There are heaps more photos at on our Flickr account, so check them out.
It was very quiet when we arrived in Tafuna
where the airport is and we were soon ushered into a taxi for our ride to the
hotel. The taxi was in a pretty bad
state of repair, though was decorated with Samoan fabric so was bright and
colourful. We slowly wound our way
around the coast line, past the huge concrete block sea wall.
We had a room booked at Sadies by the Sea
which is near the water at Utulei in the Pago harbour. The room was comfortable with everything we needed,
including leaking aircon (which thankfully stopped dripping after the humidity
in the room went) and great food. The
hotel was full due to the visiting fishermen there for the big game fishing
competition. Most nights we were treated
to very loud music from the local bands playing in their honour! Sadies is a hotel similar to that of Aggie
Grey’s in Samoa , however used to be run as a
brothel by Sadie Thompson as entertainment for sailors off the ships.
We had heard a lot about the great shopping
to be had in Pago so set off on foot our first afternoon in search of the great
American Shopping malls we were expecting, only to be sorely disappointed. There are pretty much no shops in the centre
of Pago itself and even the local market was very small in comparison to Apia . After further study of the guide books we
discovered the main shopping is actually around the Tafuna area back towards the
airport where you can find Cost U Less (American chain store similar to the
Warehouse in NZ), Forsgrens a department store, and Orieo biscuit and ice cream
sandwiches!!!
In the Pago harbour area we walked past the port itself loaded with ships and shipping containers, the Fono (Government) and Evies a red painted Mexican restaurant. We dared to try this restaurant one night and were surrounded by pink fluorescent and disco flashing lights, plastic plants and flowers and multicoloured table cloths! Certainly an experience.
There were some interesting photos on the wall of the Tsunami of 29 September 2009 and where the water level came to on the buildings across the road (to the roof). These were taken from the roof of the restaurant. Must have been frightening for the people in Pago harbour with no where to go and a huge surge of water coming at them. Across the harbour we could see the Tuna Canneries and hear their daily hum. The National Park Service of American Samoa has a little office on the way around the harbour which has great maps of walking trails and things to do. Worth popping in there to pick up some info.
Bats flew above us in the trees as we
continued our walk to the top of the harbour.
Here we found a small Star Mart supermarket where we purchased a few
necessary supplies, like coke for the Jack, and a drink to have while we sat on
the red, white and blue fale steps across the road. There was a derelict asian building to the
left which apparently was built for the Korean’s when they were working in the
Tuna factories, however it was not faring well any more.
A highlight of our trip to Pago was
visiting the Feleti Barstow Public
Library. Here I met with Mary, Betty and
Tammy from the Children’s and Pacific collections. I donated a copy of our book “Surviving a
Tsunami : Dealing with Disaster” to the library and enjoyed looking around,
hearing about the projects they run from the public library like reading visits
to the children in the hospital and sharing stories of our libraries in both
countries.
We hired a car for 2 days and went for a drive around the island. The weather was pretty windy so the seas were rough. Unlike Samoa, the reef inAmerican
Samoa is a lot closer to the island and so the deep
blue sea was pounding in. There were
many photo stops along the way (no further comments necessary!) I was very pleased we came across a game of
American Football being played on a field surrounded by coconut trees
overlooking the harbour. It was the
final game for the season for the youth teams and everyone was out in force to
support their team.
We hired a car for 2 days and went for a drive around the island. The weather was pretty windy so the seas were rough. Unlike Samoa, the reef in
We stopped at Tisa ’s
Barefoot Bar for lunch which is about the only place to go outside of Pago
itself. Here we had a lovely piece of
swordfish, caught fresh, with breadfruit and salad. You can stay here in a fale on the beach if
you want to. We carried on around
driving as far as Onenoa to the far East where there are some lovely secluded
villages. Just missed the boat over to
Aunu’u island where there is quicksand and volcanic stuff to look at so that
will have to be next time we go.
Everyone in the village where the boats go from was busy playing
Bingo! (Actually, I think Angela was relieved to have missed the boat because it was getting quite rough and it looked like being a long boat ride in little boat getting tossed around by big waves!)
We drove back towards Pago and turned at
Aua to drive over the Vatia
Bay . There are some great views on this drive from
the top of Rainmaker Mountain (called as such for a reason!) and down over
Pola Island .
We got out of the car due to the majorly bumpy rocky road and decided to
walk to see Polar
Island from the tip of
the bay. This was all of a few hundred
metres so was not exactly taxing. Before
long we saw huge black rain clouds building up and managed to get back in the
car before the downpour, which unfortunately halted our plans to also walk the
Tuafanu Trail to the other side of the point.
In the Westerly direction we managed to
drive as far as the village
of Leone which I was keen
to see as there are several photos of the tsunami wave washing in here, in our
book. The village is in a bay and is
very low lying so it was easy to see how the wave would have affected
them. A monument in memory of the 8
members of the village who lost their lives on this day has been erected and is
beautifully painted with butterflies and flowers. It was sobering to see the photos of the
elders in the 80’s and the young children who did not make it.
Sunday dawned a bit grey and rainy. Swimming is not permitted in many places on a
Sunday and some villages (such as Vatia and Fagatele Bay )
are not open to visitors so it pays to plan your trip. We decided to go up the mountain to walk the
Mt Alava Trail on this day. This was to
be a 5 km walk along the ridge, up hill and down dale, to the summit of Mt
Alava. Due to a bit of rain the path was
muddy and rocky. We had gone less than 1
km when the first equipment failure occurred.
Adam’s walking sandals, having been stored in a tropical environment for
4 years practically unused, began to fall apart. Before long both soles had come off and
various straps were no longer held in place!
At about 2.5kms we decided to cut our losses and go for damage control
instead. Being Kiwis of great ingenuity
we spotted a fallen coconut frond and proceeded to tear strips off to
use to tie Adam’s shoes on enough for him to get back to the car. They certainly looked like some weird new creation
of roman sandals!! I just hoped we
didn’t bump into anyone on the way back!!
Thankfully we did make it back to the car
before nightfall albeit covered in mud from knee to foot. We had seen a lovely looking bay (Fagasa Bay )
from the top of the hill so decided to take a drive down and check it out. We turned at the cross roads at the bottom of
the hill and before long our car was waived down by a family sitting out side
on their front lawn. Upon further
inspection it was evident they had spent several hours consuming flagons of
wine and were now really getting into the spirit of Mother’s Day
celebrations! They told us we were
welcome to swim but to look out for the Whale in the bay, who was none other
than a family member with wine glass in hand floating in his lavalava in the
water! By this time it was that last
hour of the evening when he sun is setting and all goes peaceful and
quiet. We jumped out of the car and waded
into the water to try and rid ourselves of a few layers of mud and before we
knew it the family had come down with an icy glass of Sangria for us each, and
the remaining flagon! We spent a
wonderful hour talking to “Ricky” and by the end of it had been invited to
their family reunion in July, 70th birthday and moving of their mother’s
bones to lay with their father. Things
happen for a reason and this great Samoan experience would never have happened
without the breaking of the shoes!! We
are grateful for their hospitality and for their welcome of two palagi tourists
who looked a bit weary and dirty and who stumbled into their village. This has got to be one of the loveliest
villages in Tutuila (American Samoa ).
All and all a busy few days in Pago. Overall impressions unfortunately are that the place is pretty run down. Arriving back in
4 comments:
Sounds like a wonderful trip with lots of adventure.
Hi,
I just got back from Apia yesterday. I really enjoyed my time there (went for a family reunion, I have a little samoan blood). Looks like you are having lots of adventures in Samoa. Just wondering what you guys do for work there? And if you have any suggestions for possibly getting work there? I would love to live and work there.
Regards Jimmy.
Hi Adam and Angela, love looking at your blog. I too was wondering about the work availability in Samoa. My husband is an Electrical contractor. and we have 2 children under the age of 7. i am an artist and from the states, and my husband is Australian. We currently are living in Australia, but am interested in living th island life. We are a surfing family, and are tired of the rat race! Any ideas, good place to raise kids? medical care? Thank you for your time. Colleen Talbot
Beautiful trip report. I loved my trips to AmSamoa when i as doing the bk research and it was lovely to see some familiar places mentioned in this one. I found some sections of AmSamoa to have a wild, raw beauty which was missing ( for me) in Samoa. I hope to go back again one day..
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