Agile Trekker: Taufanua Trail, National Park of American Samoa, American Samoa

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
4/25/2026	2 miles	2 hours 19 minutes	554'	?	114.7

Parking:

Taufanua Trail Parking

Map:

See NPS map

Directions:

Take the trail to the ocean. Return the same way.

Our second hike of the day was the Taufanua Trail. We found the trailhead and saw a local nearby. We asked if it was okay to park there. He looked a little confused and said yes. Some of the National Park trails are on private property, and you must ask permission to hike them. This felt very awkward to me. Sometimes the local will ask for money for permission to hike. We never had to pay, but we did read for some hikes you do. One person commented he got asked for money twice for the same hike (by two different locals). I wondered - what do you do if you don't see a local? Same thing goes for beaches. They said some beaches you need to ask. But how do I know which beaches? We did talk to one guy, Brent, who was here on business - related to introducing solar energy and I think related to getting earlier tsunami warning systems. He got permission to set up a monitor at a beach from someone before his trip. Then when he was trying to install it, he said he got yelled at by a local. It took a while for him to be able to explain that he had permission and what he was doing there.

This hike was only 2 miles, but a hard 2 miles. It was hot and humid and we were dripping sweat. First, we hiked uphill, then we had to descend on ladders downhill. Ladder after ladder. The ladders are resting on the ground, but the ground is steep. There are also ropes to help you descend. It took us a long time to go down. There was some swearing by at least one of us. On the way back we had to ascend the ladders. It was oh so hot, but ascending the ladders was much easier than descending them.

After our hike, we went to look for a tree with fruit bats. How do you find it? Well, it's on Google maps actually :) We looked around for a while not seeing it. We asked some local children, but they didn't know. We walked back and forth, and eventually Phyllis saw them. Fruit bats are huge. They have a 3-to-5-foot wingspan. During the day, you can see them hanging from trees. We actually did see some fly.

There are so many loose/stray dogs on the roads here. I stopped to take some photos of them once, and they came running and surrounded our car, barking at us. Oh boy. After being stuck, I decided to drive slowly. One yelped - I was terrified I had hit it, but I hadn't. Lesson learned - do not stop for stray dogs. Most of them know to get out of the way of cars. We did see some limping strays, so my guess is that they didn't get out of the way of a car. Some of the strays are not friendly. Even one of the National Park Service hike descriptions talks about being careful and driving past the last house on the road to get to a hike, due to aggressive dogs. That's crazy to put in a hike description! Our friend Arthur from last night said that if dogs behave aggressively to us, to pick up a stone & pretend to throw it. Dogs have learned about that. The speed limit in all of the island is between 20 to 25 mph. That's it! Arthur said he got a speeding ticket for going 30 mph recently. It's a small island, but it takes some time to get around due to the low speed limit. That's okay. We are in no rush.

We dropped Phyllis off at the hotel, and Dian and I went to a grocery store to go shopping for dinner. We found a large grocery store near our hotel. Very big. Yet, the produce section was around 10 feet long. $10 for 1 cucumber. $10 for 1 bell pepper. $22 for 1 pineapple. They had a premade salad in their produce section listed as vegetarian - but it had tuna in it. I have sticker shock. There is plenty of junk food in the store which is less expensive than their produce. Starkist is huge here - it's their biggest private employer. We drove by it a few times during our trip. We had to buy bottled water since we can't drink the tap.

We went to the bar again in the evening and chatted with Tom, one of the other National Park visitors. I had a Vailima Beer, which actually comes from Western Samoa, but is what everyone drinks here.

Photos in reverse order for the day.

Stopping at the Camel Rock overlook.

This is a very well known, popular bar/restaurant on the island.
We stopped by during their open hours, but no one was there.
I've heard one person say to call ahead of time to discuss what you'd like to eat.
I'm not sure if there is even a menu?
We would try back tomorrow.

Camel Rock

There are many churches on the island. They are very colorful.
I would love to sketch them, though I think I'd feel very conspicuous doing so.
Although the people we met were friendly, I did always feel like
I wasn't sure what was okay to do here and what wasn't okay.
I wanted to be respectful of the locals and their culture.