CherryPopper

With work now out of the way it was time for the real holiday. Roneil arranged to go visit a school on the other side of the island that just happened to be close to where we had arranged to stay the night on a small island just off the coast. So we headed off in the trusty van across the "cross island road" which goes over some of those massive mountains behind Apia. It was much like our great ocean road except for a hell of a lot more pot holes, but just as scenic and full of slow moving buses!

We soon reached the school which was perched just up the hill off the coast with a great view of the ocean & reefs. The school had around 450 students and the resources weren't of the highest quality or quantity. Some room didn't have tables & chairs but had woven palm leaf mats for the students to sit on (though this is a traditional way to sit in Samoa). The principle asked us to have a look at one of their servers as it was running slower than the other server. We went to the IT lab which had 8 thin client terminals (not full pc's they connect to a server) and 2 desktop HP PC's acting as Windows Terminal Servers for the 8 thin clients. In true Windows style a reboot fixed the slowness issue and we were soon on our way to the island.

We arrived at Lalomanu where the true beauty of Samoa really starts to shine, this is picture postcard stuff. Nothing but clear blue water with lots of colourful fish, white sandy beaches and lush green rainforest. Our bed for the night was on the island of Namu`a where we would stay in a beach fale (traditional Samoan hut). We found the so called wharf, it was just a small plank of wood sticking our into the sea. From there we asked the local guy to look after our car and he called over the boat. How he did this was with a long stick with a white flag on it, he walked to the waters edge then waved the flag around for 5 mins till the people on the island noticed and jumped in the little dingy to come get us, very high tech.

We slowly putted over to the island in the crystal clear water and were given a fresh coconut on arrival. The young man then asked us if we wanted lunch, to which we said yes, he went inside grabbed his snorkel and said lunch will be ready in 15 mins. He was going to catch our lunch, can't get much fresher than that!! Lunch was great & afterwords we went for a snorkel where I'm sure i saw a few of my lunches family swimming around me.

We lazed around in our fale, went for a swim & snorkel, had a few beers, slept & swam some more. It was a hard way to spend a day but hey someone's got to do it Later that night we sat there chatting with the 3 other New Zealand guys staying on the island drinking beers and watching the magnificent sunset. I dozed off to sleep in my fale which had a matrice & pillow. After a few hours the cool breeze stopped and thats when it got hot, without the gentle breeze to keep you cool the humidity got to you even though the fale don't have any walls it was still hot.

I dozed in and out of sleep for most of the night and once the sun started to come up the island's animals came to life again waking me up. But i was glad they did as the sunrise was also just as beautiful as the sunset, and its not something i see much normally. I snapped a few pics then went for a snorkel to see all the colourful fish & coral in the dawn light.

After lunch we went for a trek up the Island's mountain and sweated our butts off as it was sooo humid in the rainforest then we headed back to the real world after one of the most relaxing days I've ever had.

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