Pago Pago

I seem to have hiccups with the names, Bora Bora and Pago Pago

Hi Guys,

Pago Pago – Pacific Ocean 21 February 2011

(Longitude: 14 16’West   Longitude: 170 42’East)

(Time -11 GMT)

A short visit to this tropical island, we are tied up right on the dock next to the road. Our trip is a tour along this “S” shaped island with a mountain range running down the center with inlets and bays on either side. The weather is hot and humid and we have not been on the island more than a few minutes than it rains and adds to the 200 inch annual rainfall. The “coaches” are 1950s school buses that have been refurbished with a lot of hand built components. The roof looks like an inverted boat and the seats are sheets of 9 ply wood, cut and bolted to the floor with angle brackets. The windows are simple, loose sheets of Plexiglas where the “up” position is small shelf into which the Plexiglas fits. Our guide is 468 lbs having only recently reduced from 560 lbs. To join the local rugby team Vernon will need to lose a further 200 lbs. Not everyone is as big as Vernon but generally, men and women are big people.

We go west along a twisty road passed two flowerpot rocks representing the bodies of a man and a woman who were to be cannibal sacrifices. The practice was finally stopped when the king’s son happened upon a live sacrifice wrapped in Tee leaves the sacrificial garb. He changed places and when his father came to dispatch his son, the king banned the practice. We visit an open aired ceremonial hall where we are traditionally welcomed to their country and invited to drink kava from a coconut shell. It tasted of a ground up tree root mixed with water, hardly a Chateau Margaux.

After we return to the ship we go out for lunch at a local hotel where we meet a delightful couple from Minnesota. I go through the process of buying a tee shirt in this country of large people, when I hold up the tee shirt at arm’s length and shoulder width, it droops in the center, I need to spread my arms wide open to get the measure of this 10X tee shirt. I found it hard to find a Large or Extra Large tee shirt.

Our Tour Guide, Vernon center

Pago Pago Tourist bus service

Roy and Sue in Pago Pago

Flower Pot Rock

The name Pago Pago results from the missionaries not having an “N” in their printing kit when they reported the name. This 25 mile long island of Tutuila, with a mountain range running down its length has numerous inlets and bays on either side. 65,000 people live on the island and 1,500 live in Pago Pago

The indigenous people of Samoa are of Polynesian origin, closely akin to other islanders of the Central and Eastern Pacific, from the Hawaiians in the north to the Maoris of NZ. Polynesians are believed to have inhabited Samoa for 25 centuries, but the first recorded visit from a European was in 1722, when Dutch navigator Jacob Rggeveen made contact with the islanders. Europeans avoided Samoa for four decades after 11 Frenchman were massacred in 1787.

British, German and USA ships assembled during the time when the colonial powers were scrambling for land around the globe and had it not been for a timely hurricane which sank nearly every ship, there might have been an awkward international incident. Pago Pago was ceded to the USA in 1872 as a naval and coaling station. The Germans own Western Samoa and the USA have the Eastern Islands.

A lot of the young men on this island enlist in the US military and are serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, once they have done their tenure they are offered $30,000 from the  US Govt with the hope they will improve their homes from the hurricanes that come thru, but we saw none of this except huge big American SUV’s and considering they only have one small dead end road, we could see their priorities.