Hitchhiking in Vanuatu: Pele Island, Worasifiu Village

Hitchhiking in Vanuatu: Pele Island, Worasifiu Village

13^th of September, 2025.

As it’s Saturday, Trishia is not going to school, so she brings me some breakfast, and she apologizes for not have done the same yesterday, telling me that she was late for school. How sweet! She gives me tea, yam, and navara. Oh, boy. Navara is what the locals call “young coconut” but it’s actually a very old coconut, which now is in germination mode, giving out a little plant, a young coconut plant. What the locals eat from inside, the actual coconut, it’s so old that, part of the flesh is reduced to a tiny little thin stripe, and the other part expanded, becoming a spongy flesh. I have always hated the taste of it, and that’s because back in Brazil, when we would buy something with coconut from a bakery, and it was tasting weird and rancid, we would say that the coconut they used to make it was very old.

When I start walking towards Worasifiu, I’m not too sure how should I do it. Better saying, what should I wear on my feet. A blister which was formed because of the crocks given to me in Fiji, has become a real wound, and it’s a problem now. I can either keep the crocks, but tip toeing with my left foot (which wouldn’t be a big problem if I wasn’t carrying over 20 kg), or I can go barefoot and face the stones and rough grounds which happen from time to time, because most of the way has grass around the road.

Once I get to the village, a boy around 11 comes and greets me. His name is Anthony. Soon after, a seniour lady called Francis comes and asks if she can help with anything. I quickly tell her about my intentions, and that I would like to talk with the chief. As I sit by the sea and prepare to take a photo of my collection of fruits (on my way here I picked another papaya and some ripped bananas), a man comes and introduce himself. Willie tells me about where I can make my camping, under a sheltered area just around his house, so we go there together. I first pitch my tent, then we sit and start to talk.

Willie is the great great grandson (or something like that) of the founders of Worasifiu. The first inhabitants of it were working with the missionaries, and received this land from them. That’s why Willie’s family property is right in the middle of the village, facing the entrance from the sea. And it’s quite a big land area they have. Willie himself is a volunteer, working with eco projects to rescue the coral life of Vanuatu. He’s been doing this for years now, and tells me all about how everything started. I think it’s awesome, and just as things are start to getting better in terms of sponsors and governmental help, also it’s finally time for Vanuatu to recover it from Covid-19.

And that’s a very interesting topic about Vanuatu, so let’s get into it. You would not believe how few tourists the country gets apart from its two main towns, Port Villa (also the capital) and Luganville (located in the North Island of Santo). Pele, it’s one of the best spots for snorkeling around Efate Island, and you can easily see its beautiful turquoise crystal-clear waters from satellite images, and still, it’s basically dead for tourists. There are a reasonable number of yachts coming here for snorkeling, yes, but they almost never come ashore. There are only a few tours bringing tourist from Port Vila here too, and most of them are only for a day trip. When you walk into the villages of Pele, you would never imagine that it’s such a beautiful little piece of ocean paradise, because they all look almost abandoned, and as they were set in the middle of nowhere, or a place of no beauty at all. The villages only have tiny little shops, Worasifiu has actually only one tiny little shop, and I don’t think there is any restaurants in none of them. Accommodation is nearly zero, with one kind of bungalow / resort in Piliura. Then there’s Anne bungalow, and that’s it. There are a few bungalows which are not operating anymore, and that’s all because of Covid-19, when people stopped coming and then the locals gave up on them. One major problem about Vanuatu is that they were one of the last countries to reopen for travellers after the pandemic started to pass. And now they are still struggling with it. To make things worse, they’ve faced major earthquakes recently, one after another, plus the eventual cyclones.

Willie and I talk about ways of changing that, and helping Vanuatu to recover faster from all these disasters, both natural and man-made. He’s also a dive instructor, so he can take people to some diving sites around Pele. But he does his own thing, he doesn’t have a company or anything like that, therefore, he relies in personal advertisement or simply word of mouth to become known. In anyhow, he’s the only person in the whole island, the only local to offer such services, and we talk about how he can widen his services by letting more people know about it. Eventually, this would also benefit the whole island, bringing in more tourists, which would also come with more opportunities for the locals to expand the sources of income, if they are willing to work with tourism.

Here’s the Facebook page for Willie’s Coral Diving: https://www.facebook.com/share/1Nfhb8md4k/?mibextid=wwXIfr

I eat some bananas and the corossol, this local fruit which Trishia gave it to me yesterday. It’s absolutely yummy! It’s a creamy, sweet and sour fruit, very unique and delicious. Willie also gives me a lovely coconut to drink, fresh from the tree just in front of us. As he goes to the other village for some personal things, I walk around and start talking with some other locals.

A lovely lady called Greta, who is going to a village in Efate to sell some laplap, gives me a delicious cassava laplap. Oh, it’s delicious and becomes my favourite laplap! I help her and the other lady to catch a boat, simply by whistling to it. They are so happy! Then Greta gives me another piece of cassava laplap before they leave. How wonderful! I share with some other locals later on.

When Willie comes back we have some really nice lunch together. His wife, Tol, prepares some lovely rice and sausages with vegetables for us. I also meet his kind son, Alex, and his nephew Anthony. There are also other kids around like Irene and Liliane. There are other family members like Karina, and Francis, Willie’s mother, who I have met before. They are all very sweet and super nice to me.

I also get to talk with Pary, the owner of the only shop in Worasifiu. I take a photograph of it and ask him many questions about it. He’s such a nice man.

The sea looks absolutely gorgeous here! I take some really nice photos but still it can’t really show its whole beauty. It’s not a sandy beach though, only rocks and corals, so neither swimming or sunbathing are really possible, well, at least not very enjoyable. I guess entertainment wise would be only snorkeling and diving. Well, apart from talking with the locals, just like I did.

I spend some time with the kids, as they show me around the village. One church was affected by the last strong earthquake, in December 2025, and the building is now not being used, due to massive cracks all over the place. I also help Tol a little bit by grinding some Kava roots for here. We do it in the old style, using a meat grinder.

I take a quick cold bath just before dinner. Oh, boy it feels good to have a bath after about one week only bathing in the sea. Willie even offered to warm up some water for me but I told him it was really not necessary.

We have some great food for dinner again, and I’m so happy to have rice and take a break from laplap and the garden crops. We also have some lemon tea afterwards.