Four things from four days spent in Samoa:
1. Language: sliding down l’s, hopping apostrophes and circling o’s, Samoan is a surprisingly beautiful language.
2. The Pacific: dotted with forlorn clouds looking for misplaced islands; cut by the splash of white on the reef’s edge; and patiently travelling, blown along by the trades – I could have stared at the Pacific for days.
3. Colour! Painted on the buses and shacks, and bursting from gardens. Colour, colour, colour.
4. The tropics: dilapidated roadside stores covered in posters for soap powder, the smell of burning, the unhealthy dogs and hungry looking cats. Wherever you go, the tropics have more in common than the weather.
