It’s hard to imagine that The Idiot could be just as stressed in mellow Vanuatu as he was in laid-back New Zealand.

But it’s true.

The Idiot’s stressometer registered a big goose egg, a gigantic zero, in both countries.

Just compare the shot of him being unstressed above the dolphin-filled harbor of Akaroa, New Zealand, with the one of him being unstressed on a hillside above the towering Mele Cascades waterfall on the verdant Vanuatu island of Efate.

The Idiot was exactly as stressed above the South Pacific Ocean in Akaroa, New Zealand….(Photo: Antonia Scott-Clark)

…as he was above the South Pacific Ocean on the island of Efate, Vanuatu.

Naturally there are many reasons that The Idiot could have been more stressed in Vanuatu than in New Zealand.

After all, the Vanuatu archipelago includes a whopping 83 islands (81 of them are inhabited) while most people in New Zealand live on two large islands. And as we all know, more islands = more stress.

And that’s just the start. Here are a few more reasons:

One of the rope swings could have broken when The Idiot was flying over the water at Blue Lagoon. It didn’t.

There might have been too many people at Eton Beach. There weren’t.

The local market could have been sold out of papayas. It wasn’t.

The Idiot could have fallen while climbing to the Mele Cascade waterfall. He didn’t.

The Idiot might have found something more horrifying than a Coke bottle “rusting in peace” at a World War II memorabilia shop in Port Havannah. He didn’t.

The Idiot could have had an acid flash when he stared at this colorful bamboo wall in a rural village. He didn’t.

The Idiot could have been forced to pay bail if his friend John Keeney got arrested for looking like this in public.

And those are just a few reasons that Vanuatu turned out to be just as stressful as New Zealand.

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About Joel

Joel Stratte-McClure has been a global trekker since the 1970s. He lived in France for over 30 years, working as a journalist, before he turned his attention to a unique life-time-project of walking the shores of the Mediterranean. The first 4,401 kilometers are explored in his inspirational and entertaining first book "The Idiot and the Odyssey: Walking the Mediterranean." The next 4,401 kilometers are covered in the gods-filled sequel, "The Idiot and the Odyssey II: Myth, Madness and Magic on the Mediterranean,” published on Valentine's Day 2013. The last 4,401 kilometers will be discussed in the last book of the trilogy currently entitled "The Idiot and the Odyssey III: Alexander the Great Walks the Mediterranean."