Samoa - The beginning of a Great Travel Adventure
Just because everyone says something is a good idea doesn’t make it true. And early on our first full day in Savaii, I looked at George and said, “I hate you and I hate Samoa.” Not the sound of a good day starting but somehow, like all our journeys, Samoa worked out.
The previous forty-eight hours had been drama-filled. A noon ferry was canceled so we sat at the pier in Upolu for half a day, and after rushing to get seats we arrived for one night in Salelologa, Savaii. After my Survivor Night of fainting and falling on the ground, George wanted me in a hotel with electricity and a bathroom less than 100 steps from the front door. And so we found the Salafai Backpackers Inn with the backpacker rate of 100Tala.
Other tourists told us “You have to take the bus; it is a great experience.” Well, we usually take the bus to get to any destination. Tuesday morning, we waited for an hour for a bus and after two hours on its hard wooden seats, the contraption stopped in Falealup-uta. The ride had great views of the sea and Savaii looked beautiful but the trip was so mundane that I felt unclear about all the fuss over the ride.
But soon there would be fuss galore.
We had left the “backpacker-friendly” hotel which had zero reasons that we could see to be called that, with no breakfast except for a few crackers from my bag. Several locals on the bus looked at our map with us and told us when to get off for Falealupo. So at high noon, we arrived at our stop and saw not a single taxi. Other exiting passengers, including an elderly woman laden with many heavy-looking packages, started down the sealed road and we followed, hoisting our packs, as by our figuring the hostel was four, maybe five kilometers away.
After 45 min in the high-noon sun with extra heat rising from the blacktop, we stopped to eat some canned peanuts and talk to some boys and look at the map. No cars had passed us but a couple of men had ridden by on bicycles. When we reached the 300-year-old Banyan Tree Canopy Walk after nearly an hour and looked at the map, we realized it was possibly closer to fifteen kilometers to our destination.
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