Samoa!

The much anticipated tropical island vacation. So we slept outside of CC on Monday night at my neighbor Jono’s house. They made dinner for us and everything. Such sweeties. They drove us to the airport the next morning where we caught our flight up to Auckland then to Samoa. The plane ride was pretty uneventful, but pretty quick because of friends + movies. We had a brief layover in Tonga where we got our first encounter with a humid climate. Amazing.
We landed in Samoa around 10 where we quickly got through customs and found our bus driver waiting for us. His name was Micah and had a crazy laugh. Fun guy that’d we be chilling with for the next week. It was a 2 hour drive from Apia, the capital, to Taufua Beach where we would be staying in Fales (open air huts). It was pretty hot, but started to rain, cooling everything down. Finally we arrived at our beach pretty late but they had dinner prepared for us. So good. We all ate then found our ways to our beds.
The next morning was pretty early because breakfast was at 8-9. The food they served was delicious and plentiful. Our lodgings included both breakfast and dinner. We usually just bought from them lunch…and drinks.
Overall, there isn’t too much to say about Samoa except that it was the relaxing, beach vacation you’d always dreamed of having. The beach was beautiful, the water clear and warm. The fish would swim around by your legs if you stood still. Also there were snorkeling equipment to rent out which we all partook in and took turns exploring the reefs off shore. There were tropical, colorful fish everywhere. We spent most of the days lounging about on the beach, reading or playing in the water. One day we built an awesome sand-castle dedicated to Paige, may she be praised. Eventually the temple to Paige was inundated by the ocean after a valiant stand against the waves. 4-6 brought on happy hour which was a time for us to come together and sip on fruity beverages. Dinner was served shortly after. On two of the nights there were native dances performed which were nice, but the coolest was the firedancers. They would twirl around a long stick with each end on fire and do all sorts of insane tricks.
The one day that was out of the normal for us was when Micah took us on a tour of the island where we learned about some of the native plants, drank out of coconuts, saw waterfalls, swam in a cave, swam in a pool, went to a market, and played on the sliding rocks. The sliding rocks was the most fun part. They are named appropriately as they are just natural rock formations that form a waterslide. The only downside to the whole trip was some scattered showers (which actually kept it a pleasant temperature) and the fact that the water isn’t drinkable. Thus iodine tablets were necessary. It just made things a little tougher, although who could complain, we were in Samoa.
The trip home was tragic. We had to leave an island paradise to return to our cold flats and exams. The trip home was pretty uneventful.