselves. There would be a spot kind of where the ash goes over into some greener jungly area – but… Weather turned really bad with rain all night and all next day, so we didn’t get a chance to try getting up there. By then, we were running out of time: if our own way up wouldn’t work out for some reason, it might be that we would leave Tanna without seeing Yasur. Also, we heard from a French couple who had gone up that way with an unofficial guide and who first of all didn’t feel too safe there and second, didn’t see the main crater and explosions from over there. We spoke with a lot of people and in the end we figured out that we just had to suck it up and pay the steep 9.750 VT entry fee and go on an official tour… You win some, you lose some.

Mt Yasur in the distance

Mt Yasur close-up

The „road“ across the ashplain

We signed up for the sunset tour since it was our last evening and we didn’t want to risk the sunrise tour not going through for whatever reason. If you can – do the sunrise tour, there’s less people going on these and you’re not forced to watch some cultural dances before (which goes off the time you have on the volcano in the end). So anyways, we ended up watching the dances which at least gave me the chance to snap some photos of people in their traditional outfits, even if no-one wears them anymore like this today.

Then finally we were put on jeeps and shipped up the volcano, almost all the way to the crater rim. The first impressions were good: lots of smoke coming out of the crater, rumbling sounds and every few minutes an eruption which sent a shock wave across the ground. From the first viewpoints we were only able to see some parts of the lava when it was splashing especially high. Luckily we were able to go to better viewpoints further on the left which give you the full view of the spectacle. If you can get to these viewpoints depends on the wind – and actually we had quite some smoke coming our way already, and ash rain after the eruptions… No easy conditions and my camera may have suffered…but IT. WAS. PRETTY. DAMN. AWESOME!!! Honestly, seeing real volcanic eruptions with red lava being thrown high into the air from so close-by, was one of the most amazing things I’ve seen in my life! We ended up paying a guide a little extra to be allowed to stay an extra hour when everyone else had to go down. It was very much worth the extra 1.000 VT given that a 2nd visit to Yasur would still cost 6.500 VT. Plus we got to see some more really big explosions which was awesome!!

All in all, visiting Yasur was certainly a highlight. The high cost gives it a bitter taste though. You really feel like a walking wallet when visiting Tanna as a tourist, which is sad. Also, not much – if any – of this money goes to the locals on Tanna… Sigh. But it is a must see when visiting Vanuatu, so you can’t really get around it. The rest of Tanna doesn’t have too much to offer: one day we walked around some local villages and another day we walked all the way to Port Resolution – a 2 h walk, one way. We walked because again transport would have been too expensive and at least 2 h is a manageable distance. Port Resolution is a nice little village with a large black sand bay and a smaller white sand beach.

After 1 h, we’d seen it and made our way back to Tree Top Lodge, where we were camping. Luckily some locals gave us a ride half way – until we reached some kind of local festival with soccer matches going on, food stalls and music. It was fun to watch for a bit!

Then we wanted to leave Tanna for Port Vila – however there had been an incident (crash landing…!) at Vila airport with an earlier flight from Tanna, so ours got cancelled. After some hours of waiting, Air Vanuatu at least had the decency to put us in a nearby hotel, dinner and breakfast included. Mind you, they were not able to tell us if we’d be able to fly next day and if so, at what time. It took us the whole next morning and many annoying phone calls to Air Vanuatu again to secure our seats, respectively talk them into arranging an extra flight since the regular ones were fully booked. Lol. Definitely not going to miss travelling on Air Vanuatu! And I’m so thankful we were not on the flight that crash-landed. We met an American family who was, and even though no-one got injured, they did think they were going to die for a whole f…n 30 min!! Seriously… this airlines needs to get its shit together.