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We made it home from Samoa! Such an incredible week relaxing on the beach, adventuring through the jungles, and figuring out how to navigate a 3rd world country with a bunch of 20-some-year-olds from all over the world. I'm pretty confident it would have been easier to herd cats to Alaska, but we still made it out alive.
The flights alone are a story enough. To start out the trip, we took a flight to Auckland that landed at 9pm then had a 12 hour lay over until our flight the next morning to Samoa at 9am. Naturally, we couldn't sleep, so we bought a deck of cards and found a cafe that sold Corona. We then had a 3.5 hour flight form Auckland to Upolo, the main island in Samoa. Prior to leaving, I had set up a flight with Samoa Air to take us from Upolo to Savai'i, the smaller island where we were staying. The Samoa Air flight was scheduled to depart at 4pm but I didn't calculate in the island time, so that flight didn't leave until 5:30. This was a four person plane that had to take our group in two parties and charged us by weight. Sounds scarier than it was... or so I tell myself.
We finally arrived at Tanu Beach Fales, a small family owned "resort" (aka huts on the beach). The family started as a chief and his wife who then had 14 children, who now each a family of their own. They were such kind, beautiful people ranging from 80 to 3 years old. The fales were as basic as basic gets with just three tropically patterned sleeping pads and mosquito nets. There were no walls but you could create privacy by lowering the woven palm leaf shades. Each morning we were woken by the breakfast bell at 8 and served fresh fruit, a hard boiled egg, toast, and coffee. At 7pm each night they served us their traditional dinners of fish, chicken or pork, rice, tarra root, brick fruit, squash, and a few other unidentifiable items I scraped to the side. Overall, the food was amazing, though we were ready for pizza and chips and salsa by the end. There was a small "store" on the property where we bought water, chips, beer, etc. The store ran on the honesty system. There was a small notebook where you wrote down what you took and at the end you paid in full. I have never been to a place so laid back and trusting. It restored a little bit of my faith in humanity.
The first few days it was just a group of 6 of us, all from CSU and one from New Hampshire. We celebrated my birthday on the beach all day long. Defintely a birthday for the books. (Thank you for all of the wishes via email and Facebook!) The third day in we decided we needed to get our butts out of the sand and explore the island. We were told there was a bus that went into the market so we headed to the bus stop and waited... for a good 2 hours. It sounds like a long time to be at a bus stop but during those 2 hours we had a handful of locals stopping to talk to us. We were about to give up when a Samoan couple we had talked to earlier in the day had driven up in a pickup truck and asked in broken english if we wanted a lift. Of course we said yes. Little did we know that the drive to the market was an hour and a half....in the rain! Sounds miserable but we had an absolute blast.
Four days into our trip another group of students from Lincoln arrived at Tanu Beach Fales. This brought our group to about 15 and included people from the US (CO, NH, MI) , Norway, Denmark, Germany, and Sweden. I knew all of these people from campus, but I hadn't really gotten to know them until this trip. They were so much fun to be with and it was incredible to learn about their cultures on a personal level. All 15 of us took a tour around the entire island led by one of the Tanu family members. We went to tree top canopy walks, natural blowholes on the beach, waterfalls in the jungle, swimming with sea turtles, and the lava fields that are still present from an erruption 100+ years ago. I still haven't fully processed how incredible of a day it was.
On our last day we, the original group of 6, took the ferry back to the other island. Our flight wasn't until 1:50am so we had the entire day to kill. Taxis were expensive and the amount of time we had and places we wanted to go we figured a rental car would be our best bet. Plus, it gave us flexibilty and another adventure. We were told that the car was a hatchback so we figured we could squeeze four of us girls across the backseat... when the car came around the corner it was essentially a smart car with a bit more leg room. This was the start to a hilarious day. Not to mention it was a stick-shift. I got shotgun because I was the only one willing to navigate the map, which was basically just a bunch of squiggly lines across a green landmass. Wes, the only boy with us, drove. He deserves the Nobel Peace Prize after what he put up with that day. We eventually made our way to To Sua Trench, a natural encaved landmass that connects to the ocean through underwater tunnels and fills and empties as the tide rises and lowers. I don't think I have ever seen anything so amazing. Seriously.
We finally made our way back to the airport and began a long night of sleepless travel, but well worth it to say the least. Tomorrow we are planning to head to Queenstown but unsure if we have the energy to pull that off. All I know is I have never been so grateful for a crappy, twin sized mattress and a bowl of tomato soup.
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DN or...Dad What a trip!! So expertly described that my head is spinning. And I'm tired...Can't wait to hear about Queenstown next. Love you...Dad