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