Girls living the island dream

By Elizabeth Ah-Hi 03 March 2018, 12:00AM

It’s all fun and games until someone fractures an ankle while sliding down some rocks at Papaseea, however that did not stop the adventurous duo of Erica and Emily from enjoying the rest of their holiday in Samoa.

Erica and Emily of Wellington have been in Samoa for the past five days. They decided a while back on some snowy ski slope in picturesque Queenstown, New Zealand, that they wanted to go on a real holiday — one that involved the sun and sea. 

“We decided to go somewhere really warm, especially when we were experiencing 3 degrees temperatures in Queenstown — even in summer. So we wanted go somewhere nice and warm so we can swim and hangout. I’ve been to quite a few places in the Pacific like Vanuatu, Fiji, Tahiti and Hawaii. So we were thinking somewhere else that’s not super expensive.” 

In their search for the perfect Pacific Island getaway, the girls went through a process of elimination before they found exactly what they wanted.

“I quite like to go to Rarotonga, but it’s all really touristy, I feel like it’s just set up and it’s not really authentic. We wanted somewhere affordable that wasn’t too far. We don’t want to spend an entire day on the plane but five or six hours at the most.

We had a look around at comparing flight costs and the types of accommodation you could get. We didn’t want to stay somewhere fancy, we wanted to stay somewhere a little bit low key and the flexibility to go driving and sightseeing for ourselves. 

“We decided on Samoa and we decided on Le Uaina Resort, it’s like the best accommodation that we found price wise, the location is great, it’s right on a beach and it had two bedroom little apartments with separate beds, which is quite hard to get in Samoa because everything here seems to be catered to couples.”

For Erica, the highlight of their trip has been the To Sua Ocean Trench and she was particularly impressed with Samoan fire dancing.

“The highlights have been the To Sua Trench, a bit scary on the steps going down because it is a little bit slippery but you just take it nice and slow. It wasn’t packed; there were maybe four or five people there so it was pretty quiet.

We went to the fiafia night at Samoa Traditions Resort and that was really cool, they did some amazing fire dancing so I was very impressed with them and its takes me a lot to be impressed,” she laughed.

Most of all it has been the freedom and relaxation they have experienced in Samoa that has captivated them the most because girls just want to have fun.

“We were so excited when we got here we thought ‘oh my gosh, we’re in Samoa this is amazing’, so we went all over the place the first four days, we were doing stuff everyday just driving around going to swimming spots, having dinners out, very busy. 

“What was really nice was we jumped in the car and let’s go for a bit of a drive and see what we find. So we drove around the south east coast and there was a big long line of fales along the beach. So we just pulled up and jumped out of the car sat in the fale for the afternoon. Had a bit of nap, went for a swim, had some snacks, drank some beer. We had the whole beach to ourselves.”

Erica told Dear Tourist that while they were more sedentary since her travel partner injured herself a couple of days ago when she attempted to slide down the famous Papaseea rocks, they still planned to hop in the car on their last day and go for a drive to Lalomanu. There they would find a spot to lie on the beach and soak up some sun before they departed the following day. 

“Absolutely would recommend Samoa. One thing we have found is that the people are so friendly so everyone is just really nice, really helpful and really accommodating. The food is amazing, I love the oka and the palusami is great as well.

My friend Emily is a chef and she’s a real foodie and I’m a foodie too, so we went out to some restaurants and tried the local food and it’s was just amazing. I definitely think we would have to come back because we never got to go over to Savaii.”

By Elizabeth Ah-Hi 03 March 2018, 12:00AM
Samoa Observer

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