After lots of research (including the previous reviews of Atmosphere Tours), I decided to book a round island tour of Efate with Atompshere Tours during our week's stay in Vanuate in the first week of December 2008.
I emailed some questions to Atmosphere Tours and within a couple of days was given the cost and tours available, with advice to ring Gilbert when I arrived in Vanuatu.
Once at Port Vila, I rang and arranged to meet Gilbert at a local cafe, together with my travelling companions (there were six of us including my two teenage daughters). Gilbert is a lovely, quietly spoken local fellow who has made arrangements with local people in the various provinces around Efate to share some of their fantastic sites and customs with visitors. We paid Gilbert the full cost upfront and he met us right on time the next day.
We were lucky enough to have Gilbert's new, air conditioned mini bus to ourselves. The round island tour cost around $90 each which included morning tea, a delicious lunch cooked by one of the locals, and afternoon tea. It's a long, bumpy drive around Efate, but there were just enough stops to make the day both informative and fun. We visited some of the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen, a vividly blue fresh water lagoon, a spectacular lookout, a couple of villages (which included some local dance performances) and finished off with some snorkelling at Havannah Harbour.
We had come well armed with lots of stationery for a planned school visit, but school had just broken up for the year. Instead we gave some of the stationery to a local villager for the village children (he had walked up to our bus out of the blue and given us a large bunch of bananas). We then stopped at another village where a large group of village children were playing. They were very friendly and happily returned our greetings, but when they realised we wanted to share some stationery with them, we were mobbed to say the least! Village kids came from every direction. Our own kids' unused stationery of writing books, paper, letter writing sets, pens, pencils, felt pens, display folders, atlases, dictionaries, etc found good homes.
We asked Gilbert lots of questions and he was very helpful in giving us tips on how we could access other spots around Port Vila. He is planning some additional 1/2 day tours to sights around Efate which would be good for those who find a full day too long.
All in all, a very satisfying tour. We feel we've seen some of the best Efate has to offer and It gave us good grounding for the rest of our fantastic holiday.
