Taufua Beach Fales Lalomanu

Samoa, South Pacific We arrived at Apia Airport at 5am after a ten hour night flight from LA, today is a big milestone for us, Mrs F and I have been married for 25 wonderful years, I think we'll remember this special time for sure. As we walked off the plane the humid air hit us and I turned into an instantaneous water fountain! We cleared customs and emerged into a throng of taxi drivers calling out to us. We had arranged a transfer over the web with our accommodation but there was no one to...

We arrived at Taufua Beach Fales and relished the sun and the heat,... at least for a few hours! We had a wonderful local lunch including taro, raw fish curry, roasted suckling pig and a lot more delicious food. We also had a few awesome hours of sunshine and took most of our photos that day. After that, the weather seriously degenerated! The only consoling thing is when we heard the weather was just as bad in Fiji!

Imagine a hut on the beach in Samoa, less than 10m from the water (or less than 30ft for the non-metrics)... you can hear the waves softly crashing on the fine sand, the heat making your skin moist and the wind appeasing you into a deep sleep by caressing the palm tree leaves. It sounds so good yet it didn't happen like that. Let me tell you our version:

To start with, the wind was not in a caressing mood and there was no chemistry between the wind and the palm trees. It was more a mat...

Since the weather was still not better the next day, we managed to use a cab to take us to waterfalls around the island. It was raining and why not see more water while we were at it.
During our waterfall tour, we were exposed to some of the Samoan culture and we learned that, in a particular way, Samoans are very welcoming people...
The last thing we thought of packing for this trip was gum boots but our cab driver made sure he took an umbrella for us everwhere we went. I personally...

After a few nights, we eventually got used to the tarp flapping on all walls around us and we managed to get enough hours of sleep at night. Since the weather was pretty ****** still, we also got plenty of time to take naps. We followed the principles of a Mediterranean lifestyle with a bit of a twist: morning nap at 10am, afternoon nap at 1.30pm, late afternoon nap at 4-5pm.
Like most of the guests in Samoa that week, we contemplated all possible options to find the sun and warmth of the...

Guess what? Another rainy day!
By now, we had tried to buy playing cards at the local shop, also known as the window in the wall 100m further down the road, but they had ran out. Every other guest seemed to be playing cards morning and afternoon and thus, probably beat us to it! Thankfully for our stomach, they still had the tasty dry crackers.
We had brought about 3 books each and by now, we were rationing the reading supplies. Derek had a book of Sudoku and he managed to complete al...

This was our last morning on this little corner of paradise and heavy rainfalls! Since the morning sun was up, we got changed in our swimming attire and were in the water in less than 2 seconds. We had an amazing few laps in the clear water of the ocean contemplating the underwater wildlife. We swam through schools of fish and spotted an irridescent blue starfish!
We later talked to the local people who had no idea about the beautiful color scheme that is living in their waters.
In al...