Savaii Continued!

Sorry about the dash off the other day.........after 4 and a bit weeks in Samoa i should be used to Samoan time. Its rather like the Spanish 'Manana, Manana!' and nothing is done in a rush here. People drive very slowly and cross the road like they have an entire day which is nice but i will find it hard getting back up to normal speed when i get back home. It will be like fastforwarding a tape, getting back to England.
Now picking up where i left off, hmm
well after we made it off the ferry, i dont think i mentioned last time that there was a long queue to get down the stairs off the ferry to get back to the car. Having sat on the floor for the whole ferry journey, we took advantage of the now available seats. After 5 or so minutes, when we realised that there was no longer a queue to get back down into the basement of the boat where we had left our car, we went to collect it. We thought we would have a problem finding it and squeezing between all the cars, but when we got there, the whole basement was empty except for one car with a man from the port authority leaning on it. We soon twigged that this was our car, and as we hadn't returned to our car to drive off, the other cars had had to drive off navigating around our car! It was very embarassing but i think everyone realised it was a tourist's car, as it had a big Budget orange sticket plastered across the back windscreen. We swiftly got back into our car, waved embarassingly at all the staff on the ferry and made a swift getaway off the ferry!
We then drove for about 1 hr to the north of Savaii to an area called Manase, where we were staying in beach fales for 4 nights. These fales (huts) were like the ones i described in an earlier post and were right on the beach an open. They have shutters which you can pull down at night. In these fales they had a cocunut brush which you had to use to clean your feet of sand everytime you stepped into the fale. Although it was literally a thin mattress on the floor, it was a spacious fale and a good place to stay considering it was only 50 tala a night (approx 10 pound) which included the accommodation adn breakfast and dinner.
The following day we headed around the west coast of Savaii to get to the south where the blowholes and waterfalls were. The blowholes were amazing. It was basically a large area of lava with blowholes everywhere. When the waves from the sea came and hit the rocks, the blowholes would spurt steam. You could also throw cocunuts into the blowholes which irritated them. In their anger, they then threw up more steam which was impressive. However they obviously need anger management classes as they wouldnt act on demand when we wanted a photo of us by the blowholes. We had to be quick to try and snap when the blowhole was erupting and i kept missing lol. We then went up an ancient mound called the Pumelei Mound. We thought we had hired a 4WD but it soon turned out we hadnt. We paid the entrance fee to the mound and the owner then told us we wouldnt make it up to the mound in our car. Luckily a truck of Samoans then drove up and kindly offered us a lift up there. It was a fun but slightly painful journey up. We bounced like yo yo's up the track and ducked to avoid the overhead trees. We then went to the Afu AAu waterfalls which was pretty but unfortunately was dry so we couldnt see what was supposed to be an impressive waterfall. However the pool by it was very nice and a good way to cool down!
We then drove back around the East coast of Savaii so in the course of one day had circumnavigated the whole island. This shows how small the island is as we could drive around it in its entirety in about 3-4 hours! Petrol here is quite expensive. It is about 85p a litre which is very expensive considering the average Samoan earns $1.20 tala/hr which is 24p an hour. So paying 85p a litre for petrol is very expensive.
There was a fia fia (show) that evening at our beach fales followed by a beach disco!
The next day, we started out early again following a good breakfast which included deep fried pancakes. They love deep frying food here. Literally most things will be deep fried. Its good but i can see if i lived here permanently that i could end up looking like a Samoan rugby player or Rik Waller!
With our stomachs attempting to absorb the pancake grease, we went to the lava fields to see remains of an old church. We then went to a cave where we saw swiflet nests and the tiniest baby swiflet ever. It was a tiny pink dot and hadnt yet opened its eyes! We then went to a beach for lunch and went to a canopy walkway in the afternoon, where we scaled a 220 yr old Banyan tree. We ended the day watching the sunset at Cape Mulinuu which is the most Western point on Earth. We were therefore the last people on Earth to see the sun go down which was pretty cool, and was a lovely sunset!
Time is running out again..oh dear..i can see it is going to take me the rest of the week to write about Savaii as we saw a lot in a few days and it was all so good!
We went into the hospital in Savaii later in the week. It was smaller then the hospital we are based at here in Apia which is the main island. It is very like going to a GP. There are 3.5 doctors in the hospital. Don't worry, one hasnt been chopped in half, she works part time!
We went to the ward rounds and saw patients ranging from a man who was bitten by a dog. The wound then got infected and went to his bone. To a kid who had had meningitis for approximately 3 weeks before his mother finally decided to bring her into hospital. She was really ill, as she had been having seizures for 3 wks and her meningitis had been going untreated. They took her over on the ferry to Apia. So we will probably see her on the ward round on Monday when we go back to the main hospital.
Bye for now, will try and be back soon and not leave it over a week again, as then i can never keep up!
xxxx