Tatoos
Click on any image below to bring up today’s Fun Photo Friday gallery and activate the slide show:
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Sign post
Our hurry was to get to the Samoa Cultural Village in time for the next native dance and cooking demonstrations, and we made it with just minutes to spare. Food was cooked in the traditional Polynesian manner of burying the meats and vegetables in a heated pit.
Samoa Cultural Village
Included in the village are demonstrations of siapo making. Siapo is the Samoan version of tapa cloth, the strands for which are derived from the inner bark of various trees. It’s a very laborious and time consuming process, and a skill that is slowly dying.
Making siapo (tapa) cloth
Making siapo (tapa) cloth
The village show includes traditional dances and a formal greeting from the village royalty:
Samoan princess?
Make sure you take time to stop and smell the roses . . . or otherwise enjoy the native flora at the village:
Samoa Cultural Village
Samoa Cultural Village
After our lunch of native cuisine we boarded a taxi for journey to the home of a fellow author, but first we made two stops. The first was for refreshing coconut water straight from a fresh coconut, and this was to be had at the local market just beyond the Apia Clock Tower.
Apia Clock Tower
Apia market
Our taxi driver then took us to a place he knew where we could watch locals feed the sea turtles, which eagerly awaited their feeding:
Sea turtle
After that it was off to the village of Vailima, site of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Villa Vailima, which is now the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum. I knew what the “vai” in “Vailima” meant; it’s Polynesian for “water”. I learned that tidbit way back in 1994 from Mark Vaikai, whom when we met was an air traffic controller working at the Rarotonga International Airport in the Cook Islands.
Now for the other part of “Vailima”. In Polynesian “lima” means both “five” and “hand”. In this instance however it’s “hand”, so “vailima” literally translates to “water in the hand”.
And Mark’s last name, Vaikai? Mark jokingly told me that his name is all you need for life. It’s Polynesian for “Water and Food”, and now you know the genesis for the name of the fictitious setting I used in my mystery novel Decisions — the Fijian island resort of Vaikai.
Here is today’s photo gallery of Villa Vailima including some very colorful tourist buses that sat in the parking area:
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Sailing in Apia Bay
The Crown Princess left Nawiliwili in the afternoon of October 25, 2015. We sailed south-southwest four full days at sea, crossing both the Equator and the International Date Line. During this portion of the voyage our ship needed to slow, delaying our arrival to our next destination. The problem was the intense El Nino that year. The engines of the Crown Princess are cooled by sea water, and the unusually warm water during that year’s El Niño required the ship to reduce speed because of overheating concerns.
Apia Bay wreck
Thus, we arrived to Apia, capital of the Independent State of Samoa, later than originally planned. We would need to hurry if we were to adequately explore this destination that we had never before visited.
Apia tugboat
Samoa transitioned to the west side of the International Date Line less than four years prior to our visit, back in December of 2011. Prior to that Samoa shared the same side of the Date Line as our next destination, American Samoa, less than 45 miles to the east. This was done to facilitate trade with Australia and New Zealand, which over time became more important that the previously most important trading partner, California.
Apia from a distance
As we approached the dock we were pleasantly surprised to find a greeting performance troop in colorful dress.
The Crown Princess approaches port
Samoan greeters
Crown Princess in port
From a distance Apia appears pretty unassuming, but as you set out on foot from the pier and proceed into town that perspective soon changes. First, we passed this quaint marina:
Apia marina
Following along Beach Road and rounding the bend into town we were greeted with this sight:
Apia, capital of Samoa
Shortly after we approached the beautiful EFKS (Ekalesia Faapotopotoga Kerisiano Samoa)Church with its colorful exterior and twin domed towers:
EFKS Church
EKFS Church
We didn’t linger here, however. We had a different destination in mind, and time was running out to get there. Our next stop, The Samoa Cultural Village.
Flowering tree at the Samoa Cultural Village
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