Happy Samoa

Bye-bye tomorrow

All too soon it was time to leave Latin America. Ten and a half months had flown past as we travelled between Antarctica, Costa Rica and many points in between. When we had originally booked our flights we had routed our path home through a few Pacific islands. We hoped it would provide a nice rest and gave no further thought to it. So even after our long journey via Los Angeles (where we caught up with Lecia for 24 hours) and Auckland to Samoa (crossing the International Dateline twice) we still hadn't made any plans. There were new films to watch on the plane, photos to sort, and yes we managed to visit a vineyard during our 12-hour wait at Auckland airport. At least we had purchased some snorkel gear in Los Angeles as we were expecting to see a fair bit of beach, and waited to see what this friendly island full of large Pacific islanders would be like.

With 30+ hours of travel since leaving Los Angeles we slept well into the morning on arrival in Apia. So when offered breakfast at 12am, we just asked for coffee and toast. Instead our table started filling up with fruit, eggs and even a sizeable steak as the old ladies at our hotel fussed around us in their happy way. We were then given a lift up the hill so that we could wander around the old house and pretty garden that Robert Louis Stevenson built when he moved here. It was interesting to look around the house and see the old pictures and exhibits being pointed out by the guide. Then a second guide started taking us around again, shooting lots of photos of us and then finally inviting us to his village on the next Sunday for lunch and church (unfortunately we couldn't take him up as we'd be on the other side of the island). When he gave us repeated rounds of good-bye hugs and his telephone number in case we changed our minds over the lunch offer, Samoa was upgraded to very, very friendly.

The last cannibal king

After walking back into Apia, exchanging Talofa (hello) with most people we passed, we had a look around the small capital city of this tiny set of islands. There wasn't too much of note to see along the waterfront so we settled down for a beer and started making some plans for the nine days we had there. We soon spotted there was a traditional show, a fiafia, at one of the main hotels. The show involved a band playing guitars and wooden drums and much singing and dancing. Women danced in a floaty style with little hand waves, whilst the men were more active – running, stamping and jumping about, wearing their short skirts and a bit of foliage. At the end there was a fearsome fire-dance where one of the men spun a flaming war-axe around. The show was a lot of fun, staged by the hotel employees and whilst being very much a tourist event didn't feel too cheesy – we enjoyed it and the performers seemed to enjoy it too.

Fiafia show at Aggie Grey's

Whilst in Apia, the other two worthwhile activities we found were the Palolo Deep Marine Reserve and the Museum of Samoa. The marine reserve is just a small area of coral reef, in the next bay along from the port, that has been designated as protected. It was only a short swim off the beach to the trench which sloped down offering views of coral and fish at different depths. It may not have been first on Cousteau's list of destinations but for our first experience of Pacific island snorkelling it was a great start. However, we were glad we had checked the tide tables and visited at high tide, I'm not sure that it would have been easy to swim over the first section of coral to the trench in shallow water. It would have been nice to spend some more time on the little beach relaxing, but we had promised ourselves that we would visit the museum. Whilst small, it did prove to be informative and we spent nearly 2 hours in the three rooms reading explanations on the history, culture and environment of Samoa. I also liked the presentation of different styles of wood carving from around the various Pacific islands and the description of a traditional tattoo, applied from the lower back to the knees. It sounded very painful.

Moorish Idol at Palolo

On our third day it was time to leave the “city” and seek out those perfect beaches which Samoa is rightly known for. We first planned to take a local bus to Lalomanu on the eastern tip of the island. We didn't really know when the buses were meant to leave, or if there was a proper schedule. Our questions on the subject were often answered with a “yes”, even when “yes” was not a logical option. It seemed to be considered impolite to say you don't know, so we had to learn to ask questions carefully, leaving the “yes” option to be taken as “not a clue”. Anyway, when we headed down at 9am, we found a bus at the bus station due to go in the right direction in possibly two hours time. We happily sat down, thinking it was better than expected. The bus slowly filled, seats were swapped and bags were passed around and stowed near someone else's seat. After 1.5 hours, we finally started on our way. However, we headed to the other bus station in town (a slow 10 minute walk or drive), waited for 10, then headed back to the first bus station to check no one had been forgotten. We waited a little longer before surprisingly leaving at the time first promised when we had boarded the bus– maybe there was a schedule after all!

Squeezed on a Samoan bus

Our ancient bus with wooden benches, open windows, and a sound system played at a reasonable volume, started to chug out of town. But before clearing the outskirts of town, the bus stopped at a petrol station so that everyone could buy more fizzy pop and crisps. It was a busy bus with people and bags changing regularly, and given most Samoans do look like rugby players (I'm not just talking about the men here), it felt like a squeeze at times although it was always relaxed. The bus first followed the pretty coast, all turquoise water and waves breaking over the off-shore reef, before crossing through some green hills and reaching Lalomanu after a bum-numbing 90 minutes. The ride was a great trip in itself, feeling like a giant family day out. That said, given we then needed to take taxis to continue around the rest of the island (rather than taking a bus back to Apia and back out again), a hire car would have been more practical. When we later crossed to the second island of Savai'i we did hire a car and enjoyed being able to explore a bit more. However, we would still recommend taking one bus journey in Samoa.

During our 10 days in Samoa, we toured around the two big islands of 'Upolu and Savai'i, staying in four locations. The beaches were always made of pretty white sand, though could disappear at high tide; the water was always warm and beautifully turquoise, and often sheltered by an outer reef; and there were always lots of interesting fish in the coral to see when snorkelling, which we did nearly every day. At each location, we slept in simple huts built in the traditional fale-style. These are covered platforms and were the traditional houses here. Privacy is inversely proportionate to tradition and simplicity with fales, so we often opted for the slightly more expensive ones which came with walls, or at least curtains.

Beach fale at Taufua

We first stayed two nights at Taufua in Lalomanu, which was great value for money and had the prettiest beach of all, though the coral had been seriously damaged in the 2009 tsunami and was only starting to grow back. They also had a fiafia show on the Saturday night. This was excellent as it was performed by a local troupe who often entered competitions. I was hauled up to join one frantic dance, but with many other palagi (foreigners) there, I wasn't the one one looking total out of his depth. On the south coast of 'Upolu, we stayed at Virgin Cove which felt very remote and allowed for a good meander along the coconut lined bays where we only saw one fisherman in two hours. After crossing to Savai'i and hiring a car, we started to loop around the island and were able to stop at the lovely Lauiula Beach Fales for a curry lunch. We moved on to Manase on the north coast to spend our first night. Here there were several accommodation options and Barbla chose Jane's Beach Fales for their pretty pink and yellow huts right on the beach. We had a good evening there, chatting with Brett who had checked in for a week of very little after the hustle of Sydney. For our last two nights we stayed at the Aganoa Beach Resort which, without an outer reef protecting, allowed for amazing snorkelling over a marine wall only 30 metres from the beach where we spotted a beautiful green turtle swimming and eating. Aganoa is also a known surf spot (though there wasn't a lot of swell at the time) so dinner was spent with young surfers from Australia and Norway.

In the wild with a green turtle

Away from the beaches and the underwater world, there weren't too many sites to see. Our rule of thumb was that sights with water were invariably better than those without. Between Lalomanu and Virgin Cove we stopped at a wonderful place called To Sua Ocean Trench. We arrived expecting some reef-snorkelling, but found a great hole in the ground 30 meters away from the sea-cliff edge which was fed by the ocean through underwater caves. We descended into the hole by ladder to swim, surrounded by steep walls and overhanging vegetation. It felt very tranquil, though occasionally the water would surge back and forth when big waves hit the cliffs outside. After climbing out of the hole, we walked to the edge of the cliffs to observe a few blowholes spurting water into the air as waves crashed against the shore. The two sights were both surrounded by well kept gardens and we could easily have spent a longer time there relaxing.

To Sua Ocean Trench

On Savai'i we drove all around the perimeter of the island. Again the more enjoyable sites involved water. The Alofaaga blowholes threw up some good amounts of water even with a tranquil sea-state and the Afu-a-au falls were a set of fresh water pools that were lovely to cool off in. On the western point of the island we stared at the horizon past the remains of a church, a ruin from a village destroyed by cyclones in 1990 and 1991. There wasn't much to see beyond the ocean, but the International Dateline is drawn 37km off the coast so locals say you can see tomorrow. At midnight on 29 December 2011 Samoa is going to redraw that line, skipping the 30th of December to the 31st, to become one of the first places to see in each new day and the 2012 New Year. I think it makes sense for Samoa to move into a similar time zone to its trading partners of Fiji and New Zealand (though it puts a day gap to American Samoa). Anyway, I guess people will get used to staring at yesterday from the eastern tip of 'Upolu instead.

By the Afu-a-au falls

Of the places we visited without a water theme, one of the better ones was a star mound on the south coast of Savai'i. An hour's walk through a coconut plantation finally led us to the Pulemelei Mound, a 12 metre-high platform built of stones. The mound is about the size of two tennis courts and provides a great view back to the turquoise water on the south coast. These ancient star mounds found in Polynesia are thought to have been used by village chiefs for practising their favourite sport of pigeon catching. We also visited a few sights created by a large lava flow between 1905 and 1911 which affected a fair proportion of Savai'i. First was the remains of a church where the lava had flowed but left the walls standing. The second was a lava tube (a cave under the lava sheet) inhabited by swiftlets. Both proved to be quirky distractions on our travels around the island, but I was more impressed with how much greenery had grown over this old lava flow – villagers who had rebuilt houses over the flow seemed able to grow a reasonable amount of fruit trees and plants in their rocky gardens. A walkway in some recovering rainforest sounded interesting until we found it was only one bridge that led to a tree house and a viewing platform in an impressively large banyan tree. Though we enjoyed it, it still didn't quite feel worth the WST20 per person (USD8). Worse was Moso's footprint, a small hole in the ground, which could have been at least fun if the story of the giant stepping from Fiji to Samoa had been retold instead of a request for additional money for car-parking and the ushering of some children into the photo shot. I understand the rights of locals to make some much needed tourist dollars but at one or two of the places you seemed to be expected to hand over cash for very little.

Evening volleyball game

Anyway, we loved the drive around Savai'i, seeing both the beautiful coastline and village life. Throughout the day, as we drove past children (and occasionally adults), we'd be greeted with waves and shouts of “bye-bye” - somewhere the teaching of hello and goodbye seems to have been confused. Whilst the villages would seem very sleepy in the day, with people dozing in the fales[i], they would wake up in the late afternoon to games of volleyball and touch-rugby which took place on ever piece of grass. Village life is very important in Samoa, even more so on Sundays when church is fervently attended (small villages could have several churches catering for various denominations) and large lunches are prepared for the extended family. At Taufua's Beach Fales in Lalomanu, they were very proud to invite all guests to a free Sunday lunch where they served typical Samoan foods (which we had also tried after the [i]fiafia in Apia). Traditional dishes include: baked taro root (manioc-like, much improved when topped with palusami, smoked taro leaves containing coconut cream), oka (a ceviche-like raw fish with coconut cream), poke (raw tuna in soy and sesame oil; from Hawaii so not so traditional but very tasty), and the little piglets you see running around the villages all week – well, several of those would be served too, beautifully roasted with crackling skin – no Yorkshire puddings though.

Super blue waters

Along with the green countryside and the entertaining villages, we were also enchanted by the traditional attire. I thought the lava-lava (a skirt for men or women, like a sarong) looked pretty cool and practical. It was regularly worn in the fields or to the office with a bright Hawaiian shirt. Barbla liked that dressing up for her involved sticking a pretty flower behind the ear (right to show you were in a relationship, left if free). I think she was also sizing up whether she could try the language in its pretty singsong manner. However the best parts of Samoa were undoubtedly the beautiful beaches surrounded by the stunning turquoise waters teaming of tropical fish and coral, and of course the very relaxed lifestyle prompted by the lovely people. We left Samoa charmed by the place and very relaxed, and landed in Fiji (two hours later, but it was the next day) hoping for much of the same. For more stunning pictures of Samoa click here.

Departing Samoa