Pago Pago, American Samoa, 14th February

RainMaker Mountain behind the harbour

Pago Pago is on Tutuila, the largest of the seven islands which comprise American Samoa – the only US territory in the southern hemisphere.  Its neighbour Western Samoa used to belong to Germany but is now independent.  It’s not surprising that the US wanted this island as the magnificent natural harbour formed out of the volcano’s crater was ideal for their  navy.  The island has 200 inches of rainfall a year and when we arrived we thought we were going to experience lots of it but luckily it cleared up after a short time.  It gets a bit of a mixed write-up in the guide books  - mostly I think because there is a tuna canning factory in the harbour plus a big suburban area by the airport.  However we thought it was lovely and what we imagined a tropical island would be like – palm trees, secluded sandy beaches, really friendly people and lots of character with little local stores selling all sorts of things at reasonable prices (Keith even bought some boxing gloves!).

Alega Beach

Somerset Maugham was marooned here with measles and wrote a novel called Rain  (my history’s not v. good here but I would guess in the 1930s) which is apparently based on a real-life prostitute, called Sadie Thomson in the book, who came down from Honolulu and set up a brothel.  We had a drink in the Sadie Thomson bar which is supposed to be the location of her brothel.  In the book a priest sets out to reform her but she ‘reforms’ him instead – the ending is pure Hollywood where she gets drunk and is put unconscious on a ship to Australia – who knows if any of it is true, but it’s a good tale. 

After exploring the village of Pago Pago where we docked we got a local ‘bus’ to take us to Alega Beach (these are privately owned trucks, all decorated by hand and fitted out with wooden seats, they ply for trade around the island’s only main road and of course will take tourists anywhere for a price – not expensive compared to other places we have been ).  We chose this beach because it is advertised in the Lonely Planet as having Tisa’s Barefoot Bar – we weren’t disappointed as it is in idyllic spot.  The bar is all built out of driftwood – apparently by some New Zealanders who turned up a few years ago (who knows if they bought the land or just took it, but they now charge 2 dollars to go on the beach!).  It is obviously popular with the crews of ships who have donated signed flags  - a bit reminiscent of Ollie’s bar in Valetta where they all donate their hat bands.  Anyway there was a great party atmosphere and we had our first taste of home-made breadfruit crisps – v. tasty.

Finally we wandered round the market by the ship and bought a few souvenirs – great not to be hassled by anyone whilst we looked around.

One of the highlights for Keith was to see a huge tree full of fruit bats – they are about as big as crows – they were mostly roosting but every now and then a few would fly around before settling down again –  an amazing sight.  Picture shows him with local police - he says they were amazingly strong