[Don't Go To] Samoa

(If you do, rent a car. Also, stay at Lusia's Lagoon Chalets on Savaii.)

There, I've said it. It may be completely biased, and it's just my personal opinion (this is Janine talking), and don't get me wrong, we saw some beautiful things there. But if I were given the option between a trip to Samoa and a box of the cookies by the same name, I would pick the cookie.

The Samoan website assures you that there is an easy-to-use and cheap bus network on the island. This is unfortunately just not true. It is run completely by private drivers who have no set schedule or stops, so while you may be able to get somewhere on the bus, there is no guarantee that you can get back. This means you must take $50WST taxis everywhere instead of a $3WST bus, which seriously hurts your budget.

Then there are the potential scam attempts. In any of these scenarios individually, it may not have seemed like a scam attempt, but we had too many incidents for it to really seem like coincidence. There was the receptionist who tried to use bad math to avoid giving us our key deposit back. There were the taxi drivers at the airport who told us that the bus from the airport to the capital city doesn't run Saturday afternoons, even though the tourist info lady didn't mention that to us, and when we eventually gave up and took a taxi, he assured us that the buses we kept passing only went to villages, not to the city. Then there was the taxi driver who made us pay him the full fare in the middle of our ride so he could stop for gas, because he was literally on empty; he had the nerve to seem offended when we offered him half now and the rest at the end as an assurance that we would GET there!

The accommodations were very hit or miss. Our first stop, Valentine's Motel, was run-down, and the fan wobbled so much were were afraid to use it during the blisteringly hot night. Our second stop, however, was Lusia's Lagoon Chalets, which were gorgeous traditional Samoan "fales" out over a beautiful lagoon. The food was delicious, an excellent breakfast was included, and you could borrow free kayaks and snorkels! Unfortunately, our last place was the worst of all, The Mangrove Garden. We stayed in a treehouse fale, and found out when it poured that night that the roof leaks. It was supposed to include dinner, but didn't. And the included breakfast was a plate full of fruits that we weren't supposed to eat for fear of traveler's stomach, and a hard boiled egg. The owner didn't even so much offer us a proper breakfast when we told him the roof leaked.

The island was certainly VERY tropical- in the mid 80s with high humidity every day. None of the showers even had a hot water tap, because a cold shower was all you wanted anyways. The heat was oppressive to us; I resolved never to complain about the cold again.

However, we did see some lovely things while we were there. We swam at the prettiest beach I have ever seen, after walking down a secluded path, getting barked at by a pack of dogs, and almost turning back in fear of the "domestic" pigs that were allowed to run free (we picked up some large sticks, both for the pigs and the pack of dogs, on the walk back). Apia was not the most exciting capital city, but we did see a few groups practicing a traditional Samoan dance. We got fresh papaya everywhere (it may be a small miracle that we didn't get sick at all while we were there). We also saw lots of fruit bats- picture regular bats, except the size of a crow.

However, on the whole, if you're thinking of Samoa, stick with the delicious chocolatey caramel version, not the tropical version.

Stay tuned for our upcoming New Zealand post, which I am enjoying much more, especially considering that Adam is cooking me breakfast while I sit here typing one-handed because I sprained my hand surfing yesterday. Also, check out our new Hawaii pics!

By the way, happy tomorrow! =)