The Samoans are always smiling and would go out of their way to talk to us or help us. Twice, someone rushed to help when we were carrying groceries to the dinghy along the rickety plastic dock and then held the dinghy in place in the heavy wind. When checking in, even the officials were sidetracked in friendly conversation with us and would ask if we knew where to go next. Just walking past a gas station, the attendant yelled out a friendly Hello to us!
Rickety docks in front of McDonald's
You have 2 choices for internet. The local McDonald's, 1 right by the docks, provides it for free even if you don't buy anything. (It was funny to see at 1 point about 22 computers going at once there.) Or you can buy a card from a company for $20 for 168 hours. Yes that's right - it works out to only about 0.12 cents per hour!! And we were paying $5.00 per hour in French Polynesia.
There are 2 great grocery stores (many more smaller ones) for provisioning and we stocked up - 1 has bulk items like Costco back in Canada (but a much smaller store) and the other is not bulk but has everything you could want. They are a bit out of town but the buses are only $1.00 each for almost anywhere you would want to go ($2.00 for a bus to the end of the route which is quite a long distance). The buses are pretty neat: very brightly painted and the driver appears to be sitting on the floor. They are old rigs with the cab cut off and a new passenger section built mostly of wood.
Very low and brightly painted rig-bus
There are several good restaurants here and very reasonable. We had excellent Chinese food for lunch one day and at a reasonable price too. And served by friendly happy waitresses. We have noticed a large Asian presence as we move farther west.
Hi Guys.... you are still having a ball. It is great being able to track your progress and adventures. We are still dreamers.... but being dreamers is still better than having no dreams at all! :-}
ReplyDeletePete & Wendy
Free to Roam