Poor Rowan was up at 4am with phone calls! He was out in JeldiJeldi checking out the marina long before I surfaced! Overnight another sailing boat joined us in the anchorage, in a smallish monohull, they must have had a hell of a trip over. Young French guys who Rowan tried to engage in conversation, with no success. We soon had the anchor up as we did not want to be entering the marina with any significant wind. It is a tiny marina with not a lot of room to manoeuvre, but Rowan nailed it. The boat next door came and did our lines which was extremely helpful. Turns out they were Brits who immigrated to Canada about 20 years ago. Only 3 other sailing cruisers in the marina, we expected it to be a bigger marina with more boats, but apparently this is out of the way and not many cruisers make it here.
PolePole safely in the marina
We got settled, and thankfully with the help of Marina and Monty, we managed to hire a car. Our overwhelming impression of Apia, is the huge quantity of churches, it really is a god fearing place! But the people are delightful, so friendly and all speak English.
First stop was the market, we had a good look at that and bought the essentials – flowers, turmeric and banana crisps! We then headed on the main road out of town up the hill. Obviously the higher up the mountain the more expensive the property. We first passed Robert Louise Stevenson’s home , this is where he died age 44. We seem to follow his path as he spent time at the end of Napa Valley, we also saw some of his family’s lighthouses (they were lighthouse builders) on our trip around the Scottish coast in our campervan. The museum was closed but hope to get back to it. Then we passed the American embassy, an old property with beautiful gardens. Hysterically the Chinese have bought the property opposite for their new embassy, it is still under construction, it has monster walls, apparently digging extensively – all to much suspicion and consternation by the Americans!
The market
Wonderful fresh fruit
Colourful flower stalls
Colourful aisles in the market
Seafood in a bottle in this temperature seems a bit dodgy!
Taro in their handmade baskets
Huge stems of something!
It was a lovely drive up, becoming less populated the higher we went, but deliciously cool. We finally found the Forest cafe which was recommended by Marina. What an amazing place, tucked into the jungle with a shocking road to get there. We were convinced it was closed as there were no other cars, but to our delight it was open and we had a delicious wrap there for lunch. It was run by a very entertaining Samoan lady who was born here but left when she was young and has lived all over the place and came back in 2015, she and her brothers inherited a large family plot. The brothers had no desire to return and as she says if she didn’t return the place would be overrun, she had to stake her claim. Afterwards we went to the art gallery/workshop nearby, that Marina had also recommended. It was run by a very eclectic entrepreneurial half Samoan guy, beautifully landscaped and an open studio for visiting artists, plus he and his wife do art lessons. They had a Kiwi (islander) young lady helping out, who is married to a Ghanian man. They met when she went to volunteer out in Ghana and returned married! He is making paper out of banana and coconut fibres. They had a lovely old Fale – a local house made out of palm leaves. They had some nice pottery too – I bought the cutest little bird jug.
Surrounded by trees at the the forest cafe, sadly mainly invasive acacia trees
The Fale – traditional building
The temperature dropped dramatically under here, in the shade
Taro grinding stones
Lovely lush gardens
View down to the sea
We returned to the boat to catch up on a bit of sleep before meeting Monty and Marina who we had invited to sunset drinks. We had such a great catch up with the two of them who have lived here for over 5 years, working for the UN on sustainable projects – they just thought it looked an exciting internship to take! Both are currently doing their Masters which will bump them up their ranking within the UN work force. They plan to move on next year. This means they really know the place well and entering the restaurant, it was amazing how many locals knew them, including one of Samoa’s most famous rugby players who we came across on our way home. Everyone is so relaxed and friendly it is wonderful to see. We had a fantastic meal, Samoan/Italian owners, ended up having somebody’s birthday cake shared with us, which was delicious too. It was fascinating hearing all about Marina and Monty’s life here, straight from Uni and through Covid lockdown. We reminisced about Oakham days – including Monty’s Ophthalmologist grandfather who Han invited as her guest to their Science dinner. Marina is Spanish and did the IB with Hannah, so they had a lot in common in their last two years at Oakham. Monty was one of two very engaging Fairies at our big Mid Summer Night’s party, celebrating Han’s 16th, Phoebe’s 18th, Luke’s 21st and our 50th! It was great fun catching up with them.
Marina and Monty with us at Paddles restaurant
Walking back we bumped into Alesana “Alex” Tuilagia, famous Samoan rugby player
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