Singing the Sky

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So where would you go if you could go anywhere in the entire world for one week? This was the question posed to me last night. My in-laws are paying for a trip for each of their children and their spouse. My brother-in-law and his wife have already taken theirs–they went to NYC. When they saw Husband and I together again, they asked if I was up for traveling. So perhaps I should revise the question to Where in the world would you go if you were agoraphobic?

Obviously, this is the time to get over it already. What kind of idiot lets being neurotic stop her from going wherever she wants?

I had this opportunity once before in my life, when I graduated from high school. My dad let me choose a destination, any destination, for one week. I chose Greece, and we had a great time. So here it is again. Husband is so delighted at the idea of me traveling that he is very open to whatever I choose, unless I do something like pick Cancun. He would not be down with that.

So last night, we were looking at going to Whistler Blackcomb in Canada.

Is this beautiful or what? I couldn’t go without Sage, though. It doesn’t matter, because the packages all seem to include free kid stuff, including airfare in a couple of cases. I would so dig snowboarding, and what is really awesome about this place is that the mountain has a 5000 foot drop, but the village is only at 2000 feet. This means I can breathe. Get me at 10,000 and I am gasping for air.

However, when we were looking at the currency converter, we noticed the country Vanuatu, which we had never heard of before. We checked it out. It is obvious that neither one of us watch Survivor! There is a reason that we had never heard of it in any other context, though….it is an insane place. It is located in the Ring of Fire and has active volcanos. It is a place that still has groups who are members of cargo cults. I had no idea prior to reading up on this place what a cargo cult was. I actually thought the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy was simply a cool idea. I really had no idea. Pigs are often used as currency on these islands, and are killed in special ceremonies. There are also yam dances. Husband really wants to go here, but I have my doubts about my ability to handle that level of adventure. Also, the plane lays over in Fiji for a day, which is really not a cool place to hang right now.

Here is Wikipedia’s nifty definition of a cargo cult. Really, if you haven’t heard of one before, you should definitely check out the page link above. It’s a trip and a half.

A cargo cult is any of a group of religious movements in Melanesia, in the Southwestern Pacific, which believe that manufactured western goods (’cargo’) have been created by ancestral spirits and intended for Melanesian people. Cult members believe that white people, however, have unfairly gained control of these objects. Cargo cults thus focus on overcoming what they perceive as undue ‘white’ influences by conducting rituals similar to the white behavior they have observed, presuming that the ancestors will at last recognize their own and send them cargo. Thus a characteristic feature of cargo cults is the belief that spiritual agents will at some future time give much valuable cargo and desirable manufactured products to the cult members.

Like, whoa. I don’t think you can wear bathing suits in this island paradise either, unless perhaps you are male. It’s the impression I get, and probably a reason why it is not popular like, say Cancun.

So…where would you go?

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