Samoa Tourist Style Part 1 -- Savai'i Island

If you think you want to go to Samoa as a tourist, do it! I highly recommend it as a tropical escape destination but I wouldn't want to live there!!! In going through my photos I am reminded of what a beautiful place it really is, and the cultural aspects they show the tourists are unique to the Pacific islanders and a real treat to observe.

So, as promised, I give you Samoa from a tourist point of view.

May 21 --
I and all my worldly possessions were picked up by a Peace Corps driver in the village and after a drive around Savaii (for other PC related business) we arrived in in the big village of Salelologa which is the ferry terminal. I said goodbye to my stuff as I was staying on Savaii to do the tourist thing and the driver caught the ferry taking my things to the office in Apia. I picked up my rental car, now totally feeling like a tourist since we are not allowed to drive, and it's a beaut! I don't think it could even pass the rigid standards of "Rent a Wreck".

I had planned to stay the night with friends, but their schedule was interrupted by the forced departure that night of 4 of the volunteers and they went in to Apia to see them off so I rented an over-the-water beach fale there in town and spent a very relaxing - can we even say wonderful evening doing nothing but sitting on my "back porch" staring at the water and watching the schools of little fish going airborne all at once whenever bigger fish came in for dinner. The sunset was beautiful and a promise of things to come.

Next morning I picked up one of my volunteer friends at the ferry and we headed north to Manase which is a really big tourist spot. They do a lot of snorkeling and surfing there and there is row after row of beach fales, some impressively western and impressively expensive, others just the bare minimum of a floor on stilts with posts supporting a thatched roof. I rented one of those and Sarah and I unloaded the car and then went swimming - it's more like hanging out in the water because it's hard to swim and talk at the same time. (Notice the foot - just trying to prove that I was there.) We had dinner which was excellent, then I drove Sarah back to her village which was really close and then went back and went to bed. The next morning I picked her up and we headed west across the northern side of Savaii passing Asau which is supposed to be a great sailing harbor but didn't see either boats or docks. Hmmmm.

Next stop, the PeaPea Cave. It's a lava tube but quite unimpressive compared to the Ape Caves of Mt. St. Helens fame. Sara however was quite impressed. (She's from Texas - enough said?)

Heading on west we arrive at the Falealupo Rain Forest Preserve to check out the Canopy Walkway. It's pretty impressive. A suspension bridge (which uses aluminum extension ladder sections as the base - how clever is that?) was built about 50 feet from the ground ending at a huge banyan tree. Once across you can climb another 100 feet up inside the banyan to a platform on top. Really cool!! You can actually rent the platform for the night - they provide sleeping mats, mosquito nets, candles, and dinner and breakfast.

We left there and drove through the village of Falealupo to see a church that was destroyed in a catastrophic cyclone in 1968. The church was impressive enough but across the road is the most interesting part and something you would NEVER see in the states or probably most other parts of the world. So many people were killed and no one left to bury them a concrete tomb was built and the bodies placed inside. There is an open crypt that still contains those bones, at least the ones that morbid sick souvenir hunters haven't picked up. Mind you there is no door on this tomb -it's open to the world and the weather and all sorts of other things we won't even go into right now. The Samoans hold great reverence for their dead and the church is on a road less travelled and not advertised as a tourist attraction so I suppose it is relatively secure, but still---!

It was now time for lunch and we weren't about to let anything stand in the way of that so we headed on down the road to Vaisala to check out a hotel we had heard about. It is in a terrific location and the rooms, some with AC, are huge. They even have a game room and a library on the premises. They serve $5 WST (about $2.25 US) sandwiches that are pretty good though small and have a full kitchen for breakfast and lunch. A friend of ours stayed there a couple of weeks later when her mother was visiting and they really liked it. That's the Vaisala Beach Hotel in case you ever need a hotel while in Savai'i.

When we left we planned to go get a place for the night at some beach fales in Falealupo but learned they were expecting a bus full of people (we saw them when we were at the walkway) and had no more room so after getting unstuck from the sand where I had parked we drove on down the west coast a ways and stayed in some fales another volunteer had recommended. It turned out well as I actually liked this site better anyway.We had a nice little fale right on the beach and they had actual beds instead of mattresses on the floor. The place was empty too so it was nice and quiet. Check our our boat dock! Just kidding. The people who own the place use it for fishing. Come to think of it this is the only aluminum fishing boat I saw in Samoa. Mostly they use paopao canoes. Of course we had to have a deck for sitting on to watch the sunset. Check out the banyan tree strangling the coconut tree. Did you know a banyan isn't really a tree at all? It has no trunk. What you see are roots. Talk about a mixed up creation! The seeds land in the top of another tree and then the roots grow downward around the existing tree. Over time it kills the host tree and you see what appears to be a free standing banyan. Okay, biology lesson over. Time to move on.


Next stop the Taga blowholes. The whole southwest side of the island is an old lava flow with "cliffs" that drop off into the ocean. At Taga there are lava tubes in the rock and when the waves come into the tubes they blow out the holes where the tube roof has collapsed. It's really pretty cool - not as good as the Spouting Horn at Depoe Bay though. And then, last but not least, there is only one gas station on the entire west coast of Savai'i and this is it. There is this old, old, old gas pump that uses no electricity. The girl hand pumps however many liters of fuel you want into that big glass container on the top of the pump then lets gravity run it into your gas tank. Amazing!

Well, that's it folks for the island of Savai'i. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Now on to Upolu.