Vatia

Ephraim's on spring break, so we played tourist on Tuesday and went to Vatia on the north side of the island. I had never been there before (after 2.5 years on this 20 mile island) so we HAD to check it out. Although the weather was too rainy and cold (?!) for swimming, the drive was lovely.

To get there you have to drive the main road along the southern coast, past Pago Pago to Aua. There's a road there that cuts north, zigzags up the mountain to the pass and goes down to the north coast. Continue on that road and you'll find the National Park and eventually the village of Vatia. It takes about an hour and a half from our house.

This is the lookout showing Pola Island with Cockscomb Point at the right. It was actually chilly, so we pulled out the handy emergency rain ponchos.



Just as we were driving to the end of the road, we drove over a big bump and heard "pop". We went a little further, found a nice place to park, and then Ephraim got out and saw our tire was losing air. Perfect place for a tire change.

As he lowered down the spare from the back underside of the car, Ella said, "Wow, do we have any more tires under there?"

While our competent hero Ephraim attended to the tire, we explored the cobble beach.



There were two natural arches that we could see.



Ephraim had the car taken care of by the time we got back and we were on our way. What a guy! Vatia has a unique-looking sea wall.

Would you like to live in this village?



Paka = Park

A view of the beach we were at.

We drove through another village, Afono, and saw this school classroom that was gutted by the tsunami, and the temporary school room they are using now.




A view from the pass, looking towards Pago Pago harbor. The open ocean is at the left of this photo. You can see how the harbor curls around making a long funnel.

On the way home we stopped by a barbecue hosted by the ASCC Marine Science Club. Thanks for the lunch, guys!






It was a good day. Ephraim and I were commenting how it felt like we were new on the island again, except now we knew people and places. We had a bbq to go to, friends called to us as we drove by, and Ephraim knew where to find his buddy Ben surfing at Pua Trees. We had a good "local vacation" for a day.