All good things come to an end

Yay for cliches as titles for my blogs! :)

After 2 weeks in New Zealand it was time to start making our way back home. The first leg of our flight was from Auckland to Apia, Western Samoa (travel time: 3 hours and 45 minutes). We upgraded our seats to premier economy or something of that nature. On our trip to NZ this only meant that we sat closer to the front of the plan and had priority boarding. On the way back to Apia it meant that we were pretty much sitting in business class. It was fabulous! There was an excess amount of legroom and the seats even reclined with a leg rest. Being that I’m 5’10” and Saul is 6’2” this was so very welcome.

The flight was uneventful and we landed in Apia with some day light left. One of the cons of living in AmSam is that to get anywhere you have to travel through Apia. The flights from Apia to AmSam only run from 8:00am – 4:00pm. We landed back in Apia at 5:30ish meaning that we had to stay the night so that we could catch a flight back to AmSam in the morning.

We booked a garden room (pretty much the economy room) at the lovely Le Vasa Resort. Western Samoa has a major lack of airport hotels. Apia proper is almost an hour away so we found something a bit closer at only 6 miles from the airport. The taxi to get there was 40 WST, which is about $18 USD so pretty pricey, but such is life. The resort was perfect and just what we were looking for. It’s on somewhat of a peninsula so there’s gorgeous water on all sides of the resort. There’s also a nice bar and restaurant which we took full advantage of.  The biggest plus is that the room was air-conditioned. One more night of needing a blanket at night=win!

We received word at the resort that all of InterIsland’s (the plane that flies from Apia to AmSam) flight had been cancelled that day. This made us a bit worried that we would be bumped off our plane because there’s fewer than 20 seats and so many people were on stand-by.  Our original plan was to try to change our 11am flight to 2 or even 4pm but due to the circumstances from the day before we got up bright and early to head to the airport. At 8am we dragged our suitcases up the gravel drive way to find a bus. A really nice couple drove by and offered to take us to the airport because they were actually heading to AmSam on our flight so we happily obliged. 40 WST saved woohoo.

We got to the airport, checked our bags and waited for our flight. Everything went flawlessly. Since we’ve been here in AmSam, we’ve heard nothing but terrible things about Inter Island Airways. We found them 100% adequate. All of our baggage made it on our flights and the flights left and arrived on time.

Anyways we got back to AmSam to cool, rainy weather (which was just what we were hoping for) and jumped in a cab with our neighbor. After being away for a while it was surprisingly nice to return back to the place that has become our home.

-C 

How you hold your place in line at Faleolo Airport. Our suitcases are the blue ones :)