Pago Pago, American Samoa

Wednesday, October 7

After 5 days at sea we finally reached Pago Pago, disembarking at 9:15am to board an island bus which was going to give us a whistle stop tour to the east side of the island - all in 3 hours! The first stop was the local market, followed by a drive along the coast, stopping every so often for photo opportunities, which were numerous. Unfortunately the weather wasn't as hot and sunny as predicted, so the water wasn't the brilliant colours we have seen in pictures, but at least there was a nice cool breeze blowing and the scenery was still fantastic.

Our guide with our bus

One of the local characters we met at the market

The main bus depot!

 

As we turned around to head back, we stopped at a beach to take photos as we walked on the lovely sand, looking at shells and coral that had washed up on the beach. We couldn't resist paddling our feet in the warm tropical waters and just enjoying the sound of the waves rolling in on the beach.

The beach babes taking a rest

Our next stop was called Two Dollar Beach, which we believe got its name from the admission charge to get onto the beach, but today it was free and the locals were going to put on a traditional dance show for us. We decided to have a beer while we watched the show, and the local lager helped us enjoy the performance in the beautiful surrounds. You will notice some graves in the picture below - the Samoans are quite religious and respect their elders a lot. We passed many houses with graves in the front yard, as they want to keep their elders near them, and this way they don't have far to go to visit their graves!

Dance performance at Two Dollar Beach

Camel Rock formation along the coast

Very creative carving done in a tree trunk

 

Back in town we spent an hour at an Internet cafe trying to update Facebook, the Blog and emails but we were unsuccessful. There wasn't a lot more to see in town so we headed back to the ship where we enjoyed Karen and the HAL Cats playing at the sail away party as we left Pago Pago for Fiji.

 

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