We woke this morning to bright sun and a very hot day. It was hot even at 8.15 as we sat down to breakfast.
Breakfast needs to be protected from the flies, as you can probably see. I don't know if you can see all the Christmas decorations hanging from the rafters above our heads, but we find it difficult to feel very festive. It is hard to believe it is December in all the heat!
Before going out to have another look round Apia I wanted to log on to the Qantas web site and check our flight details. To my horror, the Qantas web site was denying all knowledge of us or our booking. We spent quite a while discussing what to do. I was all for contacting the Pacific Air/Qantas agent in Samoa. Paul thinks, as we have a printed itinerary, we should be OK. I am really quite worried, I don't want to be trapped in Samoa. When I went to the Air Pacific web site, it didn't even acknowledge the existence of a flight on the day we have booked. I am not sure how I will sleep at night until we get to the airport and find out if we have a flight or not. Of course, the London agent responsible for our booking had gone home for the night by then, so we couldn't even send him panicky emails. Paul said he would email him later, when there would be somebody in the office.
Paul insisted that I was worrying for nothing, so we went out. I just hope he is right.
It was certainly very hot. The road where our hotel is located eventually turns into the cross island road, and it is quite wide at the point where it nears Apia. It is a road of some contrasts.
The French High Commission is just down the hill from us.
There is also a grocery store
This is one of the older houses in the road.
This house looks almost derelict. And yes, that is a tomb in the garden. Apparently, some people like to bury members of their family close to them, and some houses have lots of graves in the garden. Paul says he quite likes that idea. It does assume though, that your family will own the home for generations. How could you possibly sell your house if it contained all the family graves?
Below is one of the newer houses. You can see how everything is in bloom at present, there is a profusion of blossom everywhere, almost hiding the house.
The white blossom on the tree is frangipani. I don't know the name of the red blossom tree, our taxi driver told us Manuka but I wasn't sure he was correct. The yellow bushes look very like potentilla but I don't think they can be, the flowers are so huge.
We also see a lot of hibiscus. Most people have fruit trees in their gardens, and we see lots of coconuts, bananas and mangoes. This is breadfruit.
The fruit are small at present because they are not ripe. I've never seen a breadfruit tree before, nor eaten breadfruit. As it's out if season, I'm not likely to eat it now either!
The main street in Apia is called Beach Road
You can see the new buildings at the far end - I believe the tall one with the dome is a Government building. There seem to be very few new ones at the end where we were standing. Apia town is in a curved bay which makes a sheltered harbour, and you can see the surf breaking on the reef outside. There is a channel through the reef to let ships into the harbour.
This is a ferry coming in through the channel and I think you can just see the surf breaking on the reef at the left of the picture.
The majority of the good beaches are in the south of the island. There are beaches east of the town but swimming is discouraged because of strong currents.
As it was extremely hot in the sun and there was not much shade on the beach, we decided to return to the hotel for the rest of the afternoon and make use of the pool.
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