American Samoa, not a fan favorite

Today we docked at American Samoa. Now before I give you the good,bad and ugly, I need to level set on expectations. I'm not sure why, but perhaps it's because American is in the name, I expected a more modern, vibrant island, more spoken English, and a data network on my T-Mobile plan. And the answer is......no, no, NO, in that order. I was kind of flabbergasted at the latter. So that was a negative first impression.

American Samoa seemed third world to me, but I couldn't pinpoint why. The modern definition of “Third World” is used to classify countries that are poor or developing. Countries that are part of the “third world” are generally characterized by (1) high rates of poverty, (2) economic and/or political instability, and (3) high mortality rates.

On #1, that's clearly the case. #2 is not the case. #3 is possibly true, hard to say. I can say that they didn't look like a healthy population as a broad brush stroke. But more on that a bit later in this post.

The data issue was a legitimate issue from a safety perspective. But if I'm perfectly candid, I also needed my phone to get at least one geocache, and that requires data. It's a first world problem for sure. At least I was able to do an earthcache thankfully.

So once I got over all my preconceived notions and expectations, American Samoa was pleasant. I put it on par with Tahiti in many respects. I give it a solid C, meaning glad I came but no need to return.

We were planning just to walk around the market and maybe do a short hike up the hill to the govenors mansion, but as we walked by a small bus, we noticed several of our shipmates on the bus and they called to us to join them. So for $20 each, we got a 3 hour tour of the island.

The small bus was fun. We knew almost everyone on the bus, so it became half tour bus, half party bus. The driver took us to several spots around the island, first the west and then the east. In total, there were 3 amazing lava formations called spouts which formed millions of years ago. They look like rocks sticking out of the water but rocks can't support the massive amount of vegetation that are on them but apparently certain lava rock can.

On the west side of the island, there was a black lava area along the coast that was also interesting.

It was very odd that the bus driver who sold us the "tour" didnt narrate or say much of anything. We heard that a lot from others who also hired a cab/bus to take them around the island. So it was more chaueffering than a tour, but I attribute that to the limited English.

I think the most remarkable things I saw were not natural but cultural. Most houses have 2 things our US houses don't. Graves and party pavilions. There are no cemetaries. You bury your relatives on your land, front and center. The Graves were shockingly ornate, with big headstones with lots of writing. They were in the front yard, some covered, some not. Some had above ground crypts. Those were the ones worried about identity theft after death.....so their ancestors were en-crypt-ed. Sorry, not very reverent. The pic below is a front yard of a family home.

The other interesting front yard addition were large covered pavilions. They ranged from about 500 Sq ft (20×25) to about 3000 sq ft. You can tell, the Samoan families are close and get together often. The houses are relatively small, and the climate is good year round, except for rain about 70% of the time. So it makes sense to have a party pavilion.

Which brings me back to the comment above about a healthy population. I get the sense that the have a lot of family get-togethers, and its like a church cover-dish event. The food is really good and there's plenty of it. And as Forrest Gump would say "that's all I have to say about that".

We returned to the boat about 2pm and had a light lunch. I went in the hot tub for a bit while lunch settled and I then worked out for 1hr, 4.15 miles on the treadmill. And then it was time for dinner. I got seafood with an added salmon filet. Delicious! My omega 3s are going thru the roof....I hope.

I'm exhausted, so hitting the bed early. Hasta manana. Will post the port of call pics tomorrow too.