Back from Samoa

That's Brian sitting on "our" beach (we had the entire beach to ourselves for the majority of our stay in Savaii) and Chris is in the water snorkling. This was the first full day we spent in Manase, Savaii which also happened to be my 21st birthday.
A poorly lit picture, but it speaks volumes. This was on the 17th, we went to Paia village and went to the Dwarfs Cave. Our guides showed us how to harvest coconuts (gave us fresh coconuts to drink and eat), how to make a Samoan spoon, and taught us different Samoan words (Talofa! - Hello!). The picture goes (from left to right) Me, our guide - Tala, Brian, Chris, John and Tala's friend is in the mouth of the cave.
This was where we stayed in Apia, the main city in Samoa on the smaller island of Upolu. We were only there for 2 nights before taking a ferry ride (which was rocky, stormy, and Chris and Brian got sick) to Savaii. The hut is called a "fale" and we had mosquito nets to use during the night or else we'd get eaten alive.
These are the slidding rocks falls. This was in Apia and we were brought here by a rather sketchy taxi driver. He took us to these falls (which we had to pay 2 tala for and were only accessed through a series of steep steps down) and then he told Brian to SLIDE off the rocks (they were very slippery with algae) into the falls and into a small pool of water. Brian was very trusting and went ahead and did it. Turns out the pool (though not very wide) was very deep and refreshing. This picture is of Chris slidding off the falls into the water.
These pictures are really out of order because this was from our time in NZ. This was in Rotorua, which is more of the most thermally active spots in NZ. It smells like sulfur and it has hundreds of these sulfur pools of bubbling thermal springs. In the center of the city is a park full of them. This picture was taken after we had gone Zorbing (another adventure in itself to describe).

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So I'm back from Samoa and of course because the vacation itself was so wonderful and relaxing, life here in Wellington has already become quite rocky. My computer's harddrive is all full (something I knew was bound to happen but I put off taking care of until now) so I need to buy an external harddrive before I can properly load my pictures from my trip up and everything. Also, when we arrived in Wellington (after pulling an allnighter after landing in Auckland and then taking a 12 hour bus ride) it was rainy and windy and our bus driver dropped us off at a stop without cover. Sadly all of us and our stuff got soaked. So I arrived back in Wellington missing the hot Samoan sunny weather (we never had a rainy day) and wishing like hell that I had never left.


I'll write about my adventures, they're long and detailed so I won't do that tonight, but I've posted these couple photos as teasers.