Ambrym: The Marum and Benbow Craters and the Ash Plains

Two craters

Ambrym carries two active volcanic centres, Marum and Benbow, inside a caldera roughly 12 kilometres across. The ash plain between them is black, flat and almost without vegetation — the reason the island reads as lunar in photographs.

Lava lakes have come and gone in both craters. Access to the rim depends on current activity and on local safety advice, which changes without notice; Craig Cove and Ranon are the usual starting points.

Carving and magic

Ambrym is the source of the tam-tam, the upright slit drum carved with a face that has become one of the country's best-known objects. The island also has a reputation across Vanuatu for magic, which is spoken about carefully and is not a tourist attraction.

Visiting

Flights serve Craig Cove in the west and Ulei in the south-east. Walking to the craters is a full-day undertaking with a guide, and conditions on the ash plain change quickly with weather.

The caldera

Ambrym’s caldera is about 12 kilometres across, formed by a major eruption roughly two thousand years ago. Inside it, Marum and Benbow have both held lava lakes for long stretches of recent history — among a handful of places on earth where molten rock can be seen standing instead of flowing.

Activity changes. Lakes drain, craters collapse, and access closes. A 2018 eruption drained both lava lakes and caused significant damage to the island’s south-east, forcing evacuations. Whether the rim can be approached at all is decided by the alert level — see volcanoes.

The ash plain

Between the craters lies a black ash desert several kilometres across, essentially without vegetation, crossed by tracks that shift with each ashfall. Walking it takes most of a day in each direction and needs a guide, water and an eye on the weather: cloud on the plain removes every landmark at once.

Carving

Ambrym produces the tam-tam, the upright slit drum carved with one or more faces, which has become the object most associated with Vanuatu abroad. Carving is concentrated in the north and west, and the designs are owned — a carver works within what his rank entitles him to produce.

Magic

The island has a reputation across Vanuatu for sorcery, and it is spoken about seriously rather than as folklore. It is not a visitor attraction and questions about it are generally not welcome.

Practicalities on the ground

Flights serve Craig Cove in the west and Ulei in the south-east. Most volcano trips start from Craig Cove or from the north coast, camping on the plain to be at the rim after dark.

Rom dances

The Rom dance of north Ambrym involves a tall conical mask and a costume of banana leaves, worn by a dancer who has bought the right to it. The mask is destroyed after use. Buying the right, the making and the destruction are all part of the same transaction, and a mask sold to an outsider is not the same object as one used.

Sand drawing

Ambrym is one of the centres of sand drawing, a practice on the UNESCO intangible heritage list: a single continuous line traced in sand or ash producing a symmetrical figure that encodes a story, a place or a relationship. The drawing is read, not merely looked at.

Living on an active island

Around seven thousand people live on Ambrym, mostly on the coastal fringe, because the interior is ash. Gardens are sited by reference to the prevailing wind, and a shift in the eruption pattern moves the productive ground outright. Rainwater catchment is contaminated by ashfall, which is usually the first thing to fail in an eruption and the first thing restored.

Ambrym is also one of the islands from which people have migrated to Port Vila and Luganville in numbers, and remittance income from town is a normal part of village economics here.