Life in the Big City

Apron sold to tourists
Apron sold to tourists

We have been in Port Vila, the capitol city of Vanuatu for the past 10 days. It has been a good chance to catch up on all the internet work we had to do (mostly getting the blog to work again!), upload photos and videos, eat in restaurants and sit and drink cafe latte in nice little coffee shops, get some boat work done, and hear what other cruisers are up to. This is quite a nice city – very clean and modern. All the moorings in the harbor are taken – so many sailboats here. There must be 50 boats or so – way more than we have seen since leaving New Zealand. It is just a very comfortable stopping off point. Two things are incredibly cheap here for some reason – beef and cell phones! The beef in Vanuatu is delicious and very inexpensive and so we have been eating steak a lot. Cell phones are also very cheap here – they almost give them away – so everyone seems to have one. There is a big vegetable and fruit market open every day except Sunday and it is really fun to go there – tons of incredibly inexpensive greens (lettuce, bok choy, green beans), fresh peanuts, bananas, tomatoes, grapefruit and tons of tubers and sweet potatoes. We were excited to find fresh wild raspberries in the market today – first time we have seen berries anywhere on our trip. The grocery stores are well stocked and convenient. There are a lot of Chinese run stores here that are filled with movies and music. We were surprised to find (of all things)- five seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm and bought it for a song. Really seems like a funny place to find Larry David.
All is well onboard Sabbatical III….

Squid on local dish of laplap
Squid on local dish of "laplap"
Entrance to daily market
Entrance to daily market

L.

Anchored and moored boats in Port Vila Harbor

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