You might think we are joking when we say this but our trip has been seriously intensive, as we cover three continents in six months. New Zealand had been a big challenge on its own, with so much on offer that we were kept really busy for the five weeks we were there. We now felt we needed some relaxation time - cue Samoa!!
We left drizzly Auckland in high spirits at the prospect of relaxing for two weeks in a tropical beach. Arriving in Samoa we were hit but a wall of humidity that immediately made us feel like having a nap under the first coconut tree we could find. As we had gone back across the International date line, it had been a very long day after all! Our 45 min ride from the airport showed us our first glimpses of the samoan lifestyle: everyone seemed to be sleeping in open houses called fales. As far as we could tell, our taxi driver was the only active person in the surroundings! As we were to hear from other travellers later, even Samoan taxi drivers have been known to nod off......whilst driving! Even the capital, Apia, was a ghost town and we had to walk for ages to find a supermarket open. After walking for a couple of miles carrying the shopping back in the rain, we settled down in the hotel to relax and read tomorrow's newspaper we had picked up in Auckland.
Apia isn't the most atractive city so on the next day we made our way to Savai'i, the larger of the two main islands in Samoa. We bravely decided to get a local bus to the Port. As you'll see from the picture, the South Pacific is where the Central American ex US school buses (see earlier post) go when they are deemed really, really unroadworthy! We saw several that were being used to grow plants or house chickens, but fortunately we also found one with four wheels which was allegedly going to the port. The buses don't leave at specific times but rather every two or three hours, when they get full, or when the driver can be bothered to leave! And I do mean full, as more and more people appear you think there is no chance that they, the twenty members of their family, their pig, ten metres of piping, a toilet seat (for transportation or use, not quite sure which) and their five sacks of grain can physically fit on the bus. When you're carrying a increasingly large backpack this is obviously a bit of an ordeal, however the Samoans are very friendly and obviously used to travelling like this. Our backpacks were passed down to the back of the bus (stopping there happily, this isn't Central America you know)! Even a motherly elderly lady asked me if i wanted to sit on her lap! I declined the offer but found it very sweet. It makes you realise that people on the London buses have it a lot better than they think, and shouldn't moan as much as they do. Plus you get seriously loud Christmas carols, with a Samoan boat to them, played constantly on the buses!
The boat ride across was another adventure: there were virtually no seats or space on deck, and the crossing takes one and a half hours. We happily sat down on a staircase and Tom even managed to doze off leaning against the staircase. That was until it started raining very hard and everyone scrambled under what little shelter there was (unfortunately where we were standing). Then we took another bus, this one even more packed with the combination of torrential rain and having our heads jammed in a corner meant seeing where we were was a problem. We had been told just to tell the driver the name of our hostel and he would stop - there are no street names in Samoa. Fortunately, this was true and we arrived at Jane's Beach Fales.
As you can see in the photos the only problem with our fale at Jane's was the exhausting distance to the beach :-) These fales had been adapted to serve tourists expectations: they were private, with wood walls and a small veranda with a table and chairs from which we could appreciate the sea. As I said before, family fales are big and completely open. They also reflect the fact that Samoans don't need such high levels of privacy as we do since most family life is done in the fale, open to everyone to see. If it rains or if you want some privacy, you just close down your interlaced palm tree blinds!
The resort was very quiet and we had the beach pretty much to ourselves. Breakfast and dinner were included in the deal and we had them in a big fale. We got to know the family and the other guests Dave, Keira and Elizabeth. Dave and Keira had actually got married right on the beach at Jane's a few days before we arrived. Unfortunately we missed their wedding but the pictures were great. One evening the family running the resort performed a Fia fia for us, a highly energetic display of traditional dances and songs, including the Samoan version of the Haka. If I danced every week as the boys did, I would be very fit!
On our penultimate day we decided we should actually get our lazy selves off the beach and do some exploring of the island. We rented a car and took off along the only (circular) road the island has. Driving was quite difficult, you have to be constantly on the look out for the odd stray dog, pig or even group of children who decided the road made a good place for a sit down. Once off the main road, the road got pretty rough. We went down one rough track which at the end was hidden this amazing beach on Savaii's west coast. Being the first major island east of the International Date Line, these people were the last in the world to see Christmas dawn. Don't you feel bad for them? You don't do you, I can tell!
We stopped for lunch in about the only place outside the capital and main resort that you could get food. Having given Elizabeth a lift to her new fales, we stopped to have lunch with her and within a couple of seconds, we were very glad we weren't staying there any longer than that. The only other guest was this german woman who was the most extroadinary person I had ever met. The great thing about travelling is you meet a wide variety of different people who you would otherwise never meet, but this was certainly not one of them! Straight away Elizabeth (also German so she probably picked it up sooner than us) went very quiet and left us to make the conversation with this woman. She begun by announcing (without any hint of irony) that had she known her transport was turning up today she would have arranged to move to another resort. I had to stop Tom from saying he didn't see a taxi sign on our hire car! She then invited herself to sit with us for lunch, then had a childish strop when Elizabeth got the soup she had asked for and demanded they make another one. The rest of lunch proceeded with her picking an argument with me about genetics, one with Tom about the tides, then she went on to say how much she hated the religious missionaries that came here and how they should have shot them all when they arrived in Samoa! Finally, she started a row about when Samoa became a NZ colony. Tom, in a typical english way, was going out of his way not to mention the war (Samoa was a German colony until WW1), but had to give up in the end just to shut the woman up! Finally, lunch was over and before parting we checked with Elizabeth that she didn't want to come back with us. She was already keeping her distance from this woman and said she would managed to avoid her for the next few days!
On our way we again saw dozens of people ha
ving their siestas on the fales. Unfortunately photos of private property are a bit of a problem in Samoa: the owners find it very rude if you just take a photo without permission (fair enough) but then try to charge you if you ask for permission (very cheeky)! The same happens with the few natural attractions we visited: the villagers charge you to view the waterfalls/beachs/lava fileds/craters that lie within the villages boundaries. Mind you, these places have no upkeeping costs, the money you pay belongs to the village. Still, it wasn't that much and we wouldn't have minded if it was used to improve the village. However the incredible amount of new churches being built for a small population made us suspect otherwise... There were three places well worth the money though. Firstly we swam with river turtles. Secondly we saw a coconut being thrown at pretty impressive hights by sea water forced through natural blowholes which involved hiring the services of local village celebrity Mr Coconutman to throw in the coconut at the right moment (with the payment of an extra fee, of course). And finally we finished our day with a swim in a waterfall... Ahhhhhh....
Bye for now,
Vania
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