We once again decided not to take a private tour with 50 people and left the ship to find a taxi. There was a large market on the pier but we had decided to get a taxi and do that later. There were people lined up at the entrance to the port with signs saying bus tour or taxi tour. We went to the first man in line and asked how much for the day. He said $200. We offered him $100 and kept going back and forth until he agreed on $120 for 6 hours. We had a list of the places we wanted to go, starting with a craft market. He headed off to the left (there is only one road around the harbor, a mountain goes up beyond that), from what little we knew, thought he was going in the wrong direction. Not a good start. He didn't appear to understand what we were saying, great, we got a driver who doesn't speak English! He finally stopped at a house. He said it was where he lived. An older man came out and was looking at our list trying to explain it to him, I assume. We took off again, passing by the port going in the opposite direction. Since no one seemed to know where the market was, we said we would start at the National Park Visitor Center. I knew we were going in the right direction from a map I'd seen. I finally saw a sign for the center and had him turn around. Not only did he not speak English but he didn't know his way around! The ranger in the center was very helpful but did not speak Samoan. Another Samoan ranger came out of the office and explained at length where we wanted to go, giving him a map with marks on it. Gau kept saying he was confused, very strange. We left the center headed to the park. Within about 5 minutes Gau started asking for more money. That was the last straw, I was pissed. I told him to turn around and take us back to the port NOW! He said no, that it was ok and kept driving.
Pago Pago had a tsunami in 2009. We asked Gau if he had been there. We were driving up a steep hill to the other side of the mountain and island. He said he had taken his kids up that same road to escape the wave and had been very scared. His English was getting better. We continued down the road to a beautiful bay on the other side. Then we followed the road along the shore, up to a beautiful view point then down again to another bay. There were small villages at each of the bays. There were National Park signs along the way with hiking trails posted. It was just a viewing drive, pretty country. We headed back the way we had come stopping at the top of the mountain to take pictures of the harbor. Our ship is very small almost dead center in the picture above. During this drive Gau gave Mel a betting form to fill out for him, a $5 card to pick the winning football teams! The Samoans are very proud of the Samoans who play football in the US. He was wearing a 49er cap. The Samoans in general are very large people.
Back in town we passed by the huge Starkist plant. Gau told us he had worked there for 14 years until he had to quit and stay in a hospital for 6 months due to lack of sleep. I had a feeling he'd had a breakdown and his confusion in the morning was from drugs, maybe Prozac?, and his mind was now cleared since they were wearing off. Who knows, but his English had definitely improved, whew! He said that Starkist employs 700 people who work different shifts 24 hours a day. It smelled as we passed by. He said it does not smell inside.
We stopped at a market we had seen on our way our of town. I think it was the one we had been looking for in the first place. It was full of clothing and fabrics, few carvings. We didn't buy anything and were out of there in 10 minutes.
The place we wanted to visit the most was a Marine Reserve we had read about. It has over 200 types of coral and is supposed to be a great place to snorkel. The ranger had told us to go to the Ocean Center at the other end of town, it was in their jurisdiction. The center was a modern building at the end of town. We asked about the reserve and found out that it was a long drive plus a hike to the water so probably not something we could do in the time we had left. That was a bit disappointing. But the women who worked there told us about another bay that had good snorkeling and not as much turbulence as the harbor. One of them was Samoan so we had her tell Gau where to go. We asked her to tell him where to shop for crafts while she was at it. Nice to have help from others.
There was a park next to the bay. We parked and put on our gear. We always snorkel with swim shirts, I also use swim shorts, to protect our skin. I started wearing water shoes but switched to fins when I realized there was quite a current. It wasn't the best snorkeling but we did see quite a few different kinds of fish and coral. There were a lot of sea cucumbers! The most beautiful were the 2 bright blue starfish. I had a fish decide to examine me and came within inches of my mask several times, it was really funny. We swam for about 45 minutes then headed back to the car.
We went to the 2 stores looking for crafts without any luck. I did find some nice shirts. One that I bought was made in Fiji! I had looked for one there without finding anything. Funny that I found what I wanted in Samoa and less expensive too! Gau asked if we would like to go to a waterfall. We tried to get an idea of how long it would take to go there then back to the port. He said it would depend on how fast we walked. We finally figured that we would have time so decided to go. We didn't know what we were in for!
We parked at some small apartment buildings. The path started out as a nice grassy road. Then we entered the jungle. The path was now about a foot wide going around trees and rocks. We could hear the stream then saw it. Gau stopped at the side of the stream and said we had to take our shoes off to cross. I told him I was fine walking thru the water in my sandals. Mel hesitated because it would be hard to put his shoes back on with wet feet. Gau said "I'll carry you!", and had Mel put his arms around his neck and across the stream they went. It was so funny, we were cracking up. This guy was strong. He just walked with Mel on his back as if it were nothing. By the time we had returned to the car, he had carried Mel about 4 times as well as hauled us both up rocks like we were light as feathers. I am not sure if we would have made it without him. He had definitely redeemed himself from this morning! And the falls were beautiful with a small pool at the base. Mel didn't swim but I did. The water was quite cool. There were quite a few fish that looked a bit like perch. They were from 2" to 12"! I was glad to have a mask so I could keep an eye on them. They seemed very curious about me and kept coming up so I could almost touch them.
On the way back to the port we saw some rescue people out in a bay. There was a boat out past the reef as well as 2 jet skis. We stopped to see what was going on. A portion of a whale had washed up onto the reef. They were trying to pull it out to sea. It was already pretty decomposed. I can only imagine the smell. They didn't want that smell so close to shore. Interesting sight. We stopped back at the Ocean Center to watch a 15 minute film on Samoa. We invited Gau to watch it with us. American Samoa is a very beautiful country.
We arrived at the pier at almost 3:30. We gave Gau $160 since we had been gone for more than 6 hours and he had done a good job in spite of the rough start. He was very happy. It had been a good day. We shopped the large market on the pier until almost 4:30, all aboard time. We found there what we had been looking for all day, crafts. We made a few purchases then went onboard. We would definitely come back to this place. There is a lot more that we would like to see.
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