Day 60 - Dealing with dodgy taxi drivers

Easter Island to Santiago

This morning at breakfast we met a couple who were staying 8 days on the island - that's what you call relaxing especially as they had already been there two days and were yet to see a Moai! How that could be possible we weren't sure as they are everywhere, especially around the town.

Come get your leis here...

We were driven to the airport to wait for our plane, the airport was tiny so we sat outside watching the woman lei sellers doing a huge trade with all the hotel cars arriving to collect new tourists. Our plane arrived and we watched as the arriving tourists were greeted with their leis - another plane load in, another plane load out. Many people posed for photos in front of the fake airport statutes - now that we are Easter Island experts we can differentiate between the real ones and the copies - plus you would be in big trouble if you sat on the edge of one like us and lots of others were doing!

Get off that statue now!

We'd been to Santiago so many times now that we were old hands at getting the shuttle bus from the airport, then the taxi from the bus station. We did have some trouble with the taxis though this time - the first one decided he didn't know where we were headed and made us get out of the cab, the second one decided he'd try to take us for a bit of ride. Fortunately the combination of Google maps and having been here before foiled his evil plan, we were able to direct him to the precise spot he needed to drop us at, back at the same apartment complex we'd stayed at just before going to Easter Island.

The apartment was right in the centre of the Lastarria district, which is a great location as we had plenty of restaurants to chose from for dinner just a minute or so from our apartment, even at 11pm.

Day 59 - Mo' moai

Easter Island

We'd booked three full days (four nights) on Easter Island, since that's what all the guide books recommended and we were also worried that if we had a day of poor weather then we might not have had enough time. However we are generally pretty quick as far as sightseeing goes, so in retrospect we really only needed two full days.

In the morning M did the walk up to Orongo while K enjoyed the veranda and the garden back at the hostel. There was a bit of drizzle but it wasn't cold, so it was good walking weather. The path up the volcano was interesting, it was almost a straight line up to the first mirador (lookout), then followed the rim of the crater around to Orongo.

There's that crater again

After going through Orongo again, M decided on the way back down to walk part of the way around to the other side of the volcano. There was a path but it wasn't used much, so the combination of the earlier rain and the up to waist high plants either side of the narrow track meant it was a wet walk at times.

This guy looks a little sad

In the afternoon we walked into town and headed a little further north along the coast to take in some of the moai we hadn't yet seen that had been re-erected along the coast.

The place we were staying at was further out of town than we liked, up to an hour's round trip to the main part of town, which became a bit tiring after three days. We decided we'd revisit the restaurant that was closest to our hostel, which fortunately also had probably the best food and atmosphere of all the ones we'd tried.

Day 58 - More craters

Easter Island

The jeep we had rented yesterday was scheduled to be returned at 11am, so this morning we drove up to see Orongo, not far from where we were staying. Orongo was a site of much significance for the islanders, and sits on the edge of a huge volcanic crater filled with water and supporting a unique biosystem.

We were the first ones to arrive for the day, so we had the place to ourselves for a while. We walked along the path to the old village, which consisted of tiny houses (with even smaller stone doorways) which were used when the islanders came up to the crater for special ceremonies. The view over the crater was impressive, as was the view to the smaller islands of Moto Nui and Moto Iti, which were significant in the ceremonies.

They must have been small to fit through those doors

After returning the car we visited the cave across the road from our hostel, which had some old rock paintings. We had a nice picnic lunch sitting near the cave looking out into the small bay nearby, after which we headed back into town for another enjoyable dinner with ocean views.

Day 57 - A bit of a pushover

Easter Island

Something we didn't expect is that a large number of the moai have been pushed over and are lying face down on the ground. At one time (by the 1830's) practically all of the moai had been pushed over, and have only been erected again in the 20th century. It's generally believed that warring clans on the island paid each other back by pushing over their very important statutes.  About 50 moai have been stood up over the past 50 years and many of the areas have been reconstructed.

We picked up our hire car around 10am and headed off around the island in an anti-clockwise direction, stopping at each site along the way. The first few sites all had fallen moai and platforms (known as ahu) that were in poor condition.

We eventually arrived at Rano Raraku, the quarry where all of the statues were created. The quarry is the most extraordinary sight, moai after moai appearing as if they are walking down the hill out of the quarry onto their destination. There are many moai in various stages of carving - it's almost as if someone yelled, "that's it we're out of here" and everyone downed tools and walked away - leaving the moai stranded. The quarry was on the sides of an extinct volcano, so we also walked up to see the crater lake, as well as more partly built moai in the distance.

After the quarry the next stop was Tongariki, where fifteen moai have been re-erected. They were originally toppled in the island wars and later swept inland by a tsunami.

Further around we saw some rock carvings, and then we stopped at Anakena, a bit different to the rest of the island, as instead of rocky shores and the crashing waves of the Pacific there was an idyllic beach with beautiful sand, waving palm trees and a lovely row of Moai, that until recently had been buried in the sand.

After Anakena the road circling the island headed inland, meaning we were unable to drive to a section of the coast with more moai sites. We drove up to the quarry at Puna Pau where the red scoria topknots (called pukao) were manufactured.

That was it for today's sightseeing, after Puna Pau we arrived back in Hanga Roa. Even though it had taken us all day to travel around the island, it's only 20 minutes in a car from one end to the other.

Tonight we found another lovely restaurant a little outside of town with a great view over the water, and a great vantage point to see the sunset and also watch groups of islanders powering through the ocean in long outriggers.

Day 56 - Happy Easter

Santiago to Easter Island

An early four and a half hour flight to one of the remotest places on earth. Easter Island really is in the middle of nowhere and we were surprised by the size of the plane and the number of people that pour into this island six days a week.

The island has a real Polynesian feel which is hardly surprisingly as it is believed the Polynesians were the first inhabitants. It was lovely to finally break out the shorts and t-shirts again, it always feels more like a holiday when it is warm.

We were greeted at the airport and given leis to wear, then transported to our accommodation. After checking in getting the lowdown (in Spanish) on where to go, we headed into Hanga Roa, the only town on the island.

There are a number of the famous Easter Island statues, known as Moai, on the coast not far from town, so that gave us a quick taste of what we would see later, since most of the moai are spread all around the island. Interestingly they nearly all face inland, not out to sea.

We arranged a hire a car for the next day, then found a nice restaurant right on the water, next to a spot where we could see turtles swimming. We had a couple of drinks and ended up having dinner there, before a long walk back to where we were staying, which was a little bit out of town.