Tuesday 11 June
We’ve got used to the more budget (i.e.
American) airlines and suddenly LAN is like high luxury. The seats are nicely spaced out (and the
plane is only about half full, which helps), there are proper on-demand
inflight entertainment systems and a full meal service with free booze. We can’t really appreciate any of it though
as it’s 3 in the morning and all we want to do is sleep. It takes about 5 hours to fly over to Easter
Island, but there’s a 4 hour time difference so it’s about 11am when we land. The hotel have sent someone to pick us up, so
we’re met at the airport and driven back to the hotel to check-in. Accommodation isn’t cheap here and for the
price we’re paying we’d like something flashier, but the room is big and
clean. We have beautiful views down the
coast and there, in the distance, is our first glimpse of a line of moai.
We dump our stuff, get showered and walk
out to explore. Although it’s winter
here and nowhere near the balmy tropical-ness of Tahiti or Hawai’i, it’s still
just about warm enough for shorts and t-shirts.
Easter Island isn’t a big place and Hanga
Roa is it’s only town. We take a stroll
down the main street, which is lined with cafes, mini-markets and souvenir
shops. It’s also full of very friendly,
well-mannered dogs. They don’t seem to
actually belong to anyone, but they don’t seem like strays either – possibly
communal dogs?
We stop at a café for delicious sandwiches
and then continue walking.
Large chunks of the island (and all the
bits we want to see) are part of the national park. You need a ticket, but the tickets are only
sold in two places: at the airport, before you go through immigration (but you have
to pay for them in cash, without access to an ATM…) or at the office on the far
side of the airport. We spend the better
part of an hour getting lost trying to find the place, but in the end we
stumble across it and get our tickets.
We walk back into town along the coast and come across our first head up
close. It’s crazy and beautiful, dark
and imposing – pretty much exactly how they look in the pictures.
As we walk along we come across more heads
and other archeological remains before reaching the row of moai we could see
from our hotel (Ahu Vai Uri).
This is meant to be one of the best spots
to watch the sunset as the sun sinks directly behind them. As it’s a clear evening and the sun will be
going down within the hour, we make ourselves comfy and settle in to watch.
Janet adds: the somewhat magical atmosphere
was only slightly ruined by the rather loud dog shagging that was going on
around us courtesy of the slightly less well-mannered dogs.
Wednesday 12 June
We’d planned to have a bit of a lazy day
today, making plans and getting some washing done. However, it’s a bright day and the sun is
shining. It’s threatening to rain for
the rest of the week so we decide to take advantage of the good weather and
head out for a hike instead. We quickly
get geared up, pack up some sandwiches and set off.
There’s a 17km hike that heads up along the
coast before turning inland and looping back round to Hanga Roa, taking in some
great sights along the way. We walk to
where we watched the sunset and then head away from town. The scenery is spectacular, with herds of
wild horses grazing against a backdrop of the sea.
Our first stop is to check out some sea
caves. A narrow, re-enforced hole in the
ground is the only indication that there’s something here. We bravely switch on the torch and crawl
in. After making our way through a
tunnel we come out into a room with two entranceways to the sea – both well
above sea level in the cliffs.
I think there are some rock paintings in
here, but if there are, our torch (or our eyes) isn’t good enough to pick them
out.
It’s at about this time that we pick up our
dog-guide: one of the many dogs that roam around has decided to join us for the
walk. She strides out confidently in
front and turns us off the path to point out the unmarked sights that we may
not have found by ourselves.
I know, it sounds ridiculous and I thought
Nick was having a laugh when he first voiced it – but she clearly knows the
way. She leads Nick to a cave dwelling,
then takes us both to some toppled moai, another cave dwelling complete with
subterranean garden before delivering us to Ahu Akivi – one of the resorted
lines of moai.
Here she poses politely for pictures and
guards our bags before she spots someone more interesting to hang out with and
disappears.
The sights thin out a bit from here and we
try to pick up our pace a bit. There’s
just one more stop on the long walk back: Puna Pau - this is a quarry where they
used to carve out the top-knots that can be seen on some moai. There are also some great views back over
Hanga Roa.
With tired legs we make our way back to our
hotel. We get cleaned up and walk to an
ocean front bar for a glass of wine and the sunset. Finding food is a little harder – this is a
fish, fish and more fish kind of place – but we do find a small café with
simple pizzas and pastas.
Janet adds: Nick’s theory is that the dogs
are reincarnated ancestral spirits.
Hippie.
Thursday 13 June
It’s a good thing we went out walking
yesterday because it is raining today.
Serious, all day, pouring down rain.
We have various good intentions and false starts, but in the end it
turns into a bit of a lazy day. We use
the time to make some plans for the rest of our time here. It’s not a big island and you could probably
rush round it, taking in the main sights in a few days. We have a week though (considering how hard
it is to get here, we thought we may as well spend a bit of time here) and can
afford to take things a little slower.
We’d planned to book onto a few tours to see the far-flung sights, but
we’ve been enjoying exploring on our own.
The incessant rain is indicating that we need wheels. We walk to one of the car hire places along
the main street. We’re only planning to
get one for a couple of days, but the price decreases drastically the longer
you have it and it makes sense to simply get the car for the rest of our
stay. With our own wheels we can go
wherever we want in the gaps in the weather.
Friday 14 June
Despite the rain it still hasn’t been
particularly cold here. You can tell it
is winter though as the sun doesn’t come up until 8am, making getting out of
bed at a reasonable hour a bit of an effort.
Still, we’re excited to take our car for a spin so we pack a bag and get
going.
There’s a sealed road that goes up one side
of the island and then cuts back to town through the middle. The top bit (I’m no good at directions) is
inaccessible except on foot or horseback.
We’re still getting the odd rain shower, but at least the sun is making
an appearance now and then. The drive is
lovely, taking in sweeping views of the coast.
We head straight to the top of the road
(which is only about a 20 minute drive) to Ahu Tongariki: a line of resorted moai in a beautiful
setting.
We snap our pictures while the sun is out
and then continue on. A rough dirt road
connects this road to the other sealed road and Nick loves bouncing through the
muddy puddles. There are petroglyphs and
fallen moai to look at along the way, before we arrive at Anakena beach. It’s a beautiful, palm-lined crescent of
white sand lapped by turquoise water that looks a little out of place on this
wild island.
Ah, and of course it comes with it’s own
row of moai, complete with top-knots (Ahu Nau Nau).
It’s a lovely spot to stop for lunch (and
we might even have considered a swim if we’d though to pack our swimmers).
We had planned to do a bit of hiking this
afternoon, but the weather is looking a little iffy, the trails aren’t marked
and we don’t have a decent map, so we give it up as a bad idea.
Back in town the sun is out so we dump the
car and walk down to the museum,
which nicely fills in the gaps and explains
a bit more about what we’ve been seeing.
Unfortunately we still haven’t learnt out
lesson with the weather – we’ve wandered out without our waterproofs and of
course, just as we’re about to leave, the heavens open. We sit out the worst of the rain and then
resign ourselves to getting wet on the walk back.
We’d planned to eat in our room tonight,
but our provisions have frozen in our little fridge overnight. We have a beer or two whilst checking the
internet and then walk to one of the nicer restaurants in town (one of the few
with a tiny veggie section on the menu) for delicious food and my first (and
certainly not last) pisco sour.
Saturday 15 June
We’re out of clean clothes and we’ve had to
drop off a bundle at the laundry in town.
It won’t be ready until noon, but we take advantage of the bright (ish)
morning to nose through the souvenir shops and craft markets in town. Once the washing is ready, we pack up a lunch
and head out in our car to find a nice picnic spot on the coast.
One of the national park’s major sights is Rano
Raraku – the quarry on a volcanic crater where the moai were carved.
You’re only allowed to visit once on your
ticket, so we’ve decided to give ourselves the afternoon here. It’s quite an eerie place, with heads
sticking out of the ground all around.
These are, for the most part, fully carved
moai, but over the years the earth has filled in around them leaving on the
tops exposed. There are also some
half-carved figures still embedded in the rocks.
There are a couple of hundred moai here
that, for one reason or another, didn’t get finished or reach their final
destination.
Once we’ve seen enough we climb up the hill
for views down into the crater.
We’d planned to take a slow drive back to
town stopping off at sights along the way.
We do stop off once or twice, but as we’re taking in some toppled moai
and the impossibly blue waves behind them, we’re caught in a fierce rain shower. We’re soaked in the short dash back to the
car. We pack it in for the day and drive
back to get clean and dry.
Janet adds: managed a short run this
afternoon for the first time in ages.
And yes, I did get caught in the rain…
Sunday 16 June
Ahu Tongariki is meant to be beautiful at
sunrise. We haven’t bothered so far as
the weather has been so bad, but we’re running short of mornings. We set the alarm and get ourselves on the road
by about 7. The sky is just starting to
brighten as we arrive. It is wonderfully
atmospheric with the towering row of looming moai backed by an increasingly
orange and pink sky.
Unfortunately half the tourists on the
island seem to be out here too, but that’s still relatively few people and just
means we have to get creative with our picture angles to cut the people out.
Once it’s light we drive back to the hotel
for breakfast. The weather has turned
nasty again and soon it’s howling with wind and belting it down. We take refuge in the lobby for a couple of
hours hoping for a break in the weather, which doesn’t come.
Once a power cut throws us off the internet
we decide to venture out for some lunch.
We haven’t yet visited the other big site
of the national park: Orongo ceremonial village. It’s only 4km from town and we’d hoped to
hike to it. It doesn’t look like that’s
going to happen so we give up and drive.
The village is precariously perched on a thin ridge of land between
volcano and sea. It’s a wild, fierce
place with howling winds. The deep crater
of Rano Kau looms behind the village
and steep cliffs fall away to the
front. It consists of a series of low,
round terraced stone houses that have been carefully restored. This village was the ceremonial centre of the
birdman cult: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangata_manu
Only one moai was found here and that moai
is now on display at the British Museum – something of a sore point as the moai
is referred to as the ‘stolen friend’.
We make our exit as the rain pulls in
again. On the road down we offer a lift
to a half-drowned French woman who risked the climb on foot. We drop her off in town and take a short
drive along the coast before calling it a day.
Monday 17 June
We were hoping for one last sunny day where
we could stretch our legs, but it is not to be.
It rained all night and is still raining this morning. Luckily we’ve pretty much seen everything we
wanted to see so it’s not too much of a problem, but it is getting tiresome.
We’re checking out today but luckily we’ve still got our car to seek shelter
in. We take a lazy drive up the coast
for the views and to kill a bit of time.
We also have another potter around town and stick our heads into the
Catholic Church.
Local artists did all the artwork and it’s
the strangest mix of Catholic and pagan imagery. Statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary come
adorned with carvings of the birdman and the creator god Makemake.
We get a brief break in the rain just after
lunch and use it to explore a nearby sea cave that is adorned with rock
paintings.
The rain starts up again and it’s back to
the car. We take one last spin around
the island, taking in the sights. We’re
sitting at Anakena beach when the opportunity to play good Samaritan arises
again: a Chilean couple have got their rental car stuck and there’s no phone
signal out here. We’re about to head
back anyway so we give them a lift back to town.
We drop off the car, tidy ourselves up and walk
into town for a drink and a light dinner.
Our flight is at 22.45 and we spend the rest of the evening at the
airport. Our new favourite airline LAN
is just as good this time, delivering us safely to Tahiti. It’s 1am Tahiti time (and 5am Easter Island
time) so we grab our bags and stumble across the parking lot to the Tahiti Airport
Motel.
Janet adds: the only downside to the car
was not getting dog guides.
