DAY EIGHTEEN and DAY NINETEEN - SAMOA

Monday November 10th and we have crossed the international date line once again and now have lost the day we gained on October 28th. Yesterday was Saturday November 8th and Sunday the 9th was lost somewhere at sea last night. We spent the last two days in Samoa. Pago Pago, American Samoa on Friday and yesterday we were at Apia, Western Samoa. On Friday we toured American Samoa in a Ford Taurus hire car organized by Evon. The four of us, Peter and Evon, Mary and I spent 6 hours touring the island from one end to the other and over the top through a couple of spectacular National Parks.
We took some advice from the people at the car rental agency and Evon navigated us out of town past the Tuna Cannery. If you ever come this way make sure you close all windows and turn off the A/C. Even then it’s hard to escape the stench and even harder to stick to to 25klm per hour speed limit. Once past this the road follows the shape of Pago Pago Harbor and it’s clean sandy beaches. We had instructions to continue along the road ‘till we found a church with a red roof on our left and to take the road on the left over the mountains. This road was very steep and climbed through jungle like country side occasionally separated by very tidy little villages. At the top we stopped for some photographs of one of the most beautiful views I have ever seen down through a lush green valley to Fagasa Bay ( Forbidden Bay). We drove down to this bay and followed the road to the beach area and another small village and church.
We retraced our path back over the mountain and onto the coast road and continued to the furthest point from town. Along the way we found many terrific photo subjects one of the most spectacular was a large rock formation surrounded by water called Camel Rock. Photograph this from any angle and it still looks like a Camel. We stopped at Tisas Barefoot Bar on the way back into town. There didn’t seem to be much on offer here in the way of food and although the beach did look inviting we decided not to stop for a swim. From here we drove back into town and through to the other side looking for a turnoff to a couple of sites Evon knew about that she wanted to photograph. These were a very large rock formation sticking up out of the water only 20 or so meters from the beach called Flower Pot Rock. A couple of stops on the way back to the ship for a bit of shopping and our day was over. We had spent 6 hours out and about and could easily have spent at least another 6 and still not have seen all that American Samoa has to offer.
We sailed through Friday night and docked at Apia at 7am Saturday. By 7.30 when the shore authorities had cleared the ship and passengers were allowed off the ship the dockside was alive with a local song and dance group. Twelve men and eighteen young women plus the accompanying drummers and guitarists entertained us as we disembarked. We had been greeted like this a couple of other times but the singing of this group was by far the best I have seen. The music and the dancing together with the beautiful harmony of their voices made for a very special welcome.
I had arranged to be met by Mark Birtwistle of Berties Tours and he was there to greet us as well. Mark had arranged two buses for our groups. Our group consisted of Mary and I, Peter and Evon, our WA visitors - Jan, John, Bill and Dianne plus Anne and Barry. The other group, organized by Kate, was to consist of Kate and Ian, Trevor and Betty and our visitors from the states - Ellen and Ken who unfortunately didn’t come off the ship to join us.
Kate’s group of four went with Mark in the smaller of the two buses and the other group traveled with Marks friend Brian. Both Mark and Brian are English, have lived in Samoa for about 5 years and are married to Samoans. Brian’s wife traveled with us for the day and was a wonderful source of information.
Our first stop was the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum where we spent a half hour being guided through the house where Stevenson lived and worked for many years. Within the boundarys of the property there is large hill/mountain and Robert Louis Stevenson is buried at the top overlooking Apia.
From here Brian and Mark took us to see a couple of waterfalls and some very nice beaches. Beaches here are much nicer than anything we had seen in Tonga or French Polynesia. At one of our waterfall stops Mark had organized some people from a local village to give us some insight into village life with a demonstration of the preparation of a cooking fire. Food was wrapped in banana leaves, placed on top of scattered rocks that had been heated in the fire. The food was then covered by more of the hot rocks and then by banana leaves and allowed to steam/cook for about 45 minutes. We couldn’t hang around ‘till the oven was opened up again as we had our own lunch to get to.
This was at a beachside resort consisting of a large eating area built up on stilts above the beach and surrounded by Fales. These are basically one sleeping room , built on a platform and open to the elements except that each side of the room has a drop down screen that one can use for privacy or if the weather turns nasty. There were about six of these with absolute beach frontage and behind these there were a number of more substantial looking Fales that had solid timber walls and louvered windows. We spent about an hour here and then headed further along the way though yet more villages and more churches. Very religious people the Samoans - in every village there is a church. Almost every denomination is represented here but the greatest number by far is the Mormon Church. This is the same throughout the Pacific, especially in Tonga. In Nuku’alofa there are 36 Mormon Churches and they are all built to the same specifications. Here in Apia that isn’t so obvious. There seems to be some large and some small depending on the size of the village.
Brian and Mark had us back to the ship at 3pm as promised and I’m sure everyone enjoyed their tour as much as I did. Heading this way? Google Mark Birtwistle in Apia