Cloud 9 Eco-lodge Apia

... a precaution due to the recent Swine Flu outbreak across the globe. So here I was in the early hours of the morning having my temperature taken. After a brief nap we made our way around Apia and had lunch at a restaurant favoured by foreigners (from this point I will refer to them as expats) called Paddles - the fish and chips were fantastic! Looking forward to a good nights sleep as we are off to Salamumu, to a resort called Samoana (on the south side of the island).

... sweating. It's not a big town by any means (no more than 40 mins walking from one side to the other) but compared to the villages just outside of it, it was clogged and polluted. By 'necessary' I mean that there was very little in Apia that didn't need to be there (except the McDonalds!) which translates to ugly buildings, too many industrial areas and very little beauty. Of course, that's just one perspective/opinion. If I hadn't already seen so many 'cities' like ...

... Lorsque un bus réussi a attiré assez de passagers (bien souvent 2 a 3 fois plus que le nombre de place disponible) et que ca vaut donc la peine de quitter la capitale, on s'est rendu compte qu'il n'y a aucun bus qui fait le tour de l'ile. Par conséquent pour voyager autour de l'ile ça rend les choses assez compliquées. De Apia à plage No1... De retour à Apia pour ensuite aller à plage No2...De retour encore une fois a Apia pour atteindre plage No3, etc. Notre guide ...

... waiting for the rain to stop . When the rain finally stopped we started walking down the road for Vailima hoping for a bus to come along. Instead the first car that turned up offered us to climb in the back wagon and gave us a lift in to the village were we had some great Indian food for lunch before we went back home. We'll not that much this time I'm afraid but there will be more I promise! Take care!

... self getting back on the boat as soon as I could. The second try went much better; I should tell you though that it was in more shallow water slightly closer to the beach. Back in the water I got to see all kinds of corral, colourful fish and really beautiful dark blue starfish. I was really hoping for a turtle though which means I have to give snorkelling another try, sometime... After dinner we met up with some New Zealanders for a ...

We finally found a place to stay, a place to call home. In all we looked at a couple of places but this one we didn't even have to discuss before excepting. It's a two bedroom apartment located in Vaivase not far from the University. The monthly fee is definitely ok and we really like it here it's enormous; we have our own kitchen (with an electric stove and a refrigerator with fridge ...

... the Lonely Planet guide book! On our final day in Apia (before we headed to the beach in the South East) we decided to trek up to Robert Louis Stevenson's grave which is atop Mount Vaea and overlooks Apia. It was was an hours walk through some thick forest to a wide opening at the top. The view was well worth the time time spend walking and you can see why he wished to be buried there.

... This piece has no visible markings and the present owner knows nothing of its history. Appears to be a 12 pdr, but very light weight for the bore, I should think it was some kind of gunnade The picture on the right shows the gun emplacement which renders the small island of Manono an impregnable citadel. Again, there are no markings on the gun, and nothing is known of ...

We have completed our first year in Samoa. I think we have made it past the one year slump when people seem to get depressed and wonder how they will ever make it to the end. Don't know if we will make it all the way to August 2008 but it does look down hill from here. The new VBD trainees are here and now we are the sage old guys who can show them the ropes. Mom and Josh made it here at last. They had to delay a week because mom's passport didn't ...

... Once the outline was on the wall the kids painted the countries. The whole thing takes about 10 hours with 8-12 helpers. The kids were great. When the map was finished we gave t-shirts to all the helpers. We ended up painting a world map, an oceana map and a Samoa map at the primary school. The secondary school got a world map and a Samoa map. Turns out the maps use less paint than I thought. I think we can paint ...