After landing a quarter of an hour later, the pilot handed me my penknife, securely wrapped in rolls of paper and tape. 'I have no idea why they did that,' he said.

Our bus driver was waiting for us. I gave him his pay cheque which he, in turn, gave to a lady in the petrol station who would give him cash on the way back. There was nobody else on the bus, and Savai'i has only one road, so we had a rather exclusive guided tour around the lush, green, and noticeably cooler southern part of the country.

The island has suffered two major volcanic eruptions, one in 1796 and the next in 1905. This latter eruption lasted for six years, so it is not surprising that much of the geology consists of lava. The black stuff remains surprisingly wet even in direct tropical sunlight, so it is not surprising that it is popular for crops and is often seen stacked up in cones around the base of young trees.

The bus ambled around the island. We fed pieces of papaya (and some of my finger) to green turtles in a freshwater lagoon. We climbed down a lava tube and up into a suspended treetop walk. Each of these attractions is the collectively owned property of one village, and use of them attracts a very small fee per person, which is used for the upkeep of the schools and so on. This fee is not a tourist tax, it is a long tradition and payable by any outsider if they want to use that particular facility.

The story of the treetop walk is particularly interesting. It was built by a Canadian who married a village girl, wanting to find a way to make money for the village without cutting down the surrounding rainforest. It was a hugely successful venture, and the Canadian is now Matea (chief) of the village.

We had now almost circumnavigated the island; the last stop was the waterspout at Alofaaga. It was another five tale to get in, then a further couple of tale to buy a bag of old coconut husks. A little puzzled, we followed our guide across a cracked and fissured lava flow, with waves hammering in from the sea and exploding high into the air. The ground felt hollow, and thrummed as we walked over it, wheezing and bubbling as each set of waves forced compressed air into the porous rock.

Over to one side, closer to the water, are a number of vertical sinkholes. Here we discovered the purpose of the old coconuts; they are tossed into the hole and, when the next big wave comes along, it blows them out from below at the top of a huge waterspout. Our coconuts were projected fifty metres or more, a stunningly impressive sight, although our guide told us that the waves weren't especially powerful that day.

Our driver had tried to fit a lot into our day, and it was a bit of a desperate run for the ferry back to the north island. The flat roll-on roll-off barge was just about to depart when we arrived, so we quickly bought tickets and sidled aboard between rows of enormous 4x4 trucks carrying produce, to a seating area on the deck at the back. Here we found that the seats were all packed with locals indulging in their favourite passtime of sleeping.

We stood by the rail and ate another of the rather bitter, nameless fruit that we had picked up at a market that morning, tossing the husks to the numerous zebra-striped fish in the sea below. It had been a long day and, soothed by the big smooth swells and the warmth of the funnel next to me, I too fell asleep.

The Virtual Reinhard Archive

Pseudemys

30.11.06 Front Page

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