Aunu'u, Finally

Determined to finally make it out to Aunu'u, Sara and I headed out there on the 4th of July. American Samoa doesn't have much in the way of organized celebrations for Independence Day. They spend most of their national pride on Flag Day in April. It's more of a "dependence day" celebration, since it's celebrating the anniversary of when American Samoa joined the US as a territory at the turn of the Twentieth Century.

Instead of sitting around and barbecuing, we opted to use the holiday to explore and make the trip which had been denied to us before. we drove out to the East side of Tutuila to the wharf that serves as the access point for catching boats over to Aunu'u.

Aunu'u is a small island about a mile from Tutuila. About 400 people live on the island and there's a constant ferry of boats going back forth between the wharf on Tutuila and the little harbor on Aunu'u. We caught one of the ferries, along with a few locals and some boxes of supplies. It cost a dollar and took about 15 minutes to navigate the waves and the channel between the islands. Supposedly if it gets too rough the shuttles stop running. That would make life on the island quite interesting.

Once we de-boated on Aunu'u we were greeted by two boys, Cruise and "Raiders." They offered to be our guides on the island. Not one to turn down help, we took them up on their offer.

We started by taking the road which circles the island. It's a coral track that runs along the beach. The first sight they showed us was a bee hive in the middle of a mango tree. This picture is as close as we dared get, but if you see into the hollowed trunk, it's a mass of honeycomb and bees. It was a pretty cool sight. It was also one that we never would have seen without our guides.

We next stopped off in the wetlands which make up much of the middle of Aunu'u. The wetlands are mostly used as taro fields and tilapia ranches. This area is supposed to be quicksand, but we didn't see anything sink in, so we'll need to take our guides' word on that.

We next hiked up to the rim of the crater. Much of Aunu'u is the remains of a extinct volcanic cone. This is the view from the rim looking South towards the other end of the crater. Much of the slopes of the crater are farmed for bananas. We saw a few of the farmers along the hike out.

At the far end of the crater, there are some spectacular rock formations. Cruise told us a local legend that the one pictured here used to be a woman, her lover is the other rock that is across the small bay from her. We were also sternly warned not to go swimming here, but that fishing was supposed to be good and there were some tidal pools that are nice to hang out in at low tide. Seeing as we were here at high tide and wanted to catch the boat home before they stopped running at 5pm, we didn't linger too long.

We also didn't linger because our guides informed us that the place was haunted by spirits. A few times on the way out we were hushed and told to walk closely together. Not seeking to be visited by ghosts, we acquiesced to our guides' instructions. However, a surreptitiously thrown rock into a nearby tree spooked the kids and helped affirm their belief that several long stretches of the trail were haunted.

The hill we hiked to make our way of the crater was what I would term a short and shallow graded hike. Our guides were winded after a short ascent, so we were instructed to stop and wait at a few different spots. Living on a small island and a Samoan diet was not doing these kids any fitness favors.

We finished our hike back at the little village we started. We'd done a little figure 8 around the two wetland/lakes on the island and saw it all in less than 4 hours. I'm sure we'll head back on a day when we have more time to stop and enjoy the swimming holes.