Hutchwood

Firstly Im sorry for the lack of communication back from Samoa. The net speed made me physically ill and i almost had to sell a kidney to pay for it so I keep away from it as much as possible.

We landed in Fiji at 930pm local time and sat until 145am local time after already flying from melb to bris and the wait in between. as you can imagine, tired as hell!

drank some fiji bitter which is just a new label for vb and bought some kava powder to make later on.

land in Samoa at 5am local time and get ripped off on a taxi from the airport. too tired to care i rolled into bed for an hours sleep.
We chilled in Apia for that day and the next only venturing out to go to the market and the deep marine reserve, which was freaking excellent snorkelling.

Also while in Apia we decided to hit up the sliding rocks just out of town. Beautiful weather combined with a 5m waterfall you could slide down or jump from the top made for a wicked day. Also further down stream were a couple of more slides around 3m at the largest. The water was crystal clear and refreshingly cold in the heat.

From here we caught the local bus down to Lalomanu beach which too was incredibly beautiful. Even in the rain. The food included in the price of sleeping in a Fale on the beach was awesome and effectively all you can eat!

We moved on back to Apia for a night before kicking off to go to Savai'i which is the biggest island included in Western Samoa. Sadly we found a bottle of local rum for AU$7 and drank it the night before and with that, no sleep, sweltering heat and an empty stomach, the massively rolling swell rocking the ferry left me a sweaty sickly mess.

Shaking of the ferry we decided to check out a water fall and a giant mound. The driver who took us decided to wait as it was an hours walk. within 3 steps we realised shoes and thongs were not the answer in torrential tropical rain and mud up tp our knees. so it became a barefoot trek in the mud and hammering rain for what seemed like ages through beautiful jungle to the mound. by mound i mean 50x61m base and 12m high with 2 tiers mound of pile rocks. with giant centerpedes (25cm long) thrown in. We visited the waterfall on the way back which was also amazing. 2 hours later we returned, suffice to say. our driver was not well pleased.

Anyway on to Manase and Tanu Beach.
Planning to stay 3 nights was our first mistake as we walked in and were immediately initiated into the family. Drinking 'ava with the guys (a drink made from a root that kinda gets you drunk and when i added booze it sure did, but the use it as a ceremonial and special occasion drink) and men of the village, playing cards and getting laughed at by the women and playing games in the ocean with the kids soon became our days. 7 days it ended up being.

Also while at Manase we:
saw 2 Fia Fias where the locals dance and there was an amazing 12yr old firetwirler who was national champion and was competing in hawaii soon to become the south pacific champ. he really was incredible!
Saw a turtle zoo which i wish i hadnt seen and supported with my entry fee as although well fed, they were still trapped turtles. I counted 21 green sea turtles as we swam with them.
Chilled out incredibly hard.
Got a bit of food poisoning and spewed from our Fale.

Now for our last night we decided to visit the third largest island in western samoa. Manono Island was so beautiful and if the rest of samoa new how to relax, they learnt it from these guys!
We walked round the island, snorkelled and chilled with some amazing people. Who could know that when we hung out with a 60yr old Danish guy, a 60yr old Kiwi and 2 americans our age that we could have such amazingly intellegent and interesting conversations about politics, religion and the world. really a great time there and i would head straight back were i in samoa again soon.

Finally, pissed and sad to leave we headed to the airport.