Samoa
Day 1 Apia 1st July
Arrival in Samoa evoked memories of my first arrival in Thailand...the smell of the thick warm air was welcome after the biting cold of NZ. Men in samoan shirts and lavalavas greet you at the baggage carousel with little ditties on their guitars. I found myself grinning for no reason, it felt good to be back in the tropics! I was waiting for Lotta to contact me, although it wasnt for certain that she would. Upon arrival I found I couldnt pick up a local network on my NZ SIM anyway, so i figured I was going to have to wing it. I had three addresses written down, and decided upon the Tatiana motel. I was approached by a dude after the usual offers of taxi, asking where I was going. I said a friend was coming to pick me up. He disappeared saying he would return. He came back and I told him my name, he said at this point ah yes yes he had been looking for me, a woman had told him to collect a blonde man. I thought the chances that thiswas Lotta was slim, I couldnt get anymore details out of him, but he was heading to Tatiana anyway so I jumped in. there were two young aussie girls in the shuttle too, who are possibly the only two girls I have heard discussing video games in depth. they barely even bothered to look out the window..bizarre. My first impressions of Samoa were a little like Burma. Due to the lack of streetlighting you could never see far beyond the main road. The houses were mainly open, with concrete floors and roofs supported by pillars but no, or few, walls. Not all but many. Also there were larger "houses" of the same style that were clearly meeting points of some kind. It was a little like driving into Rangoon but tidier and less urban. Anyway we arrived at the promised destination and the taxi driver dropped me off with a evil laugh and told me to behave myself. I had no idea what I should think now. However approaching Tatiana a woman appeared from the shadows and said "Hi Scott" with a smile. Bingo! Lady Luck shone upon me there, it was lucky the driver and I had found each other and even luckier I had decided to trust him. Lotta turned up 5 minutes later having collected dinner for the two of us. The motel was very run down, but it did the job and was reasonably clean. We decided to head for a beer but were too late to catch a bar. We got a taxi to the nearest shop and got a couple of bottles of the local brew, Vailima. It is named after the village of Vailima, where Robert Louis Stevenson also had his house, also named Vailima! The name Vailima literally means Water-Five. Why, I do not know. An early night was had and Lotta and me settled into sleep, excited with the anticipation of the forthcoming adventures.
Day 2 Apia 2nd July
We had both heard that Savai'i was the nicer of Samoas two main islands (although there are ten in total), the other being Upolu, where Apia is situated. So we decided that we would head off the next day and get the ferry to Savai'i at 2pm.
We headed into town after breakfast for a look around and for me to get a haircut, buy beach shorts and flip-flops. there was the usual indoor clothes markets with stalls and stalls of very similar clothes. We dotted about town taking in the sights, of which we saw er, none. We searched quite hard for cheap food too, we eventually found it in the form of a chicken leg and wing for WST3.50 (tala is the samoan currency) which is about £1.25 for a big ol' slab of chicken. We basked in our success at finding cheap food, we had not seen anything under WST12 up until that point. We had made a resolution on the first night that we were going to try and keep the budget tight, Lotta had to anyway and me by choice, after the guilt caused by the amount of money I blew in Nelson combined with the desire to travel for as long as possible.
Unfortunately we missed the bus by seconds and spent half an hour waiting for it to come when it had just already been. We could have taken a taxi, but it would have cost a pretty penny at about ten times the price of the bus. We decided to stay another night in Apia and then catch the bus in the morning...which worked out nicely anyway because we would arrive nice and early and have time to find ourselves somewhere nice to stay. We decided to hit the bar after missing the bus so we ended up in a sports bar just up the road which was empty when we turned up. The woman behind the counter was lovely though and chatted away to us. We played some pool and darts and had a curry. I drank too much, think I managed 7 beers down me, and I still had my Nelson tolerance on so it wasnt making much difference...just damaging the wallet....first slip in the budget watching. The bar filled up eventually with mostly older Samoan dudes who minded their own business. Day 3 Apia,Upolu - Lano, Savai'i 3rd JulyOur first bus journey in Samoa...little did we know what an important part of our Samoan adventures buses would play. It was reminiscent of bus journeys in Belize. The buses are wider in the top than in the bottom and basically have a metal chassis with a wooden roof and walls. Hard wooden seats was in contrast to the old American school buses in Belize though which had big deeply padded seats. The buses are mostly brightly painted with bits of decoration of all over like eagles and flags etc. Most have slogans down the side and the front, some of them of a Christian slant. Samoa is a devout Christian nation, with about seven different variations on Christianity including the Mormons. When you see a grand building in Samoa, the chances are it's a church. They vary greatly in style and grandeur. The drivers play their music loud and proud, and its usually the same CD, with awful digitized vocals and drum effects, and they have massive speakers with subs front and back. There is precious little space for luggage, so backpacks are always a challenge. they usually end up getting rammed between the driver and the front passenger seat, just shy of getting in the way of him changing gears. There is a wonderfully undocumented self-organizing chaos in the seating arrangements. There are almost never enough seats on Samoan buses. Basically women and foreigners (so called palangi) in Samoa sit at the front. Old people and foreigners almost always have a seat. Kids can end up on sitting on just about any womans lap including foreigners. Both Lotta and Roberta ended up with kids on their laps at some point. I ended up with Lotta on my lap and a chicken in a bag, in a box between my feet at one point. Men sit at the back. When people get on the bus, people start to rearrange themselves, usually without a word, to maintain the seating priority and order It all makes for a jolly ride, including the tropical scenery whizzing by. With lightened hearts we arrived at the ferry ready for our trip to Savai'i.
The ferry proved to be more comfortable and spacious than i expected with an air-conditioned lower deck with aircon, and a covered upper deck for sightseeing. The journey was about an hour. Lotta had the final destination in mind, I think a friend recommended it, so we jumped on another bus and headed to Joelan beach fales, Lano beach. Fale is the Samoan word for house, but beach fale is the number one type of tourist accomodation here, its basically a wooden frame, no walls, with coconut leaf roofs and blinds out of the same material that can be pulled down in sections if privacy is desired. Usually two mattresses, mozzie nets and maybe a light is your lot. Its a very romantic, airy and depending on the view, spectacular type of accomodation! We arrived at joelan and it looked lovely. I wasn't immediately overly impressed, I think I was expecting something more along the lines of Tobacco Caye in Belize, but that is a high bar to set. We dawdled about and went for a swim in the ocean, spitting distance from our fale. The owner didn't exactly impress us with her welcoming skills either, she basically wrote us in the book and took our money. This wasn't the last time she disappointed us. Didn't even point out where the toilets were, but then hey, you'll figure it out when you need to go, right?
The standard fare for tourist accommodation out here is two or three meals included with the accomodation, for the princely average sum of £30 a night. No bad. This aint Asia baby. The quality of the food is pretty good, breakfast is usually toast and fruit (coconut, papaya - oh the papaya here! - and breadfruit being the main ones) and dinner is usually chicken or fresh fish straight out the sea, with taro, the main carbs beside rice here, a root vegetable with a bland taste. This country really is the bounty island cliche, one of the few places on earth where everybody has enough to eat. Even as a tourist you can knock coconuts off trees for yourself, assuming they're within the accommodation boundaries, and theyre almost always is, because theyre everywhere, and sometimes bananas are provided free and plentiful. Nobody goes hungry in Samoa!
Anyway we settled in and got to know the guests, a really nice bunch. A swiss couple and a ozzie and dutch couple, and a couple of other randoms. Later on a couple we got to know as Andy and Jana turned up. They kept themselves to themselves on the first night. We played cards and had a couple of beers but nothing heavy. Later on as we were going to bed Andy and a japanese girl Kanako were getting close. Jana was attractive and at this point I realised they weren't a couple.
Day 4 Lano July 4th
Up in the morning and I saw Jana on the beachfront practicing her stick swinging skills. I walked up and introduced myself and we went for a swim together. She's young, good-looking and boisterous, I liked her straight away. Meanwhile Lotta was getting friendly with the dogs in the area, she's a regular Dr. Dolittle. Put a little scrawny cat in front of her and she melts. We went for a walk to the shop to get beer and were accompanied by no less than 5 dogs trotting along beside us. They would keep the other dogs at bay, and get into the occasional scrap with the other dogs. Our own security patrol! Lotta and I hired snorkels from the fale owner, but they were in such bad condition as to be unusable. Both masks and snorkels were covered in mould and when you breathed throughh the snorkel you could taste it. We managed to cobble together two decent sets by asking the fale owner next door if we could hire theirs. The snorkelling is generaly not great around Savai'i, permanently shallow water makes for tricky navigation, and I didnt see a single big fish the time I spent on Savai'i. Other than that we messed about on the beach and generally enjoyed beach life. Later on I dragged Jana into the water again and we sat and talked at a little beach. That night we had a couple beers again and played cards. Andy joined us this time and it turned into a later night for me, the UNO cards came out and a little wacky baccy was smoked.
Day 5 Lano July 5th
Lotta went into town to try and get some money out. I looked for Jana to try and get her into the water again (not always easy!), but she was nowhere to be seen. I didnt realise she had gone to town with Lotta. I lay about until they came back then we had a nice day just all swimming, sunbathing and hanging out. We ended up in the water with a school class of local kids at one point, and as the kids thronged around the two blond girls asking the usual barrage of questions and touching hair and skin, I played catch the coconut in the water with some of the boys. The money mission had unfortunately been unsuccessful, but it wasn't such a tragedy, I still had some spare cash. That night we did the usual, played cards and drank a couple of beers. Jana decided to go to bed and seconds later we heard a scream. A big dirty rat had been feeding on some open food left foolishly lying in the fale, and Jana had freaked out. Jana was scared of thunder, rats, dogs, lagoons, I cant even remember what else. She came back to the the table as Andy, Kanako the japanese girl and I continued to play cards. eventually I realised Jana was at the table because she was too scared to go back to the fale. I offered her my bed in the fale with Lotta and went to sleep in hers.
Day 6 Lano July 6th
For this days events, the day of the bus accident, see:
http://runthruthejungle.blogspot.com/2013/07/tragic-bus-accident-lano-savaii-samoa.html
Day 7 July 7th Manase
Sunday. In Sunday a few things happen in Samoa, but only a few. Everybody goes to church about 10am-ish. They have a traditional Sunday lunch, called an Umu. It can be several things, but the cooking method is always the same. Dried coconut husks are set in a mound with stones scattered between them. The hot stones are later spread on the ground and the food to be cooked is laid among the stones. Suckling pig is also sometimes on offer, I joy I have yet to experience. Afer that, basically nothing happens, working is forbidden, even going out and paddling about in canoes is forbidden. Walking between villages is also forbidden. It is a day of rest a la Switzerland, but stricter and often enforced. Foreigners (palangi) are given some leeway, but if the village chiefs catch their residents doing anything of that sort, they have to pay a fine.
Our host had invited us the previous night to church and for an umu. Church seemed appropriate after the previous days events, and we had heard the singing is quite powerful, so we accepted.
The morning found me in better spirits. After breakfast and lying about in the sun we first visited the two Samoans across the road preparing the umu. They showed us the preparation of coconut cream inside the talo leaf, which is then wrapped in another type of leaf whose name escapes me. We were told the palangi always find it delicious, I was looking forward to it. Their house was surrounded on 3 sides by pretty dense jungle, they had obviously cut out that little patch just for themselves. Chickens and pigs, as usual, ran free, snuffling about. We got to know Roberta better, we were already hatching half plans to spend the rest of the girls time in Samoa together, as it turned out both Lotta and Roberta had the same flight home. The bad news was that the fale owner came to us and said two little girls were confirmed dead in the bus crash. Up to this point I had thought the worst off were Tina the german and the old woman. That was depressing news. Additionally, she thought two old men were still missing.
With that sorry news we went off to church.
The church was quite an impressive affair. Over 100 years old, an imposing white and blue building. We had been told it was one of the most impressive churches on the island. The men generally wore white suit jackets and white lavalavas (basically a length of cloth fashioned into a simple skirt, im waering one as I write this). The women were more varied, dresses of all shapes and colours. The choir sat at the front. The pastor started with a little English for us "Welcome to Samoa. We hope you enjoy the beautiful people. And also quite good-looking". That was the last of the English though. It was a typically Catholic service with singing, sermon, and call and return between pastor and the faithful. What wasn't typical, was the music. Acoustically the church was great. The background music for the hymns was the same awfully produced stuff that we heard on the buses. The singing over the top of it was quite something. The men had deep rich voices, and the harmonies with the women were sometimes excellent. A couple of times we all had to stop ourself from applauding at the end of a song! The highlight of the service for me was the carrying of the bible from the back of the church to the front. At this point the background music took on a classic dance beat, boom boom boom boom, which seemed so inappropriate I had to stop myself from laughing. The pastor(?) walked slowly with the book held high over his head to the front of the church.
The service went on 20 minutes shy of me falling asleep, which seems about right. For part of it we were entertained by two kids a couple of rows in front intermittently slapping each other on the back of the head. We went back to find lunch on the table, I had actually expected to be sitting around with the villagers eating, but it turned out not to be that way. At some point in the day it came out that I had a video. An old feller staying there suggested I give it to the police. I said I thought they had enough eye-witness statements, Anyway the owners got wind of this, and certainly not for the last time, I showed the video to the entire family multiple times while they watched and discussed it and recorded the video with their mobile phones. The old fella suggested again about the police, and the owner agreed so the police were called, but strangely couldnt be bothered to come out themselves, so I would have to go and visit them if I wanted to hand over the video. This would involve going round the island the long way to get to our planned next destination, but I agreed to do it, I could also nip back to Joelans and pick up the stuff we had missed when we packed so quick the day previously, including Lottas only shoes, her expensive watch and my headlight. We agreed to go our separate ways in the morning, Lotta and Roberta would go the short way, and me the long way, and I would meet them there.
That night Lotta went to bed fairly early and Roberta and I sat up and played cards (Spit, Machiavelli) until the beer was all gone in the wee hours of the morning. Latest night I had had in a while!
Day 8 July 8th Manase-Falealupo
Up for brekkers and it was time to hit the road. Lotta and Roberta were westbound across the northern coastal road to the northwestern tip, i was east bound and all the way round the island to end up at the same destination. Savai'i is the third biggest island in the South Pacific after New Zealand and Hawai'i, so we are not talking a one hour trip ;)
It was an interesting feeling walking out of Manase with my backpack on, not sure I've ever walked out of anywhere, cycled yes, bus, train, taxi, yes. But walked? Anyway I'd probably walked about a kilometre when I decided i was going to hitch the first leg. The third car stopped after I changed my tactic from simply sticking my thumb out to turning round and showing my face and then sticking my thumb out, probably obvious to those who have hitchhiked before. A nice family picked me up and I squeezed in. The bus story came up, so the video came out. We discussed that and then had a fairly quiet journey the rest of the way. They dropped me at Joelans and it felt strange going back. There was no-one around, except a couple of staff. I got my stuff back. The corner of the house seemed in even worse shape than before. I left and walked towards the scene of the accident. The bus had been removed, and there were two boys picking amongst the rocks, obviously looking for lost treasures for the wrong reasons or right. I was chatting to them when Sai came out his house, the house that had been used for the first aid station. Jana and I had been chatting to him just before it all happened. I don't remember seeing him again after that. He recognised me straight away and greeted me like an old friend. He was very grateful for the help and said any time I come back to Savai'i I can come and live with him for free. He filled me in on a lot of details of the accident. He had been in the search party that found the girls body trapped under the bus, and he had found the other body that washed up on the beach the next day. The driver was badly injured and was in hospital. the two Australian girls had got away, almost without a trace apparently. He had managed to recover Tina's second bag, her camera and bizarrely, the photograph page of her passport. We walked for a couple of km and exchanged contact details at the end. I was really happy to have met him, it gave me some kind of closure. However, it isn't the last time I've thought that.
I hitched a lift on the back of a pickup to the police station in Tuasivi. That was a nice ride!
In the police station, there were lots of police around, apparently doing absolutely nothing. I told them who I was and what I had. The camera came out, the video was shown, the mobile phones came out to record it. Then apparently they remembered who they were, and showed me in to who can only guess was the chief of the precinct. A sterner, more senior man, but what really gave away his status was that he actually appeared to be working. We copied the video over to his PC and he watched it a couple of times. I asked him some questions about the crash, he told me the driver was probably facing life under a new Crimes Act about to come into force. He told me that they weren't sure if the driver had been drunk because chewing gum, a cigarette or even a lungful of water can muddle the test. Pretty sure the driver had at least the latter. Strangely he asked me very few questions, mostly just wanted my contact details and to know why I hadn't filmed the whole incident or taken pictures. He took no statement. I copied the video onto another PC, clearly this one was for the officers' enjoyment. They were jovial and chatty, didnt seem to be particularly engaged in an investigation of any kind! I took my leave and once again headed out on foot. I had half planned to go to the nearby hospital and get some antibiotics and perhaps even bandage my feet, I had a couple of cuts and lacerations that I picked up during the bus accident that didn't seem to want to close or get better. I walked another km or two, waving to children and the like. I jumped on a passing bus which got me to the main busstation. He told me on arrival at the station which bus I needed, in such a manner that I thought I had to rush. I ran over to the bus and sat down pleased in the knowledge I had made it, I was on the right bus and this would be the last leg of the journey before the beach reward at the far end. I sat there for two hours before the bus was so much as started up. Eventually we started making tracks on the two hour bus journey along the southern and western coasts of Savai'i and up towards Falealupo, which means literally House Of Fish in samoan. This was the first time I had ever experienced a quiet bus in Samoa. Roberta starting texting me saying it was paradise where they were. Sweet! As always, speaking to a couple of people on the bus ensured they directed me to get off at the right point. After a long dozy journey which towards the end was littered with signs along the street "Hurricane Evacuation/Assembly point", I arrived and went to the little shop at the top of the 5km road down to the beach. I talked to the samoan woman running the shop who had been brought up in NZ and had returned to Samoa for the easy way of life. She was funny, with a strong Maori english accent. Roberta had phoned me a taxi but it took half an hour to come, and th road was so bad another half an hour passed before I finally made it, but it was worth the wait! Spotless golden beaches, palm trees, our accomodation, a bizarre concrete paved "beach volleyball" court and precious little else. It was instantly relaxing upon arrival. The girls had been there for a couple of hours and we swapped stories about our day, the girls had also had a very interesting and warm hearted day, families that had picked them up hitchhiking had invited them in for food, offered them a bed, etc. They were both buzzing with the combination of the days excitement and the paradise we had arrived at. It really was something else. And it was called Sunset Fales, so our expectations were high for a spectacular sunset. It was really nice to see them again, after only a few hours apart, especially Lotta seeing as we had been more or less always together since the start, I was as excited about meeting them having spent a few hours apart and on our own little adventures as I was about anything. We messed about in the water and paddled about making the most of the good weather. It has been apparently Samoans rainiest dry season since, well forever. I suppose that balances out the fact that all 3 of us were in New Zealand for their driest summer since, well forever. We decided to go to the local shop just about dusk time to get some beers in. We arrived at the shop to find it closed, but as always in Samoa, you are never alone for long, and people began appearing out the shadows, until it felt like they were having a town meeting, and then the shop owner turned up and opened up just for us. We trapsed back to find a rather dry ensemble at the dinner table, two russians and two aucklanders. Ive spent long enough in new zealand to know there is a difference between a kiwi and an aucklander, and these two were just dry and mildly pretentious enough to be in the "Ignore" drawer for me. They were cycling round Samoa. Wasnt long until dinner was served and it was typically good, chicken and fish and even a salad with tuna through it, mmmmeat festival. After that we cracked our beers open and played some cards at the cute beach table with a light in the middle. I spent the night with about 30 moths hovering around me, but with ever day that passes my bug tolerance increases. Moths are anyway not really bugs, just big flappy buggers. We all hit the sack at a respectable time. It always feels about 3 hours later than it is in the night time here, because the sun goes down so early and dinner is usually fairly early. If you reach midnight you were having a good crack at it.
Day 9 July 9th Falealupo
Nothing to do today but laze about and enjoy the beach and the company. Lovely. We spent most of the day sunbathing. We went to the shop after breakfast, and i decided on a whim I was going to buy superglue to fix the cuts and lacerations on my feet, that I had mainly picked up at the bus accident. I had spent the previous days since the bus accident hobbling about when barefoot and trying to keep my feet dry as possible and out the sand. Everytime going into the water or the sand they werent getting better, and I was trying to live the beach life. I had tried blister plasters to seal them in, as I once had in Thailand, but as in Thailand, it didnt work. In Thailand (actually Burma) I let them get wet, and they puff up. But basically they take ages and the skin doesnt breathee properly, so if you take them off prematurely it rips all the temporary cover away with it, and youre back to square one. So I figured superglue must be the key. And...it was. I cleaned and disinfected all 4 cuts, applied the superglue. within one hour all the throbbing and pain was gone, and I never thought about them again. Cuts are never great in the tropics, especially on your feet. After I had done it I looked up the internet to find out if its a smart idea (that was clever!), and apparently it is :) New essential tropics travelling item added! Along with a knife, a light, wet wipes (not essential but you will always find a use for them) and imodium for the more fluid moments in your digestion. Stops you up good and proper for that bus journey/encounter with a woman when you dont want your bowels letting you down.
Later on, the police turned up at the fales. I said to Lotta half-serious I wonder if they are here for me. They were! They had come to find out if we knew anything about the injured tourists. We told them about Tina who was staying at the German consul in Apia, awaiting "extraction". They asked me for a written statement which I gave them. Once again they asked me no questions and gave me no guidelines as to what exactly they wanted in the statement. They cadged a cigarette off me. I asked them if I could take a photograph of my statement and they misunderstood and got into pose mode around the police car! So I snapped that anyway. They told me I may be called up to court, and they took my email address and said they would make "arrangements". Witness in a Samoan murder/manslaughter case that would be aiming to sentence a man to life! Not sure I really want to be involved in that, but if I'm not half way around the world and the "arrangements" are suitable, I will do it.
That night was the usual, a couple of beers and cards. I ended up stoating about naked at one point much to the girls amusement.
Day 10 July 10th Falealupo - Manono
Roberta had heard/read about a little island in Samoa called Manono that she wanted to check out. It was going to be a fair travel to get there. It was a 5am start, to get a taxi at 6am up the bumpy road to the main street, then it was a two hours bus journey to get to the ferry to Apia, the 1 hour ferry journey across, another 20 min taxi to the Manono wharf and then a pleasant little journey on a small boat across the always-present lagoons of the South Pacific to get to Manono. Manono turned out to be very rustic and traditional, where the Samoan village-centric way of life was very much in order. At 16:00 every night a bell is rung signalling prayer time, and at this point Samoans are supposed to return to their housesto pray for 45 mins. Walking between the villages ath this time is strictly forbidden. A bell at 16:45 signals the end of the curfew. I was told by a Samoan later that crimes commited in the village are usually dealt with by the chiefs by means of cash fines. After 16:00 it can mean expulsion from the village for years. At 18:00 a shell is blown, signalling dinner. The accomodation was not as nice as previously, still a fale, but with walls and higher up on the hills away from the beach. There was also no beach to speak of, it had all been washed away in one of the recent natural disasters that this area is so prone to. It was 13:00 by the time we arrived so we had been 8hrs on the road and were all a bit shattered. Roberta had the most energy left so after lunch she went for a walk round the (small) island. Lotta and me put our heads down and didnt surface until shortly before 16:00 when the owners had planned a snorkelling trip out to the reef. The snorkelling wasnt bad, but not great, I think I'm spoilt by Indonesia and the Ghillie Islands! The evening proved to be more entertaining. After dinner we went for a walk along the cute village path to the shop. It was turning to dusk at this point. Within 5 minutes we had a throng of 4 village kids accompanying us, laughing and asking us questions about our families. They are usually surprised by our relative lack of siblings, 6-8 kids in one family is the norm here. I ended up racing the kids down the winding, dusky village path, steaming past surprised locals. A couple more kids joined us when they saw the fun we were having. We took some pictures in front of where the village was drying out coconut husks in prep for fuel. Was the highlight of the day! We went back and settled into our usual routine of cards and beer. The fishermen brought in the nights catch at some point and we all had a gander. The girls were starting to feel the last night holiday blues a little, especially Roberta. Just as we were about to turn in when Ace the fisherman turned up with a raw fish and asked if we would like to try. I said yes, and it was really good, like a fine salmon. I think it was called "Umbi". Lotta tried a little too despite having just brushed her teeth.
Day 11 - July 11th - Manono-Apia
Up for breakfast and then straight back on to the little boat, we had wanted to stay a little longer, but they asked us to leave earlier because they had a pickup at 10am. I wasnt too fussed because there was nothing going on there anyway.
Back to Apia and Tatiana motel. I had booked myself into a different hotel for the next couple of nights, a good couple of steps up for only $10USD more a night. Stuff it. I wanted to regather my thoughts and decide what I was going to do next. I was considering American Samoa and Tonga. Rarotonga is too touristy as is Fiji as well as being pricey. But first I had to find out if the elusive Camp Samoa existed. I had seen this website back in NZ for it, its a WWOOFing place near Apia where you can work for very cheap accomodation. They also have a program called SWAP, Samoan Web Ambassador Program, which entails photojournalism and writing up a website about Samoan culture. It all sounded very interesting. I phoned the guy when we got to Tatianas. He said he was close and popped by for a chat. He was a very strange character indeed. He talked alot, listened little, and had a generally very negative attitude. He went on about how Samoa was brutal and he didnt think twice about punching a Samoan if one gave him lip. He told us proudly how he beat his dogs and they were the happiest dogs in Samoa. Bullshit. He basically bad mouthed the locals, and then in the same breath tell us how much he wanted to promote their lifestyle and increase tourism traffic, he was friends with the Prime Minister and I would get to meet him etc etc. He seemed an intelligent but cold and confused character. He has written a couple of books about Samoa. He had a high opinion of me, perhaps because I had shown interest in the program, but in the same breath also slighted the girls, saying they would never know the real Samoa, but I would get to know everything. The more he talked the less I realised I wanted to learn from this guy. He left and left a cloud of mild depression behind him. He brought all of us down. I couldnt talk I was so bewildered by this character who seemed on the surface to be doing so much good, but had a thoroughly nasty undercurrent. Plus the program sounded great. Did I go for it and suffer him? Couldnt decide. He left and we moved to my new digs, which was loooovely. A little oasis in Apia, a garden, a pool, hot showers (!), proper reception with staff around to do your bidding. We hadnt exactly been roughing it, but it was nonetheless nice to be back in civilization. We spent a couple of hours copying each others photographs. After that we headed into Apia for cold beers and pizza, ah civilization! There was even a live band playing. The pizza took over an hour to come and by the time it did we were all half oiled after only a couple of small export strength beers, guessed at 6.7%, but they are never entirely sure. All feeling dozy after the pizza we hit the tequila shots to inject some life back into us. I played one of the locals at pool, I should have had him round my little finger, but I fluffed an easy black. We moved on to a different bar, where a better live band was playing and jigged our last night away. All too quickly it was over, we were back at the hotel saying our fond farewells, and then the girls were gone. I sat and smoked a cigarette with one of the security guards and him and one of the girls tried to recall a Robert Louis Stevenson song for me they knew when they were kids. It was touching.
Day 12 - Apia - July 12th
I decided I was going to use the time in Apia to write a Samoan diary and figure out what to do next. The weird guy from Camp Samoa had told me about that somebody had put a negative review about him on couchsurfing. I thought this probably sounded like a sensible person, so I read the review which confirmed my suspicions about his character, and sent him an email asking him to elaborate. He did, and that settled it for me, Camp Samoa was out. I sent an email to a WWOOfing place in Tonga, i think it was an organic coconut farm. I havent heard anything back to date. The last chance of a plan I had was to contact Andy who I met at Joelan, he had mentioned something briefly about going to one of the villages where the hurricane had hit hard, to help rebuild a church, or more specifically, one of the houses belonging to the church. I did and he said I should come down to Tafitoala to meet him. I spent the rest of the day just lounging about and made a start to this diary. At 12 midday the hotel told us they were going put on a traditional Samoan show for us for free. Sounded like a giggle. It was actually really good, they showed the traditional kava drinking ceremony. As there were only three guests paying attention yours truly was called up to participate, and I ended up distributing kava, dancing and weaking a skirt (lavalava), which I have been wearing every day since. I also got to know the other two guests because of it, who were a couple of english medical stundets who had been working at the hospital down the road. They were nice and pointed out what was worth seeing on Upolu seeing as I hadnt explored it yet. I got to know most of the other guests that evening, and of course the bus came up so the video came out. They were mostly nice with a few grumpyold ones in the mix, it was ll getting quite familiar quitefast, unfortunately everybody was leaving the next day. Travelling life! The only ones I didnt get to know were 4 young mostly Northern Irish girls who were also working at the hospital. They didnt seem up for talking much.
Day 13 Apia - Tafitaloa July 13th
1 week bus anniversary. I spent the start of the day just lazing about again and doing my diary.Went to the shop to get credit to call Andy. I had intended to head down the next day, but I forgot it was Sunday, which meant no buses. So I headed out at 1pm and said goodbye to my little oasis and its lovely staff. Taxi to the bus station and on to the long awaited Bon Jovi themed bus. Well, it had "Bon Jovi" painted on the sides, I didn't realise that his face was painted on the back until it was pulling away! Missed that shot! The bus was about an hour and a half and it was the first time I noticed there was an extra man on the bus who was essentially responsible for buying groceries at the shop and then distibuting goods to the villages, usually by quickly jumping off and dumping a box of groceries at the kerbside. The bus journey was over an hour, but I got to know the distribution guy, and he got the driver to drive me all the way to the fales, which was a good km off the main road. Upon arrival, I wasnt too overwhelmed by the place, the hurricane damage was evident everywhere, and the beach was definetly nothing special. There was also a slightly eerie quietness to the place, I guess its the disaster fallout effect. I found Andy and Kanako and we said our hellos. It was also about this time that Adam wrote to me from Nelson and told me his days story of tragedy and heroics. He had been out jogging at the harbour and a saw a car drive into the river. Him and another guy jumped in and managed two break two windows. The passenger escaped out the front door, and between Adam and this other guy they managed to save the baby in the back of the car. The female driver who had assumedly been knocked unconscious when hitting the water, despite the ambulances best efforts. Adam watched her die. Exactly one week since the bus, I can't remember a week in my life involving more death. Grim as fuck.
Anyways, I settled in at Sina beach fales, Tafitaloa the owner family are lovely with 6 happy and wild kids. We settled into the Samoan routine for the evening, cards and beer, not too much of both.
Day 14 July 14th Tafitaloa
Sunday. We heard the pastor was sick and wouldnt be able to receive us today, plus it was Sunday, not a good time to be disturbing anybody. So I got stuck into the diary again. The beach wasn't particularly inviting, and I couldnt be bothered swimming. Although at high tide was OK, I was tired of swimming in very shallow waters trying to not to touch the bottom and esp. corals all the time. My time at Sina fales was very lazy, and I was smoking too much. We got more beers in for the night, but the Vailima export is very unpredictable, it can make you v. tired or bring you up. It made us very tired that night. We wrestled with the kids a bit and taught them how to play Uno.
Day 15 July 15th Tafitoala
We went to visit the pastor early afternoon to find out what was happening about the construction and if there was going to be a place for me to stay free/cheap. Andy and Kanako had planned to stay at the pastors. We were received by the pastor and his wife, the pastor although smiling had a bandaged up leg, and by the size of the bandage, I reckon his leg must have been in pretty bad shape. They told us there was no room for me at the house because they only had two rooms, and a lot of kids. We discussed the other possibilities. They thanked us for our interest in helping, in fact, their words were, we love you. We moved on to a guy Andy knows, Otto, from when he first stayed in the village down here. Otto said he could put me up but it was very crowded, and my instinct was he felt obliged to say yes, but actually didnt think it was a particularly good idea. He said he would talk to someone else. He was in the process of building a house that would be finished by the end of the week, where he said we could stay, but the end of the week was one week too late. I was having second thoughts about the whole thing, but decided I would stay until the next day when work should begin, and then take it from there. We went back to Sinas, and Andy asked me to superglue his foot wound up again, as it hadnt stuck the day before. It was looking a bit infected, so Kananko and me did our best to clean it out using rubbing alcohol, cotton buds, wet wipes and a pair of pliers. It was not a pleasant experience for Andy. Unattended wounds simply do not heal here! After that I superglued it up again. We decided to crack out the remainder of the beers from last night and play Uno, as there was bot all else going on. This was about 2pm. The beer hit us had this time and we were all pretty instantly drunk. Andy started to feel cold and tired, which seemed a little strange. The pastors wife drove up and came to talk to us. She said first there can be no playing cards, or drinking or music while staying at the pastors house.
