Moving that Line

So it seems that there is no tomorrow in The Independent State of Samoa.™

Also, I guess that this means that every world map/globe is inaccurate once again.

UPDATE: Got this from our good friend, 93KHJ reporter Monica Miller, who was on the scene at the time of Samoa's experiment in time travel:

"Just returned from Apia town clock and still feeling euphoric. What with the sirens wailing, cars honking and people shouting in elation when the clock chimed at midnight. This lasted for a good half hour. There was noone around when we arrived at 11:30 pm then at 11:45 a small crowd started gathering. Within minutes there was a cue of cars flowing through the town clock roundabout. And then at midnight, there was non stop noise. So glad I was a front row spectator at this historic event."

Grand Samoan Adventure Grand Finale Part 4: The Edge of the Earth

So after I got back on the ground, got over the edge to kiss it repeatedly with gratitude to be alive, and climbed into the cab, I decided to stop by Moso's footprint.


I can sum up everything about the footprint pretty darned quickly:

1. It's a formation in the lava rock vaguely in the shape of a right footprint.
2. The legend is that the giant Moso put his right foot down here, straddled several hundred miles of ocean, and then put his other foot down in Fiji, where there is a rock formation shaped like a left footprint.
3. This legend is the only redeeming thing about it.
4. The woman who happens to have the footprint in her front yard charges five Tala just to look at it. This is the worst deal in the South Pacific.
5. She needs to stop letting her kids run around the yard naked. Seriously.

So off we continued to the end of the world. I hopped back in the cab and we came up to the awesomely creepy remains of a church that had been blown apart by a hurricane many years earlier.


The driver asked if I wanted to stop and take a look at it, and I said something like "Sure, there's still plenty of time before we get to the sunset at the end of the world." And he said "Sunset? Okay!" and kept driving right past it toward the area where you can see the Last Sunset. His English wasn't that great, and I was too tired to explain, and plus it was raining and...yeah.

We arrived at Falealupo Beach Fales. After I determined that there was in fact someone actually here to set me up with a fale, I and I thanked, paid, and tipped the taxi driver and arranged for him to pick me up tomorrow morning. And he was off. Then I remembered that I wasn't quite at the very end of the world. I was more like a mile from it, not even quite at the end of the road. I tried not to let that bother me.

For anyone wondering what a fale is, it's one of these:

A traditional Samoan hut with no walls (though rolled up woven mats were hanging from every side). This particular one had a nice little mattress pad laying on a hardwood floor and even a tiny little bit of electricity (one bare lightbulb and I think one plug). It's all cooled by the sea breeze, since it's on the beach. The fale I was on was only about 30 feet from the water and had a nice view.

Hey, quit HOGGING the beach! Geddit? HAHAHAHA!

The main reason that I had picked this particular beach fale place was that it was at the End of the World. For those of you who can't remember details from the beginning of a blog story that I started almost a year ago, it's called that because this is the last settled place before the International Date Line. Thus it's claim to being the last place where the sun sets every day.

As I stared out over the water, it was bizarre to think that this was the edge of the world. That's it. No more, except water. The end. Fin. Well, unless you count that last mile or so that I could have gotten the taxi driver to take me to. But I had been too out of it from exhaustion at the time

Entirely due to my being a fan of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book series, I packed a towel with me on this particular trip, almost as a joke. And now I had something to lie on top of in the sand. I put on my new lava-lava (that I had bought from someone selling them at the passenger waiting area for the ferry) and did just that, since it had stopped raining. Life was good. And dinner was to be included.

And then the sun came out. Life got even better.

I walked around, including a little ways into the water, and took some pictures. I've always been a really obsessive picture taker. As in taking dozens of pictures in a situation where anyone else would take just one or two. And I had a revelation, here at the End of the World. Why was I always taking so many pictures? Because I wanted to hold onto some of my favorite moments. To try and preserve them as fully as possible so I could go back to them whenever I wanted. But what I was really trying to do was to hold onto the past, to try and fight against the inevitable passage of time. And no one can ever do that. And maybe it's the same obsessive desire to get the absolute most out of life while I can that was bugging me about not seeing the very edge of the island.

Oddly, I've gone down to an almost-normal amount of picture-taking since then.


The Last Sunset came, and it was beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that a couple showed up just to see it and left as soon as it was done. I took a billion pictures of that sunset. Dinner was served, and I took a picture of it, too.

Mostly to fuel discussion of what it was. Other than good. And why they served me coffee just before bed.

The Last Sunset went, and it was still beautiful. And darkness came, and that was okay. While brushing my teeth, I noticed that the pump for the water had stopped whrrrrr-ing and that the water pressure was really low. A quick chat with the owners revealed that the power was out for the whole village, that this was totally normal around here, and that it should be back on in about two hours. Eh, maybe I'll just go to bed.

The moon was beautiful, and bathed the whole beach in moonlight. The beachfale owners were having Sā, which was nice. Someone had gone around and distributed candles and matches to each fale, since the lights in them weren't working. I lit mine for as long as I needed it, pulled down my mosquito net, put out the candle, and fell asleep pretty quickly.

Can't see any fire hazard here, nopenopenope.

What a day I'd had. I'd seen black sand beaches, posed in front of the giant Taga Blowholes, traveled through the pouring rain, slipped across the rainforest canopy walkway, wasted money on Moso's Footprint, and seen the Last Sunset from this amazing Beachfale.

I slept well.

I'm back!

So I'm back from working at the Summer Camp That I'm Not Allowed to Name. It was very exhausting but very rewarding. I also have a part-time film-related job coming down the pipe soon.

Until then, enjoy this 1930s travel reel by someone who really hated Fiji but really seemed to love Samoa.

Oh, and you could always click the button to view it in fullscreen if you don't like to watch your videos with the rightmost quarter-inch cut off. Or you could always just click here.

ADD-Infinitum

Since I've been home, I've been doing a lot of things, mostly looking for work. But another big thing is learning about my own ADD, or Attention Deficit Disorder.¹

I've known that I've had it since I was in 11th grade, but this past New Year's Day I happened to catch a documentary on it on PBS. It was fairly bizarre how closely it described me. I bought one of the books that they recommended, and it's been like my personal instruction manual. I don't think most people have it this easy when it comes to self-discovery.

But anyhow, one of the questions that has bugged me since just after I came home was: What will my next adventure be? Something in Hawaii? New York or LA? Juneau, Alaska which I'd presumably get through the family friend that works in the industry up there? Maybe even another overseas adventure. Will I ever have another adventure, or will I just settle into a nice job with a small production company in Charlotte or Greensboro and never look back?

Welp, now I have my answer. After more than six months at home, I'm about to start my next adventure: Teaching Video Arts to kids with ADD and other disorders at a summer camp in another state. Everyone who has been their loves it.

In some weird ways, it already sounds like the Rock. It has a very international staff, so once again I'm going to be surrounded by people from the United States, Australia, the UK, Mexico, Israel, Turkey, New Zealand, Canada & Ireland. It's also out in (a very different definition of) the middle of nowhere.

As such, I'm doing a lot of the same things to prepare for this that I did just before I left for the island (or returned there, in the case of my trip home a year ago). I went to the dentist and the doctor while I had the chance. I'm renewing my car's registration while I'm here to do it. I'm getting new clothes, because it's easier to do that here than there.

Unfortunately, my time at camp won't really be bloggable. I'll be awfully busy and won't be around computers very often, and my own laptop will probably be in storage with the video equipment, away from where I'll be sleeping.

I was hoping to finish up writing about my time in Samoa (where I left off I was about four days from when I left), but it looks like I'll have to take a break for now. I hope to stick in some kind of random updates over the summer when I get the chance. There's at least one more commercial that I made that needs to be posted here, and there's a few more Samoa-related links that I'd like to post. I should be back in September. Think of this as a show in between seasons.

Except that this show has never taken a break for much more than about a month, and this one will take a way bigger one and then suddenly end. So maybe something more like LOST.

What I'll do after camp, I still don't know. I'd really like to go to Hollywood and work with several of my friends in the heart of my industry. And in just the last few days I've been talking with someone from a major cruise line. We'll know in the future. Until then, stay tuned!

¹What, you though all of these footnotes (and excessive parentheticals) were normal?

Grand Samoan Adventure Grand Finale Part 3: New Heights

Welp, the taxi driver got his rainwater, put it in the engine, filled up his bottle again and we continued onward. Next stop was Falealupo Rainforest Preserve, a...get this...rainforest preserve (!) in the northeast corner of the island, rather close to the edge of the settled world.

From the 2003 version of the map that I had with me. Click if you need to see the vast majority of it for some reason.

The highlight of the preserve is a rainforest canopy walkway. It's a swinging metal bridge 40 meters (131 feet and some change, for those of you with good taste in measurements) above the ground. And it was still very wet and slippery that day. So of course, I had to try it.

The taxi driver elected to stay behind in the parking lot. I paid my $20T and followed the guide, who was about my age and spoke about 40% English, to my doom the metal tower that with the stairs that lead up to the bridge.

"Hey, uh, how high is this bridge?" I asked.

"Oh, very high." The guide responded casually.

"Um, has anyone ever fallen off of it?"

"Oh, yes." He replied casually.

"Really?! Did they die?"

"Yes." I couldn't tell if he understood me or was just answering everything in the affirmative because he didn't know what I was saying. But we were there now. I tried to tell myself that it was too late to chicken out now, and tried not think about how this would be a terrible place to die, and how far away the nearest hospital must be.

"We go up, then across then up, then up." said the guide, motioning an awful lot. I didn't understand. Were there two bridges? Was one much higher than the other? I pretended I understood, figuring that I wouldn't know what he just said if even he said it another dozen times.


I began my ascent. The metal tower at the beginning, constructed only about a year ago to replace a rotten banyan tree that previously held the steps leading up, was slippery but climbable. I held onto its one railing for dear life and tried not to look down.

Whoops.

We had reached to top, and now I was face-to-face with the bridge. It looked...incredibly safe. Giant nets on either side. No way you could fall off of that thing. I felt a lot safer.

The guide obviously felt very safe.

We posed for a bunch of pictures, then when we started walking across, I realized what kind of bridge I was walking on. The guide made me go first, which was totally not nervewracking or anything.

Ah yes, the classic "boards lying on top of ladders, suspended by cables."

It was wobbily but cool, as long as you watched your step and didn't have a foot go through one of those foot-sized gaps. I got to the other side without a problem, and the guide soon followed. It had actually been a lot of fun. We continued upward, this time up a long series of very steep wooden steps that wrapped around an enormous tree. We arrived at the top, and I do mean the top, to a view above the rainforest canopy.

It was a magnificent view, despite the cloudy weather. You could see miles of canopy in one direction, and the ocean in the other. And if you looked straight down, you could see how the canopy was so thick that the ground was barely even visible. I was glad to see that there wasn't a second bridge after all.

Check out how far above the bridge this platform was. If the bridge was 131.23 feet, and the platform was this much higher, then you should do the math if you just have to have an exact figure, because I don't.

In scientific circles, this is referred to as "really high up."

After a whole lot of pictures and laughing and carrying on, we headed back down. This time, we followed the steps around the tree all the way to the ground. And they were as steep and slippery as ever.


I was glad to be back on the ground. Very glad.

Grand Samoan Adventure Grand Finale Part 2: Water

I woke up the next day, Sunday, feeling better. Today I was going to journey to the end of the world!

But first, I had to figure out how I was going to get there.

The woman that was running the hotel and her sister were nice enough to give me breakfast in their kitchen. We talked a lot about where I would go and how I would get there. I eventually decided to round the island in a clockwise direction, so that I could go to all the cool touristy things in the village of Fagamalo while they were open on Monday, seeing as everything Samoan is closed on Sunday. They were very helpful and came up with a plan for me to see most of the island.

And it was terrifying.

I don't remember a lot of it, but it involved, among other things, about 6 different bus transfers. Including one at about 5 AM Monday morning on the opposite end of the island and another that involved riding a bus for more than a full circuit for some reason. And they were totally serious. I guess if you've spent your entire life on the island you don't understand what its like to not know where anything is,¹ or how wandering around in a strange place in the dark hoping to find a bus stop before you miss the one bus of the day might seem like a bad idea.

Welp, somehow they convinced me to try this, and assured me that God would be with me. They had a point with that one. I'm fairly sure that my surviving two years on the Rock, and even getting the job there in the first place² are divine miracles of some sort. Revving up my adventurous spirit, I decided to give it a try. They generously gave me some mangoes and New Zealand-style biscuits and sent me on my way.

A few minutes in, I convinced the taxi driver, a relative of theirs who was taking me to the bus stop, to just escort me around the rest of the day for 100 Tala. We forged on, under a threatening sky, to the end of the world!

A really threatening sky.

First stop on my free tourist map was the Nuu Black Sand Beach. Believe it or not, the sand there is...black! I asked the taxi driver about it, assuming he'd know exactly where it was, and he drove past it without a clue as to where it was. We asked someone at the next house we found a couple of miles up the road where it was, and then drove back and found it.

Guess what color the sand was?

Answer: A mix between black and regular sand color. Lots of volcanic sand.

Welp, next up were the Alofaaga Blowholes, one of the top tourist attractions in the country. The driver knew exactly where these were- In the village of Taga, waaayyyy off the beaten path. He drove to the turnoff of the main road, then about a mile down a bumpy unpaved and ungraveled road with no one in sight. Then, in the middle of nowhere, there was a small fale where a man collected entry fees to see the blowholes. We paid him and kept going. It was about another mile down the path until we actually got there.


We arrived at the blowholes, which are a series of natural tunnels in lava rock next to the ocean. When waves crash through them, the water shoots out like a geyser. And it's awesome. The taxi driver filled up the water jug for his car's radiator while I looked around for things like coconuts to throw into the blowhole and watch shoot out.


And here's the big one in action:

Or maybe more like just barely in action, then not in action, and then totally in action.

And then while leaving, we realized that I had crossed a white line that no tourist was supposed to cross, for fear of them getting knocked over by the blowhole waves and maybe even washed out to sea. And the line was about as far back as I was when I took the above video. I seem to have crossed it while standing right next to the blowhole. Oh well.

Once back on the road, the driver insisted we stop at this one okay-looking overlook, which was really just an excuse to put more water in his car's sketchy radiator, which was close to overheating.

Eh, the east side of American Samoa has better.

We made it about another 20 miles before steam started rising up from under the hood. We pulled off and went to a house. The taxi driver, plenty dedicated to his work, grabbed his water jug, ran out into the pouring tropical rain, and asked the homeowner if he could have some water that was gushing from his overflowing rain catcher.

Pictured: Exactly what I just described.

I went back to wondering what I was doing.

(To be continued).

¹An Island Trope I never got into an entry- Directionless- If everyone you know has spent their entire life on a single island, they never need directions. Thus, you won't really know how to give directions when you meet someone from a different place.
²A pretty interesting story that I'm surprised I never blogged about.

Grand Samoan Adventure Grand Finale Part 1: Arrival

There are currently two airlines that fly from PPG airport to The Independent State of Samoa™, Polynesian Airlines and Inter-Island Air. Polynesian lands at the recently-restored old airport near Apia, right in the middle of the island of Upolu. The ferry wharf to Savai'i would be a 30-minute taxi ride away. Inter-Island lands way down at the much nicer airport that's right next to where the ferry to Savai'i leaves from. Not a hard decision who I should be flying with.

Or at least, it shouldn't have been.

Inter-Island doesn't have online booking. Fair enough, I called the phone number on their website and was told that the Saturday that I wanted to fly was fine, but that I'd have to come in to their office in person and bring my passport to actually book the flight. Fine, I'm used to this sort of thing by now. So I tell my boss I'm going to be in late the next morning, drive over to their office at the airport, wait in line for a good 30 minutes to learn-

They're not flying on Saturdays. That's the day they do maintenance.

I walk over to Polynesian's office, do a lot of panicked running around that I can't recall the reason for, and then book my flight with them. A few hours later I realize that I've booked a less-than-ideal itinerary and have them change it (they did this for free, which is good enough customer service that it almost makes up for the last time that I flew with them). Miraculously, I was still able to get another flight, despite all of the people headed to Apia for the Jazz and Blues Festival.

A few days later, its time to leave. I'm all packed and ready for this trip, and mostly packed for the final trip home that will be only two days after I return. I've left a good old-fashioned "Let's go exploring!' as my Facebook status, setting the tone. I have my good friend John Raynar drop me off at the airport, where I see:

It says "Inter-Island Air" on it, if you're like me and usually too lazy to click these images to see the big versions.

That's right, the airline that I had been told I couldn't fly with that day had a plane all ready to leave when I got there. The guy at the check-in counter didn't have a clue, but the people in the Inter-Island office said that due to the demand caused by the Jazz & Blues Fest, they decided to skip out on maintenance and schedule a flight at the last minute for Saturday anyhow. That's what I get for trying to plan out a flight a whole week in advance on the Rock. I don't think I want to fly with anyone who's been skipping out on maintenance anyhow.

Anyway, I weighed myself with my luggage by stepping on that giant scale one last time, checked in (but knew better than to check a bag with Polynesian), and got ready to go. My Polynesian flight to The Airport that I Don't Want to Use went off without a hitch. I got some great pictures, because they don't care enough to make you turn off electronic devices:

Taking off. You can see Maliu Mai Resort by the sand.

Leone from above. I honestly can't tell what's a real building and what's a foundation left bare from the tsunami.

Approaching Upolu

Aggie Grey's Hotel in Apia from above. This is where I stayed with my parents when they visited in Summer 2009.

Click to see a usably big version.

I had a rough outline of my trip planned out: Land at Fagali'i Airport near Apia, take a taxi to the wharf, take a ferry to the village of Salelologa in Savai'i, spend the night at this awesome-sounding inn specially designated for backpackers like myself in that village, spend Sunday traveling to the very back of the island and seeing everything that I could, watch the "last sunset" from the western tip of the island (called this because its about as close as you can get to the International Date Line and still be on land), spend the night in a beach fale back there in the village of Falealupo, spend Monday seeing everything on the way back to Salelologa, spend Monday night at the backpacker's inn again, and then take the ferry back first thing in the morning in order to get back to Fagali'i in plenty of time for my 4:30 PM flight back to AmSam.

I grabbed a taxi right after we landed and agreed on a fare to the wharf ahead of time, like the travel guides recommend (he still managed to rip me off). Had him stop at an ATM to pick up some Samoan Tala (One Tala was worth about 44 cents American at the time), and at a store to grab some sunscreen and bug repellant in a spray bottle roll-on dispenser, both in odd New Zealand packages. Apparently, I could have brought both of those things on the plane with me, because flights out of a US territory aren't subject to much security, or something like that.

We arrived at the wharf and there was a boat sitting there already. There was a lot of confusion, because the taxi driver spoke about 60% English. But going by my watch, there was still plenty of time until the ferry that leaves at 2 PM was supposed to get there. I had plenty of time to grab lunch and relax by the pool and beach at the nearby Aggie Grey's Resort (not to be confused with the hotel in Apia, though its the same company). I grabbed a free tourist map and some more Tala from the ATM, too. (Cash is very important to have in a society where almost no one has a credit card reader) Life was good.


I rode in the same taxi back to the wharf, paid the driver entirely too much, waited around for the ferry that seemed incredibly late, and got on. This was on the brand-new MV Lady Samoa III, a rather large ship that has nice, almost airplane-like seating, a "business class" section for people willing to pay more for a tiny bit more comfort on a 90-minute ferry ride, and a TV that entertains the passengers with American Idol reruns.

Seriously.

Sitting there, I looked at my watch. It was almost 3! Could this ferry that was supposed to leave at two really be a whole hour behind schedule? The next ferry, assuming it was on schedule, might get here before this one ever leaves. Even for Samoa, that was pretty bad.

Then it hit me: My watch was an hour off. The ferry was right on schedule.

Western Samoa had switched to Daylight Savings Time since I had last visited, and American Samoa never did. My watch had been an hour off the entire time. And since BlueSky only covered American Samoa, my cell phone still had Am Samoa time on it as well.

I may or may not have been able to cram in one extra activity with the two hours I would have saved, but maybe not. The important thing was that I was riding on the ferry and would still get to Savai'i my first day, as planned. If fixed my watch, enjoyed the (most likely pirated) onboard videos, watched the view from the deck, and relaxed some more.

It's practically a national holiday when the big ferry arrives in Savai'i.

I arrived and grabbed a taxi, asking him to take me to the Salafai Backpacker's Inn. He'd never heard of it. Not knowing what else to do, I guessed he could take me to an Internet cafe where I could look up the ad where I spotted it and figure out where it was located. But first, and ATM stop, because I would have to pay for my room in cash. Then I spotted the "Salafai Inn" along the road and made him turn around to get me to it.

We pulled up and there was no one at the front desk. No one anywhere. The whole place seemed deserted, but open. Not exactly the happenin' youth hostel that I was expecting. Finally, someone who worked there turned up and confirmed that yes, this was also the Salafai Backpacker's Inn. I thanked them, paid the taxi driver, learned from the clerk that I paid the driver too much ($5T instead of $3T, a difference of about 88 cents American), and had her take me to my room. The ad for the inn had said that there was air conditioning, a refrigerator and a TV for just $50T a night. As it turned out, the TV was only in the lobby, and if you wanted the "Backpacker rate" of $50T, the mini-fridge and A/C would stay unplugged. Also not what I was expecting.

Oh well. With the ability to finally, finally keep my backpack full of stuff safely behind a locked door finally mine, I left it out of my sight for the first time that day and ventured out of the hotel into the village of Salelologa.

Whoo.

All the stores and restaurants are closed because it's a uh...Saturday.

Also not what I expected. I had always been told that Savai'i was a naturally beautiful place, full of adventures to be had and was completely unspoiled. But Salelologa was just like the worst parts of American Samoa- just developed enough to completely lose its "unspoiled" status, but not developed enough to have any real man-made enjoyments or comforts. I walked around and saw that the restaurant that they had recommended to me at the hotel was closed on account of it being not open. I got dinner from a roadside stand selling barbecued chicken, hit the ATM again because this village was the last one I would see for a while with an ATM, and headed back to my room. The whole hotel was still creepy, creaky, old, and almost deserted. The room across the hall was taken, and I'm pretty sure that was it for the entire two-story hotel.

Everything about Savai'i so far was so...not what I had expected. The Backpacker's Inn was nearly deserted, the Backpacker's rate wasn't that great of a deal, the village was a dump, I had forgotten how almost no one spoke adequate English in the entire country, and worst of all, I was alone. Not just alone, but "a whole day's journey from anyone I knew or even anything familiar" kind of alone. What was I doing here? And why was I doing this so close to my trip home?

I fell into a troubled sleep, hoping the next day would be better.

Scratch that, I had no A/C, so I ended up messing with the window to the extent that only I could, stacking the thin mattress from the extra bed on top of the one I was using to double my padding, considering turning on the A/C even though I hadn't paid for it, and finally knocking myself out with one of the sleeping pills that I had brought. Then I went into a troubled sleep, hoping the next day would be better.

You can see a more complete photo album of the day here.