Following our week in the village of Lotofaga and a week back on campus at USP, we found ourselves unable to get too comfortable before we left again for Savai'i. Savai'i is the other major island in Samoa and is the larger of the two. One of the most vivid memories from the trip was our bus fare to the wharf to get on our ferry. Busses in Samoa are not like busses in America by any means. There is no schedule nor real stops. There is, however, a station in Apia where all busses come through where you have to check the painted letters on the front to see where it is going. Our bus, to the Paseova'a, was packed since it is quite a long ride and doesn't go that frequently. By packed, I mean 100% packed. People "stack" or sit on each others laps to make more room while people stand in the entire aisle. If I had to guess, there were probably 70 or so people with a 30 person maximum. Needless to say it was quite an uncomfortable experience with our whole group, all of our bags, and what seemed like 1/4 of the entire island of people. Once we got on our ferry, it was smooth sailing the rest of the week. We were staying in beach fales which are completely open houses with thatching panels that you can untie at night for privacy. Our fale was about 5 feet from the water so every night I felt like I was falling asleep on top of the ocean. While we were in Savai'i we walked on the lava fields, went on a hike through a volcano crater, and made tapa (a type of cloth that used to be used as clothing but is now used more as decoration). Comparing Savai'i to the island where we live, Upolu, this island is very touristy and a little more expensive. We were able to drive around the entire island in only a little over five hours in order to see a lot of the major sites. We spent a few days at the Tanu Beach fales before we went to the other side of the island and stayed in fales on a lagoon. I was sad to leave our first residence before I was pleasantly surprised by just how beautiful our second location was. I can definitely say that this experience was a completely different side of Samoa that we saw compared to something like the village. I could tell that we were surrounded by a lot of tourists on the ferry back, people that seemed like they could have been on their honeymoons. Just goes to show the world of paradise that Savai'i really is.
