a night in a treehouse

A few weeks ago we traveled over the top of the mountains on the cross-island road to Lupe Sina. a tree house bed and breakfast owned by Carol and Jack Bachelor, ex-pats from Eugene, Oregon. There are two tree houses that are available to rent. Both were designed, engineered and built by Jack. We have visited them several times since we've been in Samoa, but finally found a couple of free days so we could actually stay in one of the tree houses overnight. We chose the one in the banyan tree. It was amazing! Above is the front view with the stairs up to the door. To the side is the rear view of the tree house and me on the rear deck. The last picture is the view down the mountain, across the jungle to the Pacific Ocean. You may not be able to see that I'm reading a book about tree houses. (BTW, that's not an ashtray in front of me. It's a mosquito coil)

Dinner that night was in the open-air terrace restaurant in the Bachelor's home. Mark is eagerly awaiting our meal. First we had a salad with garlic toast. For the main course we both ordered grilled moon fish with watercress, carrots and garlic mashed potatoes. Carol is an amazing cook. Moon fish is not always available on the menu. It's a trophy fish and is seldom seen in restaurants. As you can tell, I was so excited to taste it that I took a few bites before I remembered to take the picture. It was wonderful! It tasted like a cross between halibut and chicken breast.

After dinner we ordered chocolate cake to take back to our room. Carol is famous for her chocolate cake. She says the secret is the local Samoan cocoa. Whatever her secret, the cake did not disappoint. This time Mark and I were licking the last crumbs off our plates and looking at the sunset over the ocean when we realized we hadn't taken a picture. Sigh.



The next morning Carol brought us breakfast to eat on our deck. We had Dutch Babies with a side of papaya and bananas. One Dutch Baby was rolled up with butter and maple syrup, the other was filled with mango jam. Mark had apple juice, but I had hot cocoa. It was some of the best I've ever tasted. Once again Carol told me it was the local Samoan cocoa.