Day 36: Pago Pago, Tutuila … American Samoa

Friday, 10 February 2017
At Sea — South Pacific Ocean … En Route to the International Date Line

No Stats … Erin forgot to get them from the NavChannel :-(

There is no moment of delight in any pilgrimage like the beginning of it.
~ Charles Dudley ~

Talofa [welcome] to Pago Pago, American Samoa … where we were greeted by torrential rain.

Legend has it that Rainmaker, one of the mountains on Tutuila Island, makes sure there is liquid sunshine whenever a cruise ship is in port.  Well, the mountain lived up to its reputation today.  The wet stuff let up every once in a while, but when it poured … it really poured.  Luckily, the warm smiles of the locals — including that of Miss American Samoa, who was manning the welcome booth — made up for the less-than-cheery weather.  At least the overcast kept the temperature down, and the humidity wasn’t bad.  We didn’t let the soggy day deter us from making the most of our day on the “Islands of the Sacred Earth” … which is what Samoa means in the local language.

Vai’ava Strait is a National Natural Landmark within Paka Fa’asao o Amerika Samoa.

Insignia docked at the Pago Pago Cruise Pier in Fagatogo — just a short walk to the village center.  We disembarked as soon as the ship was cleared shortly after 8:00a.  Our goal — to find transportation to the only US national park below the Equator.

Paka Fa’asao o Amerika Samoa [National Park of American Samoa] encompasses land leased from the Samoans, making it unique amongst the parks managed by the National Park Service (NPS).  Ranger Tai later explained that only full-blooded Samoans can own land here — meaning any family lands are passed down only to those who are similarly full-blooded … if you are of mixed blood, you lose out.  There are none of the usual NPS facilities in the park, which includes sections of three of the volcanic islands that make up American Samoa — Tutuila (where we docked), Ta’ū, and Ofu.  The park landscape — from the mountaintops to the shoreline — is all paleotropical [Old World] rainforest … the only one of its kind in the NPS system.  About 4,000 acres of the park is underwater — with reefs that are home to 950 documented species of fish and 250 species of coral.

As luck would have it Rangers Warren and Tai had a table set up pier side.  When we asked them how to get out to the park, they said they were offering a 3½-hour bus tour.  With the torrential rains, hiking was out of the question anyway, so we jumped at the opportunity and signed up … USD $35/person; payable to the driver at the end of the tour.

We still had about 45 minutes to kill before the tour, so we wandered into town a short ways to see what we could see.  At this point, the rain was down to a drizzle and our Frogg Togg ponchos provided all the protection we needed from the wet stuff.  We didn’t get far — I was distracted by a mural on the wall of the Jean P Haydon Museum and a beautifully carved live tree on the grounds.  We didn’t make it into the museum, though, opting to check in with mom by phone before it got any later in Turkey … it was 11:00p there already.

Our transport for the tour was a wooden aiga bus — one of the “family buses” that serve as the main form of transportation on the island.  The fare for these buses is inexpensive — ranging from USD .50¢ to $2 … depending on distance traveled.  They are colorful and each is owned and operated by a family … hence the name.  The NPS had chartered one of the buses from the Vatia Village, which is situated inside the park.

Our first stop was at the NPS visitor center.  The idea was for us to check out the exhibits inside, but I got distracted by the murals rimming the wall on one side of the parking lot.  The murals were painted by elementary school students on materials provided by the NPS.  Each represented a legend or told a story.  A very nice cultural touch.  I did manage a quick wander inside, but didn’t do justice to the information presented in the exhibits.

Our next stop was at the local senior citizen center where we met some of the elders that Tai described as her “mothers and grandmothers.”  Here we were welcomed by the High Chief who spoke a few words.  Then we were broken into smaller groups to learn about some of the traditional arts still practiced on the island.  Some of the women were cutting up recycled plastic water bottles to make flowers.  Others were painting tapa cloth — with the pattern imprinted on a reusable rubber mat placed under the cloth.  Still others were weaving baskets, trays, and a traditional mat of the kind presented at funerals, births, or other gatherings.  In one area, men were carving wood; in another area a pig was being roasted — it wasn’t yet ready for us to taste.  No pork for us — but the bananas and papayas we were given were amongst the yummiest we’ve had.  It was here that one of the women insisted on dancing with Mui — she wasn’t the smiling sort, but she was having a good time.

From here we began the drive into the national park.  Our rickety bus — I never did get a photo of the interior, but see the collage in the gallery to see what it looked like — climbed a very steep, narrow road.  Ranger Tai told us not to worry — “the driver is familiar with the road and knows which potholes to miss, and which ones to drive through,” was her comment.  En route we made stops to enjoy the scenery — first of Pago Pago Harbor, and later of some of the landmarks of the National Park, including Vai’ava Strait, which has been designated as a National Natural Landmark in its own right.  At one stop we saw a few of the 350 species of birds in the park.  I managed to get a photo of the white-collared kingfisher, but the brown noddy escaped me … as did the Samoan flying fox (bat), which is the only native wildlife species on the island.

It seemed like whenever we would get out of the bus, it would start to rain.  At one stop, there was a fale [traditional house] to keep us dry.  The structure was not unlike a gazebo with multiple columns — each of which represents a family member.  While we stayed dry, Ranger Tai told us about the custom of tattooing young men and women — a rite of passage into adulthood.  Males are tattooed from the waist to the knees, covering the buttocks but not the groin.  The less-elaborate female tattoo covers the thighs and may extend below the knees.  Rangers Warren and Tai showed us their tats — explaining that his took about a week to complete, whereas hers was completed in a couple of hours.

Our final stop was in the village of Vatia in the national park.  Situated on the shoreline, the village has a spectacular setting — beautiful even in the rain.  We were taken to the long house where they would normally be working on a boat.  It was empty today.  Here we were shown how to break open a tender-nut (immature coconut) using a sharp rock and get the flesh out of the shell by running a thumb under it.  We also watched a demonstration of how a mature coconut is husked, and how the flesh is grated — a job the men prefer to do themselves — to form coconut flakes of the type used for Almond Joy candy bars.  Then, one of the men took the grated coconut, wrapped some of it in a pad of copra strands, and squeezed the bejeezus out of it to make coconut milk.  A little salt, and the milk was then added to a pot of boiled bananas.  When we sampled the bananas later, they tasted just like potatoes.

After a few free minutes to take photos, we were back on the bus for the ride back into town.  If there was one negative to the tour, it was the pace — rather hurried.  And things were a bit disorganized when it came to the demonstrations … perhaps because we were ahead of the other tour groups and things were just being set up when we arrived.  But the insight we garnered from our NPS rangers into the local customs was priceless.

Back in town, we dropped off some of the passengers at a few places along the way — the shopping mall, the ATM, the Fagatogo Marketplace.  The last stop was the port.  The bus being a charter could not go past that point to drop us off at Sadie’s by the Sea.  No matter.  Together with Sonia and Boris, we crossed the road, flagged down an aiga bus — USD $1/person — and two minutes later we were at the resort.

It wasn’t ideal swimming weather, but beggars can’t be choosers.  Paying USD $5/person for the day pass, we headed to the beach.  I suppose we could have gone past the resort to Utulei Beach and swam for free, but this worked out better for us.  Though we saw some of our shipmates at the Goat Island Café on the property, the beach itself was deserted.  The water wasn’t nearly as warm as in French Polynesia, but it was nice nonetheless.  Unfortunately, we didn’t get to stay in more than 30 minutes, nor did we get to enjoy sitting on the beach until it was time to return to the ship.  A sudden deluge that descended like a thick curtain had us scurrying out of the water in case it was accompanied by lightning.  So much for our beach time today.

Wanting to add a photograph of the Wyland mural on the wall of the Ocean Center to my mural collection, Mui and I decided to walk back.  That worked out nicely for Sonia and Boris who were given a ride by a local who stopped to pick them up when he saw them standing at the curb waiting for an aiga bus.  Have I already said that the American Samoans are very welcoming?  If not, I’m saying it now.

I got my mural photo and we continued our walk.  Mui wanted to see a bit more of the “village color,” so we strolled past the port to check out the marketplace, the bus “depot” with all the aiga buses, and the village store — think mini mini Walmart with just about anything you might need … each village has one or two of these apparently.  We ran out of time and didn’t get to the museum … hopefully next time.

We were back on the ship just before the 3:30p all aboard … in time to quickly run up to the Waves Café for a bite to eat.  Sailaway at 4:00p was a soggy one, but I went out on the veranda nonetheless to enjoy the views as we departed American Samoa.

Tomorrow is a “non-day at sea” …

Click here for the online photo gallery for images from today.

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