The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Park in Samoa spans three islands and is nation’s only paleotropical rain forest,
Park spread over three islands has only paleotropical rain forest in U.S.
Even for a Saturday in the South Pacific, this was a sleepy morning.
On American Samoa’s main island of Tutuila and its neighbor, Ofu, villages were still, beaches empty.
On the west coast of nearby Ta’u, a battered little fishing boat sidled up to the wharf, and a pale stranger stepped off, looking half-queasy and half-euphoric, a bagged octopus in his left hand.
That was me on Day 6 at America’s most far-flung national park.
National Park of American Samoa, 2,600 miles southwest of Hawaii, is spread over parts of Tutuila, Ta’u and Ofu. It attracted 13,892 visitors last year, about what Yosemite gets in a summer day.
Probably fewer than 300 of them found their way to the park’s greatest asset, a beach on Ofu with creamy sands, volcanic boulders, serrated mountain ridges and turquoise shallows — but I’m getting ahead of myself.
This park gets so few visitors for many reasons, including the 11 hours of flying time from California, the exasperating transportation links among the islands, the territory’s scant infrastructure and its mosquitoes, some of which transmit dengue fever and Zika virus.
Although the park does have rangers, trails and a few miles of road, there are no campgrounds or lodgings, no snack bar, no shuttle buses, no entrance gate, no admission fee — few of the conventions that Americans imagine when they hear the words “national park.”
“It’s probably the most remote culture you can visit that’s still in the U.S.,” park superintendent Scott Burch told me on my visit in October 2015. “It’s the only paleotropical rain forest in the U.S.
“My first couple of hikes around here — it was just a wonderland of things I’d never seen.”
I found Burch at the park service’s modest visitor center in downtown Pago Pago, the center of commerce on Tutuila, population about 55,000.
Once he briefed me about the park’s 9,000 or so acres of rain forest and about 4,000 acres of coral reefs, he moved on to the flying foxes (a.k.a. fruit bats) that steal bananas and papayas from his patio; the crown-of-thorns starfish that gobble coral and wear a fearsome exoskeleton of venomous spikes; and the giant coconut crab, which climbs trees, weighs as much as 9 pounds, looks like “the world’s largest bug” and is prized as a delicacy.
I was eager to meet them all, especially after it became clear that Pago Pago (pronounced Pango Pango) isn’t nearly as pretty as its name.
Although Tutuila gets regular flights from Honolulu and Apia (the capital of independent Samoa, its own country about 75 miles northwest) and one or two cruise ships a month, tourism peaked decades ago.
The churches stay busy, and the rain forest is full of breadfruit, taro, bananas, coconuts, mangoes and papayas so nobody goes hungry. But private-sector jobs are rare, and incomes are about $24,000 per household, less than half the U.S. average.
There are fuel shortages, waterquality questions, internet outages, many stray dogs and few hotels or restaurants.
But once you’re on country roads, hearing the flying foxes shriek in the treetops, things get better.
Inside the park on the island’s northern coast, ranger Pua Tuaua took me hiking on the Lower Sauma Ridge Trail, grabbed a coconut, split it and reminded me that plants and animals aren’t the only reason there’s a national park on these islands: Fa’asamoa — the Samoan way — may be the oldest culture in Polynesia.
Ofu, beach of dreams
On the next leg of my trip, a 60-mile hop to the island of Ofu on Polynesian Airlines, I could see coral gardens lining the beach and a 1,000-foot-high ridge of solid rain forest looming above. The airstrip was wedged in between.
“It’s this weird lost corner of America,” Terry Skaggs told me on the phone from his home in Rock Island, Ill.
Skaggs has visited Ofu more than 20 times since 1999 and does pro bono website work for the Vaoto Lodge. I called him before my visit to get advice. He had warned me about Pago Pago and the general state of transportation and communication.
But when it came to Ofu, he said, “The minute I stepped off that plane I knew I was in love.”
Fifty paces from the landing strip stood the eight-room, cinder-block Vaoto Lodge, my home for the next two nights, and innkeeper Deborah Malae, whose family built the place.
Ofu looked like a movie set abandoned by its cast. There are a couple of villages with a combined population of about 200, a handful of vehicles, a few miles of road, no scuba facilities and probably more abandoned homes than occupied ones. Black boulders pepper the shoreline.
And Ofu Beach — well, this was the reason I flew 5,000 miles. It’s the beach at the end of the world — the loneliest, most evocative, tantalizing stretch of shoreline I’ve ever seen.
“I can go there and be on the reef all day and never see another human being,” Skaggs had told me. “Ofu’s reef has ruined snorkeling for me.”
I would love to tell you I saw Ofu Beach under perfect blue skies, but the truth is that I caught it under two days of almost solid cloud cover with intermittent rain. I hardly minded.
I spent just about every minute I could in that warm, gentle water with a snorkel and mask, chasing after Blue Devils and Neon Damselfish.
Park ranger John Sua and I made the trip across the bridge to the adjacent island of Olosega, then hiked to Oge Beach. There we watched a plucky band of crabs fend off repeated attacks by a moray eel and spotted a 4-footlong blacktip reef shark lurking in the shallows.
I could easily have filled another day or two exploring Ofu, but the island of Ta’u and my itinerary were calling.
The next morning, Malae handed me a gift for her cousin Moki — an octopus for an upcoming feast day. Then she sent me to meet two fishermen who would carry me to the last leg of my adventure.
Ahoy, ta’u
It’s a famous place, if you’re an anthropologist.
Ta’u is where Margaret Mead did her controversial research on adolescent island girls for her 1928 book “Coming of Age in Samoa.”
The population nowadays is probably south of 200. Many abandoned homes. No bank. No hospital. No hotels despite the six flights weekly between the island’s Fiti’uta Airport and Pago Pago.
If a visitor should want to come, the park service keeps a list of residents willing to host homestays.
I was happy to see the wharf at Ta’u after 90 minutes at sea, clinging to the slick deck of the 18-foot vessel.
Sure enough, there was Moki Malae, grinning kindly with a few of her relatives. They greeted me, took custody of the squishy cargo and drove me to the other end of the island, where Eseta Kese, a homestay hostess, set me up in a spare bedroom.
She took me walking into national park territory on the Si’u Point Trail near Saua, said to be the birthplace of Polynesian culture 3,000 years ago, also said by many Samoans to be haunted.
Those two days I spent on sleepy little Ta’u were plenty busy.
Meli Ali’itaeao, the shopkeeper, made me breakfast.
Ted Leiato, a supervisor for the American Samoa Power Authority, showed me a solar installation and taught me how to taste cacao fruit off the tree.
Moki Malae saved a seat for me at church, where I saw and heard dozens of children, all clad in white, sing a tune that sounded like “Down by the Riverside” in Samoan.
For Sunday lunch, Kese laid out a spread of taro, breadfruit, red snapper, parrotfish and, yes, coconut crab.
We ate with Leiato and a few other utility workers. It was an epic meal, yielding a vast pile of shattered crab shells. Then we watched NFL football on a bigscreen TV.
In 2016, this too is the Samoan way.