In search of the highest point in Samoa–and escape from the tourist trails–a traveller joins an eleven-hour trek through dense, humid rainforests up volcanic terrain, following the footsteps of a less-than-certain machete-wielding guide.
Mentela slashes at the foliage with his machete. A bunch of vines falls to the ground, and he slashes again, upwards at some overhanging branches. Dew sprays off the leaves and trickles down his arm. A ray of morning sun pierces the canopy, illuminating our path. Leaves squelch and twigs snap beneath our feet as we traipse through the rainforest. The trail to Samoa’s highest peak, the aptly named Mount Silisili, is seldom climbed, and in the tropics, it doesn’t take long for the forest to close in.
As a country famous for its tropical idyll, Samoa’s highest mountain is not your typical tourist attraction. The glistening turquoise waters of the Pacific Ocean are what Samoa sells to the world. An endless blue horizon, and lazy afternoons where visitors can lose themselves in a book, sip cocktails guilt-free, and enjoy a mid-afternoon nap in a beachfront shack, lulled to sleep by the gentle lapping of the waves. There is much more to this island nation, though, and what better way to escape the tourist trail than to trek through an overgrown, humid rainforest that grows upon a dormant volcano.
The only directions I have for reaching Mount Silisili are some scribbled notes from a friend in Australia who lived in Samoa years earlier–Savai’i island, Aopo village, find the chief, ask for a guide. With nothing else to go on, as Mount Silisili is conspicuously absent from the tourist brochures found at the airport, I follow the instructions.
It is mid-afternoon when I arrive in Aopo, a 90-minute drive around a stunning coastline from the port of Salelologa. The villages on the island of Savai’i, Samoa’s larger though less populated island, are all centered around a church and a shop. The pattern repeats through village after tongue-twisting village–Pu’apu’a, Samalae’ulu, and Lefagaoali’i, to name a few. At the succinctly named Aopo village, the local shop is run by Eddie, who also happens to be a chief. A slim man with a broad smile and greying hair, Eddie wears a button-up shirt and lavalava, the traditional dress of Samoan men. He agrees to help me with a guide, and after a few phone calls, arrangements are made for the following morning.
‘So where are you staying tonight?’ Eddie asks.
‘Well… I don’t know, I have a tent, is there somewhere around here I can stay?’
‘You can stay with me if you want, I have a room in the back of the shop.’
‘Ok, sure, if it’s no trouble.’
‘No, not at all, stay for as long as you like.’
The rest of the afternoon unfolds as I imagine most others do. Eddie and I sit on plastic chairs outside his shop and watch the world pass by. He pops the top off a bottle of Vailima beer and sits back on his chair with an air of contentment that all men approaching retirement wish for. The afternoon idyll is occasionally disturbed when customers drop in to buy snacks for hungry kids or replace their empty gas canisters. In between customers, Eddie shares stories about his life in Samoa and New Zealand, where his wife lives. He visits Auckland once or twice a year, though he prefers the serenity of Aopo to the big city life of Auckland. He is also a man of authority here, an elder, a village chief with standing and responsibility. As the afternoon sun wanes, tinting the sky in a warm orange glow, a motorbike passes in front of the shop. There is a suitcase strapped to the rear frame, and the rider looks at us before zooming away, vanishing down the winding road.
‘That man has been banished,’ Eddie begins, ‘He is an adulterer. He was caught having an affair with the wife of another man. We ordered him to pay a fine in the form of pigs, and he has now been banished from the village. The deadline for him to leave today was 4 pm.’
I check the time on my phone, twenty minutes past four.
‘Oh, how long is he banished for?’
‘The banishment will remain for the rest of this year, and then we will decide when he can return, but it should be no longer than one year.’
‘So where will he go? Where will he live?’
‘He will be ok, he has family in other villages.’
The roar of the motorbike fades into the distance, and the man has at least eight months before he can return to Aopo. It seems a harsh penalty, although I detect no regret from Eddie. Justice has been served; order and honour upheld.
In the evening, Eddie unrolls a cane mat and lays it on the concrete floor of the shop. He assures me that he rarely sleeps in the bed, and that the concrete is better for his back. As I lie down on the thin mattress that rests on uneven springs, I can believe him.
The next morning, Eddie introduces me to Mentela, a young man of twenty years, and the son of another chief. Dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, and carrying a multicoloured fluorescent backpack, he leads me through farmlands and overgrown fields on the way to Mount Silisili. While Mentela slashes at vines and overhanging branches, my eyes scan the ground. The path through the rainforest is ambushed with gnarled tree roots, fallen trees, and moss-covered logs. Mentela, in a pair of beige plastic sandals, navigates the hazards with ease, and I hurry to keep pace.
When I bump my leg against a log, for the second time in a few minutes, I curse myself for my carelessness and then look down. An inch-long piece of wood is sticking out of my leg, just below my knee. My immediate thought is, ‘Wow, I’ve never seen that before,’ followed quickly by, ‘Oh shit, I’d better get that out!’
‘Wait, wait,’ I call to Mentela, who has his arm raised, ready to fell another branch. He pauses, turns, and then notices the protrusion.
‘Are you ok?’ he asks, with more concern in his voice than the usual nicety.
‘Yeah, I’m ok,’ I reassure him, while still unsure myself.
I sit on the ground and pull at the wood with my fingers. It won’t budge–it really is wedged in there! I take a pair of tweezers from my first-aid kit and yank on it hard. After a few attempts, it finally dislodges, and I stare at the open wound in mild panic and adrenaline-induced amazement. Mentela is enthralled too and sits perched on the ground in front of me, staring intently at the unfolding amateur medical procedure. My primary concern is infection, so I smear the wound with antiseptic cream, cover it with band aids, and wrap a bandage around it. Mentala looks on in silence, his eyes studiously following my every move. With the wound wrapped tight, I stand, bend my leg a few times, and it feels ok.
‘Ok?’ Mentela asks hesitantly.
‘Yeah, I think so,’ I reply with a shrug, ‘let’s go.’
We’re barely an hour into the hike, and it will take more than a chunky splinter to knock me off this mountain.
Mentela continues his effortless bound up the mountainside, occasionally turning back to check he hasn’t lost me. For the next few hours, we wade through more long grass, climb over fallen logs on our hands and knees, and gaze in awe at the giant trees towering above us. The majestic elders of the rainforest, the maota, banyan, and the strangling fig, boast trunks several metres thick, and their lofty branches are dripping with vines. The floor of the rainforest, awash with ferns and monstera, is soaked in different shades of green. Lush, dense, enveloping. This is the natural world at its most dominant. It is thriving, unaffected by the few who wander here. Hostile and beautiful, unspoiled.
After several hours, we reach Mata o le Afi, a volcanic plateau where overnight campers pitch their tents. The plateau is also the site of the last volcanic eruption, in 1902. The area has since been overrun with blueberries, and Mentela snacks on them as we push on towards the summit. With the forest having fallen away, we walk under a fierce, burning sun and a cloudless sky. The sweat is pooling on my back and trickling down the back of my legs. At times, the trail dips through chasms of broken red earth, deep fissures that scar the land, and we push our way through head-high bushes and shrubs. We soon return to thicker tree cover and some welcome shade. Mentela leads the way along a winding dirt path and soon stops among some trees. He announces that we are at the top. Oh, we are? I am not entirely convinced, but I cannot see any higher points on the horizon, and the path appears to fade into oblivion, vanishing into thick tree cover and shrubs. After six hours of walking, whether we are at the top–or almost at the top–this point is good enough for me. And we still have to descend.
Our descent begins after a short break for lunch, and some fresh oranges courtesy of Mentela, who somehow finds the energy to scale some trees. He rides the flimsy branches like a slow-moving bronco as they bend and sway under his weight. Mentela shakes the oranges loose from the wavering branches, and they fall to the ground, bouncing on leaves and rolling into tree trunks. The sweet nectar is like a gift from the gods, and the juice runs down our chin and fingers as we devour the heavenly fruits. Sweaty–and now sticky–we follow the same path down the mountain back towards Aopo, until we don’t.
Wading through hip-high grass and stumbling on uneven ground, I am now convinced that we are lost. Whether it’s his pride, courtesy, or stubbornness, Mentela reassures me that we are ‘not lost, just finding our way.’ Whatever that means. He slashes at more grass, seemingly more out of frustration than practicality, and I wonder how he still has the energy. As I tire, my footing is becoming more unstable, and I stumble more than once, collecting scratches and bruises to go with the wound on my leg. Overhead, the sky is darkening. How many hours have we been walking now, nine, ten? We continue through the grass for another kilometre before falling out onto a track. Mentela turns and smiles, wearing the sheepish grin of a lucky man.
Eleven hours after leaving, we limp into Aopo, a pair of sweaty, sticky, and scratched-up hikers. Having reached the highest point in Samoa, I fall asleep dreaming of bathing in its lowest points–the shimmering, healing, emerald blue waters of the Pacific Ocean.
