As a freakish fan of Back to the Future – I’m not only FB friends with Mayor Goldie Wilson, but my friend Stephen Rice even let me drive his Deloreon, I obviously know a thing or two about time travel.
Firstly you need a Flux-Capector, and secondly you need to be careful not to create a time-paradox. The last thing you need is to drop a sports almanac and have some nut job billionaire running show. Doh, that’s precisely right Marry! We already have one.
Without a deloreon, the neccesary technical equipment, and adopts grade plutonium stolen from Libyans I was going to have to be a bit more inventive with my time travel antics.
Part 3 of our least visited countries tour had us travelling from Samoa (I’m old enough to remember when it was called Western Samoa) to Tonga, but with the caveat that if we flew (at extra expense) via Pagopago of American Samoa fame, we would join illustrious list that includes Jules Verne, The Terminator, and Bill and Ted in achieving time travel. We would cross the international dateline.
Our journey began at 5.30 am with an hours drive to Samoa International Airport, a big, but somewhat empty affair. Breakfast was sourced and we waited for our desk to open. But, you see this was not to be your average bear of a flight, for we had chartered our very own 8 seater plane. In my line of work i’ve chartered more than my fair share of flying machines, and it’s always a weird, and varied affair depending on when and where you fly from. We were to learn what the process of chartering a plane from Samoa to Tonga would be like.
Ironically as we sat waiting to board the 8 seater i remembered being worried that our combined weight and luggage might prove too much for our prop plane, something confirmed when i watched our bags get removed from said aeroplane. Cue shock and awe before we were informed that Talofa Airways were changing us over to a (slightly) bigger plane of 10 seats.
And then we boarded! And my word was it a lickle plane! More snug than comfy! And we were off! Twenty-five minutes can either last forever, or go in a heartbeat, but when you’re floating through the middle of the clouds looking down at tropical islands and atols it seems frozen.
And then seemingly out of nowhere we were landing in Pagopago, capital city of American Samoa. Now this is where shit gets all weird beard. We began our day by flying at 09.20 on the 16th January and arrived at 09.45 on the 15th January. We were then to relive exactly the same time period of the day two days running. 09.40 -11 am on January 15th 2020 has now occurred twice in my life.
To call this enterprise frivolous would be doing it a great injustice. We’d flown (at great expense) via Pagopago merely to have a one hour drive around American Samoa! And whikst Pagopago is not an unpleasant place, we were certainly dealing in extremes!
Is American Samoa a country? Does American Samoa count as a country? And was it worth stealing Gretas childhood for an hour in Pagopago? Yes, yes, and oh my god yes! Country 154 and time travel achieved in one day bitches!!!