Our dock was right in town. We took a 3 hour tour around part of the island to get to our cultural experience. We first saw the flower pot rock. As you can see it was in the rain.
Flower pot rock
Since it was raining, we stopped quickly for photo opportunities.
This was our tour bus. Bench seats. It is basically the city bus, the only type of bus we saw
Carving on the pillar at our pit stop, the golf course.
A village home
Most homes have a large open air building like this one in front for entertaining. The family lives in the house behind. Several generations, siblings and cousins may all live in one house. Our guide lives this way.
This stop was to see the beautiful shoreline
this is David's panaorama photo here
David taking his panorama
Our main activity was a cultural village. since it was raining, they brought everything inside one of the open air meeting buildings. First we were served tastes of local food prepared traditionally by the men. We had a chocolate drink made from roasted raw cacao beans and pounded to powder, and put in boiling water to serve.
We had a traditional dance where the hands tell the story. The men jumped into the dance with loud raucous noises. They also demonstrated making coconut milk, much like Chief Sielu from Oahu, who we believe is the master of these traditional practices. He can still climb a coconut tree.
Beautiful Samoan dancer
Photo opportunity
After we returned to the ship we had lunch and then returned to town to explore. We got to Sadie's where Somerset Maugham stayed and wrote a story.
Sadie's hotel
A carved tree trunk in the center of town. Our ship is in the background
I saw some polynesian/Hawaiian type dresses in the craft stalls by the ship so we shopped for Hawaiian clothes. However everything was in a huge size. We did find a couple nice shirts for David.
David went to the museum
We both took a much anticipated steam bath and hot shower before dinner.
The cultural hall and demo
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