Because it is damn beautiful. I might have said this in my other brief post about Western Samoa, but
Upolo is a beautiful island. It's my big 35 in November and Markus gave me a trip to Western Samoa for my early birthday present on our three day weekend. From one world traveler to another, "Thanks, Columbus" (or as they are now calling it "Discoverers Day")!
We got up really early in the morning, leaving
Pago airport at 8 am and getting in at 8:30 am. We had a long ride from the airport in our very cute Swift red car, and yes it was, Swift; to our hotel in Apia. The car rental guy was ever so adorable.
This was Markus’ first trip off-island since he arrived seven months ago, well except our trip to
Manua (which is like going to a neighboring county from
Tutuilla (our island)). He was a little overwhelmed with the "bright lights, big city" by which I mean stop lights, traffic and a semi-urban air.
I had my Western Samoa driver’s license (12 tala@$4us) in two shakes and we were off to The Sydney
Café-the first wonderful food experience in what was going to be a series! Markus enjoyed (despite this look on his face) a mocha , I enjoyed slavering in front of the deli display.
We checked into our lovely room with a great view of the harbor in the way cool
Aggie Grey Hotel in Apia. A quaint place with lots of Samoa kitsch. Some of the rooms are little
fales in the courtyard. Very cute on the outside, a little bland on the inside and not a lot of privacy.
They had a nice, simple pool, but we
didn’t partake-I’m just not a big pool person. Our room had A.C., a view and a T.V., and quite a few less cockroaches than my last hotel in Apia- all my prerequisites for our stay.
After checking in we hit the markets in a big way.
The amazing fish market. The fish so big. The fly situation (thus the palm leaf fans) a little unappetizing.
The best '
aiga bus yet on the way to the produce market.
The produce market. I was envious. We rarely get pineapple in A.S. or the variety of local produce that was on display. And the prices!
Oka!
Oka! (oh my goodness)
Then the flea market. No pictures of the actual market, because my hands were full with goods. Conch shells, my beautiful turtle bowl, feather fan and a gift or two.
Then we went on an unhappy search for the famous Curry House. Oh, the chance to have Indian food, and highly recommended, cheap, with a view Indian food. After driving up and down the road in front of the restaurant a couple of times, we finally arrived—to be told they had no water (oh, Western Samoa! Not you, too!) and would only open for dinner. We had an unsuccessful series of lunch attempts to which I was willing at the end willing to eat at
McDonalds because of my
catastrophically low blood sugar (we are talking Jekyl and Hyde situation here). Luckily, Markus talked me out of my folly and we ate at The 1 Dollar Restaurant-a floating restaurant on a boat with the best fish and chips we have ever had.
Unfortunately, nothing was a dollar-we are assuming that was the price paid for the boat.
The rainy afternoon was spent watching ½ of about 3 movies. The T.V. is very strange there. It seems like they just run DVDs on the stations and they all start on the hour, and they run them over and over again. So if you don’t catch the first half of a movie you just watch it and then catch the next half after it’s done. The whole time we were there they played the same four or five movies.
We had a drink in the lounge and Markus got propelled with the Slingshot. Wow. One strong drink!
Then we got dressed up to eat pizza! Oh
hallelujah, pizza!
Giordanos pizza is renowned for it’s fabulous pizza-in the heart of Samoa is a little pizzeria with outside seating that makes you feel like you are in Italy. I think it was even better than most pizza I’
ve had in the states. It was that good.
Now that’s what I call a good day.
Stay tuned for Day Two!
Our last night was spent at Aggie Grey's again. We opted for a Fale Bungalow in the courtyard of the hotel. Last time we had a Harbor View. As we get a harbor view every day at home we opted for something different.
These fales have been around since the early years of the hotel and have names of famous people that stayed in them. We got the Nixon Fale. I think this might explain why Markus got bedbug bites while he was laying on the kids bed watching Alien vs. Predator (for some reason I opted out of this tv treat).
I love the way Aggies looks and decorates their nice rooms. They are always liberal with the hibiscus flower decorating. They put them everywhere!
We hung out watching tv, soaking in the pool drinking potent fruity beverages and then went to Upolu deep for some snorkeling. It's shocking to realize that we are grown up enough to stay at nice places like this (well, minus the bed bugs and horrible front desk inefficiency=they wanted to take an imprint of my credit card three times, charged me for room service we did not have and could NOT get us checked out!-I left without officially checking out-hey they have three imprints of my credit card!)
