apia to faofao -and back

As I mentioned in the earlier post, I stayed some nights at Faofao. To get to Faofao, I first of all had to get to Upolu, the main island of Samoa. From Regina's it's quite easy. You either take a taxi or the local bus to the ferry terminal on Savai'i, but being sick made the task a wee bit more challenging. Luckily a car of adventurous half Samoan New Zealanders gave me and (my) nurse Michael a ride to the ferry terminal, so I didn't have to be piled up with others in a wooden bus while having a pretty heavy fever. On, and from the ferry, the road got more challenging for whimpering me, but thank the lord I had Michael to look after me:) We arrived in Apia, after the ride from Regina's to the ferry, the warm ferryride, and a bus ride into town, around 4 something PM. Next on the agenda was to find a doctor, a pharmacy, a cheap place to spend the night and find something to call dinner. I was not feeling up for any of this. But not wanting to just sit down in the gutters of Apia, I found a taxi driver willing to help me and drive me around for 2 hours back and forth, and for a reasonable price. So a doctors verdict of a serious throat infection, zigzags in the city between pharmacies, accomodation hunting and buying sick supplies from various supermarkets, I finally passed out in a room at Valentines Motel in Apia. Overdosing on the superstrong antibiotics worked miracles on me during the night, so the next day I was up for finding another place to stay, OUTSIDE Apia. Recommendations lead my decicion to Faofao. I had some time to stroll around the uninspiring markets in Apia before I took a local bus to the beautiful beach fales of Fao Fao. The busride was long and hard (it was a bus made of wood...?!?), but it rode through stunning mountain landscape and small villages, and this made my butt feel much less numb. A man sitting behind me in the bus with no teeth, very eager to talk, told me all kinds of interesting and uninteresting things about what we saw while driving, and he even let me in on some info about he tsunami a couple of tears back, and the destruction it had had on faofao and all the land around it. Sad news, but faofao seemed to have recovered ok, so defo worth a visit for any kind of sun loving hippie of hipster.
Here are some pictures I took while getting to and from Fao Fao.

kick back and chillax at faofao

I spent 3 nights in the faofao fales. And yes, I spent my time doing the same as in Regina's; relaxing, sunbathing and digging sand out of my bellybutton. But if this is what you want to do, or you would like to try some of the worlds best reef break surfing, head out to the south side of Upolu Island on Samoa, and stay at Faofao Fales. This is where it goes down! Or something.

P.S my havaianas wanted to be in a picture too. After all, they have done quite a bit of traveling now. They are soon to retire so they deserve a moment in the spotlight. They have served me well! Just a little side note...

exploring savai'i

Me, Thomas and Michael rented a car on the third day on Savai'i. We thought we might be able to see all the tourist attractions in one day, and we did, but we had to hurry - a lot! Savai'i is a big island, and ideal would be to rent the car for a couple of days and spread the sightseeing out on several days, but poor as we were we only rented for one day...
But is was a day full fun and sightseeing, and the weather was good as well.
We started off by driving to the turtle sanctuary, where we dropped Michael off into the water to enjoy the company of the many sea turtles. I had the job of taking pictures of Michael and his kisses with the turtles. The price was the same for all of us, the lady with no English skills told us, while feeding the many hungry turtles with papaya. "Swim with turtle 5 taala, no swim with turtle 5 taala. Ok, 5 bucks it is then...
See, in Samoa you have to pay for everything. Everything is owned by someone and you always have to pay an entrance fee, even though the place is neglected, forgotten and not maintained at all. Easy money making I guess. But the turtle sanctuary is definitely worth the money.
After that we stopped at the lava fields and got our gangsta group photo taken. Then we drove off to find a waterfall, and after a drive back and forth we finally found it. It was beautiful and we had it all to our selves. We swam, took pictures and had "lunch". Lunch as in banana, papaya and coconut. We continued on to the blowholes, which are big holes in the lavafield, by the sea. The sea is pressed up under the lava landscape and up the holes, creating a big fountain of water spraying up in the air. A very cool experience, a stunning piece of natures art!
But by this time my fever had risen and I felt quite sick, so the rest of day was not as nice and adventurous for my part... We drove on for hours to try and find food, a task proved to be almost impossible. (Again, Samoa does not do restaurants apparently). We ended up finding it at our last stop, after we visited a church destroyed by a hurricane a couple of yeas back. We had dinner, and finished our day watching the sun set at the worlds most western point. And then we drove home of course:) all the culture of savai'i in one day. Super tourist FTW!