Yesterday was Mystery Island. It turns out not to be all that mysterious. There are no inhabitants. The only infrastructure are some pit toilets and an air strip. (I’m not making this up.) When a cruise ship visits, the locals bring items to sell and set up a BBQ. Passengers that like laying in the sand, or swimming, or snorkeling can indulge themselves. Danita and I didn’t see any compelling reason to tender over to the island, so we didn’t.
Today we visited Easo, Lifou. This country was occupied by the French. Inhabitants speak their native language and French. Those who cater to tourists also speak English. The natives seemed to have a lot in common with other S. Pacific islands, but I learned very little about their history or how they govern themselves.
We visited a vanilla farm. The pictures were a disaster from the very beginning. They had a welcoming ceremony that included placing wreathes on our heads. I was all set up to record Danita getting her wreath when I was photo bombed by a young man handing out vanilla beans. Unfortunately, picture taking didn’t improve. They had a kind of zoo of native animals, but I never got a decent picture of even one animal in the deep shade the vanilla plants require. But I learned that they love to trap wild pigs. Not only do they get rid of a very destructive animal, but the village gets an delicious feast.
We learned a lot about vanilla. The plant is the only orchid that makes an edible food. It’s considerably harder to grow than most other orchids. The only way to pollenate the flowers is with the human hand. Plants start producing beans after 3 years, but don’t yield a good crop until 5 years. Insects are a problem. They can’t use chemical sprays, so they developed an insecticide made from tomato leaves, peppers, and other ingredients. Once they are getting a good crop of beans, it takes about a year to turn raw beans into good vanilla beans. The process is very labor intensive and not amenable to automation. I can’t for the life of me imagine how anybody figured out how to get vanilla. Here are a few pics.
