Talofa Samoa!

So far, the longest we have stayed in one place is 5 nights (and that was against our will in Pakistan!) and now we have gone and booked ourselves into one place for 2 weeks. Is it bad that we were actually quite nervous about that when we arrived?

Anyway, nothing to worry about! It was brilliant! We stayed in a town called Lalomanu, which took the brunt of the tsunami 4 years ago and still hasn't really recovered. Samoa seems to be pretty similar to Fiji but there are subtle differences like they don't eat vegetables (other than taro) and all seem a bit obsessed about New Zealand.

We did some pretty amazing things like jumping off the top of a ladder into a sink hole, saw some stunning waterfalls and beautiful sunsets. We snorkelled amongst a coral graveyard and capsized in a kayak (several times...).

We learnt that not all Germans are grumpy and some are very nice! We have practiced our German with a few fellow travelers and can play some card games now in German! How exciting. We also have a little story for you... (Nicola and Tobi, this is for you!)

Meinem hamster geht es nicht gut, wo ist der nächste tierarzt? Zu spät! ACH NEIN! Meinem hamster ist gestorben!

Anyway, back to English. I did manage to have a little game of rugby with some of the locals! It started out as a 7-a-side game of touch which rather quickly became a 30-a-side battle of lawlessness! All good fun!

We also had a rather interesting taxi ride after visiting some amazing sliding rocks. We were heading back on our 90 minute taxi journey and a few minutes in, the driver asked if we could pick up one of his friends as he didn't want to be lonely on the way back. Fine, no worries we thought. This friend was massive, even by Samoan standards! But along we went. Just as I was snoozing in the back, the driver pulled out a revolver and stuck it on the dashboard in full view. Gill was freaking out. We had become accustomed to seeing guns on this trip but not in Samoa! As we were driving over deserted mountain roads, we were thinking all kinds of morbid thoughts! I even went as far to take the memory card out of the camera so if we had to hand over the camera, we wouldn't lose our pictures! Every time the car slowed, we thought it was about to all end! But we made it to our Fales with no problems, and he even wished us a lovely day! Our prayers were definitely answered!

Anyway, there were other exciting, albeit less dramatic, experiences like getting a local bus where everyone sits on everyone else's laps! And they never run on time! We only had to get the gun taxi because the last bus decided to leave 30 mins before it was meant to!

But, all in all, Samoa is a pretty cool place. We have met some truly amazing people here! They do need to learn one thing from Fiji though: more hammocks!

Sun, sea, sand and... cyclones?!

"Bula! Welcome to Fiji, where happiness finds you!"

That was our welcome over the speakers as our plane touched down in Nadi. Within minutes, you could feel the stresses oozing out and the happiness seeping in. As we collected our bags, we even had a greeting from a band, singing and playing guitars. These guys were producing notes us white folk can only dream of! Notes so low that they seem to penetrate right through you! It reminded us very much of Africans!

Fijians also have another similarity to Africans, but here they call it Fiji time. In essence, this means that something will probably happen at some point but at no real given time. So five minutes Fiji time could easily be an hour or more. Which is a little frustrating at first but then as you realise that the whole country uses this, hope for punctuality is abandoned and replaced by acceptance.

On our first day, we got the bus (which arrived to pick us up at Fiji time) into Nadi town itself. This is when something possibly quite significant seemed to dawn on us, we were very much out of western civilisation again, but we actually quite like it! We're back to the bustling markets and street sellers trying to entice you. We participated in a local kava session where a bowl of essentially browny-beige water is passed around a circle in half a coconut with clapping and chatting! Locals say it relaxes you. Which explains a lot as locals regularly sink 20 bowls in a session.

In the oxymoron of the relaxed hustle and bustle of the city, we managed to book some time in the next few days on some of the islands off the Northwest coast, the yasawas.

A ferry ride away, we made it to the first island, Kuata. A small beach, with a few huts (or bures), a house reef and an amazing family of locals! Other than the stunning scenery, the locals were easily the best part! Everyone was so friendly and lovely and one of their first lines to us as we stepped out the boat and onto the beach was "welcome home!"

During our 4 nights there, we visited a local church with amazing singing and a very passionate pastor. The only problem was that the sermon was in Fijian and, as our Fijian isn't great, the only real thing we picked up other than the passion, was that it was taken from psalm 23 and John 15! We also went snorkelling with sharks, saving starfish and soaking up the sun whilst swinging in a hammock. The most energetic part of he day was when we heard the call of the conch shell, it meant it was dinner time and we had to walk to the food!

The locals even gave us a special meal on our last night whilst playing guitars and singing to us. What an amazing end to Kuata!

Our next destination was an island further north to a place called Nabua lodge. Jumping back on the ferry, the heavens opened. We were on this ferry for 3 hours and it was most turbulent either of us have ever experienced! There is no way isle of Wight ferries would have dreamt to sailing. Out of the protection of the islands, you remember you are slap bang on the middle of the pacific ocean! Torrential rain lashing the boat, the roof leaking and waves easily 5 metres each. A good tactic for sea sickness is to focus on the horizon. This didn't work as when we were looking out of the window, we looked straight down into the blue depths, then up into the dark grey storm clouds before going down again. Therefore very little time to focus on any horizon! This, as you can imagine, resulted in the majority of the boat throwing up into sick bags!

Turns out that cyclone Ian is on its way towards us! And is currently making mince meat of Tonga! On the plus side, when we did make it to our island, after getting utterly saturated on the transfer boat, I did win a dancing competition. This, I appreciate, is probably the most unlikely thing to happen. Even more unlikely than our impeccable timing with the cyclone. However, you will all be pleased to know, that the only reason I won the dance competition against the group of Scandinavian teenage girls, was because I was by far the worst dancer that has even been forced to enter, and as the whole thing was rigged, to keep them entertained, they kept me in for as long as possible! But I did get a prize of a nice cold beer, so it was worth it!

After 2 days of staying indoors and playing uno (among lots of other games!) the storm ceased and we were again blessed with some sun! We did some amazing hiking over rolling green hills with blue lagoons below!

But the third island was probably our favourite, long beach. Not only did it actually have a long beach, it also had one of the most picturesque volleyball courts in the world, its own private lagoon and the most amazingly friendly family that ran it!

We went to the local church and primary school and snorkelling in the reefs. We climbed hills, trekked through forests and even tried some fishing. I am the worst at fishing! Having caught nothing in comparison to the local who caught 5 in the same period of time! My excuse was that I was on the wrong side of the boat with sand below me whereas he was fishing off the reef! That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

For our anniversary, we all cooked a big traditional meal in an oven in the ground and it was delicious! We had cake and everything! Then we joined the locals in a kava session which carried on into the night!

Fiji is amazing. No question about it! But that was a very quick 2 weeks, but Samoa is next and it promises to be something fairly special too!