New Zealand Pix

Ahah! I was able to post another picture from Samoa, I added it into the older blog, scroll down to see it. It's from the firedancing during the Fiafia. I tried adding a few more pix there but my computer errored halfway through so I had to give up on that idea. I'll try to add some New Zealand pictures onto this posting from our trip up to the Bay of Islands (kayak photo), which is where BearHunter went kayaking and got stuck on the island as referenced in "Where's Dino." And then our trip continued up to Cape Reinga and on down through the Kauri forests.






A few days later: Today a group of 9 of us went to "do" the church service at an AG church in Kaiwaka. CallaLily was the vocalist for the worship set, accompanied by a guitarist/male vocalist. BearHunter played Jesus in a controversial skit. Others gave testimonies, shared the word, and did children's program. For our final song "Days of Elijah" we taught the congregation actions to accompany the chorus and had the children join us up front as we all sang and did the actions together. That was quite fun. Even BearHunter was up there with the team flailing his arms at the appropriate times. :)

Where's Dino

Unbeknownst to us our flight was stopping first in the Kingdom of Tonga before arriving in Auckland, New Zealand. It made the trip longer, but was cool to see another green island. We expected to be greeted by Dino and a friend at the Auckland airport. But our flight came in early and our car rental wouldn’t wait. So by roundabout way, and driving on the left side of the road, we arrived at Dino’s YWAM base and waited for his return. Not too long, we were greeting one another and heading North on the Twin Discovery Highway, around the Northland. The route is mostly green lined, rolling hills, occasionally going through round-abouts. We made it to the bay of islands the first night. We walked around the small town of Paihia and enjoyed the ambience of the Pickled Parrot Backpacker’s Hostel.

Next day, we hit the road again winding our way up to Cape Reinga, the farthest north one can drive in New Zealand. There we witnessed the merging of the ocean and the sea from two different directions. Water in almost all directions. CallaLily is not keen on so much driving, but taking VitaminB helps keep the carsickness away. We stayed that night at a farm hostel in Waitawa. Their pet sheep, only 6 months old, is named Tim. He occasionally would sneak into the yard behind an inexperienced guest who forgot to lock the gate quickly behind them. The host have a hottub, animals to feed if you're so inclined, and a friendly open home. We ran into the other hostellers there who were an American couple doing some ministry training themselves, but doing some travel and a half marathan at 90 mile beach in the morning. Which reminds me, we did stop at some massive sand dunes to play. Playing consists of walking barefoot across these mini deserts and up steep inclines only to turn around and leap right back down them for the adrenaline rush I suppose. CallaLily was not up for the full hike, so she just watched the other three and their barbarian antics. The funniest moment being Dino descent. He had inspired the others by saying it's really fun, you run down faster and faster until you fall into the sand, "it's really soft" he said. At the end of his running fall was a loud thud and "Uhhn!" Apparently the sand wasn't as soft as he had remembered.

Samoan Massage

We spent our last full day on a Green Turtle bus tour, to deliver us back to Apia but also to see home highlights of the country. We were told the bus would pick us up at Boomerang Beach sometime between 9 and 10. So we were ready, playing cribbage to pass the time until 10:30 or so when the tour came by. We hopped into the van with air conditioning…that was a shock after 24/7 muggy heat. In fact, CallaLily felt cold and didn’t like the AC at first.

We stopped off at some other resorts of various budgets to get a feel for what they offer, or we could stay the night had we planned it. One of our early stops brought us to watch coconut processing done in the village. We each had to pay 2tala to support them. Apparently they don’t make enough by selling the coconut itself. Here they were cooking/drying the shredded coconut meat on a large metal table over a fire. We could purchase bottles of coconut oil for cooking or lemongrass/coconut oil for various skin treatments or MASSAGE OIL. So CallaLily bought a small bottle, having always loved lemongrass scent and being interested in having more massage oil New Zealand.

Actually at our resort I, CallaLily, had scheduled a “Samoan massage.” It turned out to be a one half hour massage of the back and shoulders using cooking oil, which had a rather unpleasant scent. For the second half of the massage I was told to sit on the floor while the lady sat on the bed behind me. She used only one or two types of strokes, mostly brisk finger work. Then before finishing, she wiped the oil off my back using my own towel. I was dismayed at having aromatic cooking oil over my bath towel, which I wouldn’t be able to wash until we got to New Zealand. Overall, the massage was okay, there were a few moments of deep pressure between my shoulders that felt really good. The massage cost 20tala for 30 minutes.

The Green Turtle tour soon brought us to Sapooago ( I really don't remember how to spell that) Falls for a quick view and a coconut demonstration. Here we watched a guy remove the coconut husk with a stick, then crack open the nut perfectly with a round rock, making us drink the inside juice. Next he scraped the meat off with a metal tool attached to his chair. The scrapings he squeezed to make coconut milk, which we also tasted…mmmmh. Our other stops were Togitogigo National Park, for a peek at a waterfall. Next to last we were brought to a village home for a traditional lunch served on banana leaves. Boiled taro, spinach cooked in coconut something, and a type of tuna meat were an excellent meal. We were each given a tub of water to wash our hands before and after the meal. And the lemongrass tea was served in a cleaned half coconut shell set upon a slice of bamboo stalk…the coolest looking cup ever. After lunch they demonstrated how to weave a carrying basket out of a huge leaf. Pretty resourceful. Finally we parked by a little pond to watch the large green turtles eat papaya.

We arrived in Apia, checked in to our hotel. We paid triple what we had our first nights, to get some air conditioning. We really wanted a good night of sleep before catching a taxi at 2:30AM for our early flight on to New Zealand.

Boomerang Beach

Boomerang Beach Bungalows was our home for most of our time in Samoa. This spot is a "resort" on the south coast of Upolu. Here we enjoyed a family run fiafia, which included meal followed by traditional dancing, fire dances, and concluded with a hermit crab race for all the guests.

As the storm brewed far off over the ocean, the tide came in higher and higher (hours after the hermit crabs had raced to our bungalow for shelter). Rain came, and some creeks swelled, but our shelter had only minor leaks through the thatch roof during the night. The mosquito net didn't keep out all the bugs, unfortunately. We opted to put up the net and burn mosquito coils instead, which was much cooler and afforded us less bites, surprisingly.

We visited a local church. The two options were Catholic or LMS, we chose the latter and hitched a ride with some other guests with a rental car. The whole service was in Samoan except twice the pastor spoke in English directly to us to welcome us and ask for our introductions. Everyone in Samoa wears white, head to toe, to church. There were few exceptions. The men mostly wear lavalavas, which are wrap-around skirts, when in the villages, church, or anywhere really. The adult women wear fancy white hats to church. I had not brought a hat, but had prepared to wear white and had required BearHunter to buy a white shirt before we left the USA. So we didn't stick out too much, except for our skin color, and my skirt length was shorter than theirs. I don't think we were offensive, though. A group of 5 Americans from Boomerang Beach. One fellow with us was a retired dentist returning some years after doing a volunteer dental trip to Samoa. He happened to sit next to a man that he recognized from his previous trip! It's a small world. And a small country.

Ah, Samoa

Our week in Samoa is long past, but we lacked access to the internet so must now tell the story. I'll break it up into separate postings so they're in smaller chunks. Unfortunately our current internet hookup is slow, so adding pictures to these postings will have to wait until I have a nice long turn at the shared computers here (in New Zealand). Back to Samoa...

Our week was spent on Upolu island, the first two nights at Cloud 9 Eco-Lodge in the mountains out side of the capital Apia (pronounced pee-uh). Our taxi driver didn't know where this lodge was and upon finally finding it his car couldn't make it up the hill. So at 5 in the morning we were hiking up hill carrying our luggage. Luckily, the lodge host was notified by the barking dogs that we were near and sent out two young men to help carry our bags the rest of the way. The taxi driver technically shouldn't have been paid because he didn't drop us all the way, and he didn't know what price to charge because this location was not on his price list. So we gave him 10 tala, which we thought might be fair.

Apparently the lodge wasn't expecting us this early, so we were given a room to rest in until lunch time when our room was ready. Then we became the only two guests in the lodge for the next two nights. It was a small place, overlooking the green jungle ravines that stretched out to the north coast of Samoa. We loved the quiet up there and cooler breezes that frequented the hills.

Most of our time we spent on the breakfast veranda with 180 degrees of view of the ocean, sky, and greenery. Geckos came out in the evening to eat the mosquitoes while we ate dinner. Both nights offered a tastey dinner of mahi-mahi, boiled potatoes, and shredded carrot, cabbage, and cucumber salad.

The staff left us pretty much to ourselves, as they repainted the dining hall. We recognized some of the radio's tunes such as worship songs sung in Samoan and American hits like Titanic's theme song. We actually would have been happy there resting for the remainder of the week, but had reservations on the other side of the island and wanted to see a bit more of Samoa while here. We hired a taxi to take us the 1 1/2 hours to our next spot and stop along the way for us to be tourists when we felt like it.
-Calalily