its only homeward bound now!!

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Coming through the arrivals on first landing was a pretty daunting experience not really knowing what to expect and then being confronted by huge black guys asking if i wanted a taxi, luckly i´d booked ahead and had the hostel book me a transfer so didnt need to bother with the airport arrivals scrum. i stayed the first part of the trip in basically the only town in samoa which is also the capital, apia, and samoa soon was becoming what i hadnt expected. i had images of it being a mini oz or new zealand and be full of beach resorts. it turned out to be neither, it´s a place untouched by commercialism that seems pretty much standard everywhere. the only recognisable thing was a mcdonalds and banks. the rest of the shops were all samoan owned and signs were basically painted on by owners. they all get there fresh produce from the local market and ride around in multi coloured wooden buses with blaring music.

the first 5 days i spent in apia, checking out the sights like robert louise stevensons old house and trekked up the mountiain next to it where his tomb is, where the view was awesome, though by the time i got there i looked like i'd walked through rain the whole way up but it hadnt rained jack, haha it was all sweat!!

my 4th day, samoa were playing rugby against Australia A in the pacific nations cup, which i had to see as the samoans were rugby crazy. the town its self is pretty tiny you can walk through it from and be out of it again in half an hour. the market is an awesome experience, u walk in and theres loads of food stalls selling deep fried everything, the samoans eat anything thats cheap and calorie ridden. to one side theres a load of men sat around drinking kava, a local herb that numbs the mouth and mongs u out. unfortunately i never got round to trying it

- lol ok this is where i got to last time i sat down and tried writing, i´m just gunna briefly write the rest of it so i can get some photos up and this bit done. after apia i spent some time on the south of the main island at an awesome beach staying in a hut. i´d have stayed longer but i went back to apia to get my toe bandaged after stubbing it in apia and ripping the nail off. the samoan hospital was an experience to say the least and unfortunately i dont have any photos of the nailess 2nd little toe.

- after being back in apia i went and checked outed the 2nd island, savaii, which is a lot less developed i stayed again in some awesome beach huts and was the only time i managed to get out surfing. though it wasnt so much surfing as in paddling around not trying to get nailed by the 10 foot walls of water that were trying to slam me in to the reef a couple of foot below, and watching the kiwi in amazement at the fearless kiwi guy i was out there with. savaii was a lot more chilled out and was where i met the oldest back packer ever, a 77 year old guy on a round the world trip for 5 months, who had a million stories from his 3 year trip back when he was 45!!!


- after a couple of weeks of seeing most of both the islands, i decided to change some flights and leave early so i could stop in New Zealand rather than sit around on the beach for a couple more weeks. so after 2 weeks of sunning it i headed to the freezing islands of new zealand

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Photos

the photos dont do it justice!
when i got out the waves had dropped to about 5 foot here but were twice the size when the tid ewas low!

beach hut view!
if only every bedroom had a veiw like this!