Suitably refreshed, cool, and with our jetlag at bay, we were able to pay attention for the first time to the countryside around us. On the taxi ride back to Apia, we passed through a number of villages, the houses ranging in style from simple fale (raised wooden platforms with a thatched roof and no walls) to fully-fledged stone houses. Dominant features were the open-plan meeting places, the ornately decorated family graves in each front garden, numerous wild dogs and the roadside platforms designed to protect the garbage from them until the refuse truck came by.

Any structure that boasted walls was lovingly decorated with paint and fabric in bold colours. The graves were painted brilliant white and decorated with black volcanic stones. For lunch we'd had 'Samoan Pizza', which was ham and egg; now we could see the point, because everywhere were pigs and chickens.

In one village, hundreds of Samoans lounged in and around one of the large meeting fale; apparently, a conference was in progress. In another, what seemed to be the entire population was playing ping-pong. Whenever we saw anyone, their faces were uniformly serious until we smiled or waved and then huge smiles would break out everwhere in rashes of grins and waves. Everybody seemed so happy and friendly and, indeed, they seemed to have bountiful land and food and everything that they could need. We understood that each village was autonomous and controlled a particular crop or natural feature, for which a small charge was made to any visitors who wanted to use it. The richest villages tended to control things like water and, indeed, we had already encountered a small inkling of this when we handed over our few dollars to swim in the cave.

In the middle of the harbour front stands a large hotel, the famous Aggie Gray's, relic of the colonial era and occasional home to rich and famous of that age. We had actually tried to book in, but it always seemed to be full, so we decided to go and see what all the fuss was about.

It is certainly a charming place, permanently stuck between the world wars, decorated with fading pictures of 'the natives' taken by some long-ago German photographer. When we arrived, the bar was pretty much empty, so we tried the local Valima beer (a nice brew, clean and somehow Canadian) before embarking on a trawl through the cocktail menu. While I started on the Brandy Aggie, essentially a Brandy Alexander made with coconut milk, Bronwyn went straight for the Aggie Special, a mystery drink that came in an enormous glass the size of a goldfish bowl. This turned out to be a pleasant but potent fruit punch and the bar staff broke out into enormous smiles when Bronwyn polished it off and picked up the cocktail menu for another round.

Somewhat later, we lurched back to our hotel where we dined on marlin steaks and white wine, before brushing our teeth alongside the enormous spider under the sink and falling into a welcome sleep.

Sitting on the patio next morning, drinking our own coffee and munching fresh mango, we watched as white-clad locals streamed toward the many churches that line the street. Samoan church music played on the hotel stereo. As we waited for the kayak guy to show (again), I nibbled at a beautifully crafted chinese biscuit that I'd bought the day before, which looked temptingly like a light pastry flower, but turned out to taste largely of onions.

At ten o'clock, we gave up on the guy again, checked out, and wandered back to the Green Turtle, because we knew that they had his phone number. It turned out that he'd forgotten and would come for us in a couple of hours. Meanwhile, a little strapped for cash after our night of colonial cocktails, we ambled the few hundred metres into town.

All the churches were packed. Not only were the large cathedrals full, but the little buildings between them, which I had vaguely supposed to be community centres or offices, were apparently all churches too. In addition, a huge beach fale on the seafront boomed a heavily amplified bass line and, as we got closer, we realised that this, too, was full of people singing. Almost the whole town was in church. The only people to be seen, scattered lightly under trees and reading on park benches, were Apia's presumably transient caucasian population.

The heat beat down. I had chosen to wear a lavalava, the ubiquitous sarong, which proved to be very cool and practical, and a rasher shirt as a defence against sunburn, which turned out to be extremely hot indeed. Eventually we swallowed our pride and returned to the swishing fans of Aggie Grays where we ate quiche and sandwiches with the crusts cut off, with cups of coffee and tea, to the sound of gentle jazz music. 'Island time' was kicking in.

The kayak guy materialised in the form of a Swede, Matz, who loaded us into his elderly jeep and took us to a beach on the eastern end of the island. Here, amongst hundreds of smiling holidaymakers, we launched the sea kayaks and paddled out into the lagoon.

We soon left the crowd behind. To our left, traditional fale appeared along the shore, against a backdrop of palm trees climbing the flanks of the mountain at the centre of the island. To our right, the sea smashed violently into the invisible reef, breaking into furious surf which petered out suddenly without disturbing the glassy smoothness of the lagoon.

One hour turned to two as we paddled into a mild headwind and the small island that was our destination grew imperceptibly closer. We were beginning to feel tired when a green turtle popped its head out of the water. Suddenly we realised that they were everywhere, several feet across, heads nervously popping up, spotting us, and then diving quickly away.

We beached the kayaks on a small island bearing a handful of waterside fale, owned and maintained by a village on the mainland. Each fale was an open-sided wooden platform with woven palm-leaf blinds around the sides. The idea is that you roll the blinds up or down to create a through-draught depending on the prevailing winds. However, the villagers were expecting bad weather, so they had tied a tarpaulin to the windward side for additional protection. (As it happened, this turned out to be a bad idea as the night was hot and still; in the early hours of the following morning I heard Matz untying his tarpaulin to get some air, but I couldn't summon the energy to do ours.)

The traditional Sunday meal is a roast made over a fire in a cooking hole and dinner comprised the remnants of the village's repast along with servings of parrot fish. We'd never seen parrot fish on the menu before; they are skinny blue things only about ten inches long and don't exactly have a lot of meat on them, so were curious to see how they were going to be prepared. We were a little surprised to discover that each fish had been braised whole and then simply chopped in half, giving you the choice of either head end or tail end.

Shortly before sunset, the quiet, self-efacing villagers climbed into their boat and put-putted to the mainland. A few minutes later, we heard a long honking noise from the far shore, the way I would imagine a conch-trumpet to sound, and a little later the Sunday evening service started.

The congregation must have been on the beach opposite us, because the amplified voice of the priest echoed across the water, interspersed with 'Hallelujah!'s and applause and singing. We couldn't make out what he was saying, but he was obviously a skilled orator, switching from what seemed to be fire and brimstone haranguing to poetry and song and back again with consummate ease.

Meanwhile, on Nu'utele, the bugs had started biting, so we retired with a paraffin lamp to our mosquito-netted fale, and listened to the wash of the waves on the beach only a few metres away, the thunderous boom of surf on the reef farther out, and the hypnotic sounds of the amplified priest across the water.

The Virtual Reinhard Archive

Pseudemys

05.10.06 Front Page

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