FROM THE BIRDMAN CULT TO STRAY DOGS

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Arriving quite early at the bus station in Santiago 5am exactly I noticed(luckily)there is a bus from there run by Tur Bus for the airport leaving every 30 minutes starting at 6:15am and takes half hour to get to the airport which is perfect for me as the plane for Isla de Pascua leaves at 8:10am, saving me at least $25 for the taxi. It was cold and decided to just sit inside for awhile other people are also there waiting for their connecting bus. The counter for the airport shuttle lit up but not open yet, the woman over the counter still putting her make up on, eventually we bought tickets at 6am when they opened. Fpund out when i arrived at the airport that the flight is full, for off season that was amazing. now am a bit worried about accomodation as I did not book anything. Very hungry as the bus only gave us cookies for breakfast so I bought a sandwich from Dunkin Donuts then rushed to get through security and to the gate where they were already boarding. the Lan Chile plane was nice and I slept right away before the plane even took off. Good selection of movies and documentaries kept me from sleeping once in the air already. They have a documentaries about this Chilean dudes about my age that in 2003 went sailing around the world the first Chilenos, their story was interesting and i found myself watching one episode after another until i reached the 5th then it was time to land, darn and the monitor was turned off, well on my way back to Santiago I will finish the series. they travelled through the Polynesian islands and reminds me of the truck life in Africa, cooking together, arguing, having fun together as a group those sort of cheesy stuff.

My backpack took ages to appear from the carousel and so I appraoched the hostel international Kona Tau booth and asked them if they have rooms and they do so i committed to them and went back to wait for me backpack, Chez oscar was my first choice but he did not respond to my email though their booth is right next to Kona Tau i decided to ignore it and go for a hostel and maybe i will some people to do things in the island. i was the first on the service van, Diego the driver asked me to wait a bit and i took the chance to take photos of some stone carvings in the airport. later on comes Kathryn a Swiss and Naomi from Hungary, we all got a tour of the town in the van showing us the "mall", local Mcdonald's etc, and most importantly the moais(statues) that are close by. once we got sorted out at the hostel we walked to town to find lunch and had a wonderful lomito sandwich at this small place in the main street. from there we walked towards the ocean aboout 5 minutes walk, this is a small island so distances are not big. Oh the name of this town is Hanga Roa. Just walking around town you eventually pick up a "guide"dog, there's so much of them it gets annoying, they follow everywhere even to the statues and when there is a big number they fight and you get caught in the middle, we tried everything to get rid of them to no avail. The Ahu Tahai ruins north of town has 3 restored ahus, The Ahu Ko Te Riku has a top knotted and eyeballed moai, statue with a hat. Then Ahu Vai uri the five eroded moai of varying sizes, some looking like midgets. it was a bit cloudy and so photos are not very good but we took photos anyway in case tomorrow is worse. The sun appears every now and then we are hoping it shows more but we cant really predict the weather here. After our 1st encounter with the statues we went to the main street to shop for food for dinner, and then checked out the artesana stalls, the carvings are quite nice but i have no place for it cant be bothered carrying it around really. the girls are more akin to buying something. As we were walking about town it started to rain bad and we got disoriented as we have been talking while walking we got lost! Imagine a small town and we got lost, took us awhile to figure out where we are, finally back to the hostel we had a nice hot shower. Back at the hostel met my roomies, a German dude and and English lad, they have been here for wahile and just chilling as they have done the statues already, they recommended a guide, Chris, an American dude who settled here, we tried to ask the reception woman to call him but she said the number is a cell phone and she does not have one so she cant help us, we were a bit annoyed as it says in the lobby they book guided tours and yet they cant call them, she was not helpful at all so we gave up and just figure something out tomorrow. After dinner it started to rain hard and rained most of the night. Slept well.

The next morning is gloomy and a bit windy but at least it does not seem to be raining. we had breakfast and later Chris appeared, maybe she eventually called him, anyway he asked who wanted a guide so me and Kathryn committed for tomorrow the southern half and we decided we will try and do the north today, walking. Once the girls were ready we started walking and we followed the road that leads to the airport as we wanted to hike the Rano Kau volcano, we got distracted by a sign that says there is a moai nearby so we went towards the ocean and saw it then made our way back to town and we passed a camping ground. Now we retraced our steps and eventually saw the trail for Kona Tau, the sun is peeking every now and then. The trail is called "Te Ara o te ao" the scenery is stunning going towards the sea and we climbed up a hill with a dog following us that acted us our guide, there are so many stary dogs here and is quite annoying they follow you everywhere, yesterday we have about a dozen that followed us while seeing the moais. Once we got to the crater we saw the bottom full of tortoral reeds. we walked around and followed the trail half circling the crater and along the way tons of guava bushes full of ripe fruits so we helped ourselves for free lunch! Some are quite tasty, you just have to be lucky you picked a good fruit, then we reahced the entrance to Orongo where we have to pay to enter the site for 5,000 pesos good for 5 days. we saw the ceremonial village, this is where the bird cult rituals were held. Remembering from the movie "Rapa Nui" that i saw years ago i tried to find the islet where the competitors raced to swim and retrieve an egg of the tern bird, the young men would descend a cliff and swim out to the islets to search for an egg then the first to come back with an egg intact becomes the birdman of the year.

Walking back down we helped ourselves generously with the guavas around the dirt road area, these ones are far bigger and tastier than the ones at the top of the volcano. Going down took about 45 minutes and we followed a trail that is parallel to the airport tarmac and we ended up eventually to another moai site called Vinapu.One of the structures features neatly hewn, mortarless blocks akin to those found in Inka ruins, a startling vision. these once supported moais that are now broken and lying face down. Have to remember that an Ahu is the platform that the Moai(statues) stand. The view of the sea and pretty flowers make for good photos with the ruins if the sun was out but not today. We went back to town and back to the Ahu Tahai near town and took more photos now the sun is out but bad angle for photos, wtf!
Soccer game being played on the field, and dogs freely roaming the ruins once again, grr...
Shopped for more food at stores that were open, Sunday only a fews stores are open. Went back to hostel and said bye to naomi who leaves tonight for Tahiti. Around 4am rain started with a bang, torrential and followed by wind. i could not sleep anymore after that and just waited to get bright and got up and got ready for the guided trip which starts at 10am.

Chris an American who now lives here with his family was recommended by my roomies to be a super excellent guide and so we booked the day with him, just me and Kathryn. We stopped to shop for food first for lunch then off we start at Vaihu, ir was partly cloudy and windy but it looks as if the weather might change, some fast moving clouds in the sky. On this site the moais are toppled, the sight is next to the sea, we moved on to Akahanga next, same ole thing, toppled statues, whenever a tribe gets defeated, their conquerors will topple the statues, maybe to humiliate the clan, anyhoo, as informative as Chris was i cant rememebr most of what he said to us,mainly having difficulty with the names and some terms, but he was very patient and speak very clear so not hard for Kath to understand. chris mentioned the varieties of fish around the island, though there is no coral reefs here the island is teeming with odd, unusual looking species and he wants people to see them by setting up an aquarium which he hopes will be next to the museo(which i did not bother to visit). One cool story he told us is when Axl Rose of Gun and Roses stayed here for a time and the dude just enjoyed himself here as they did not treat him as a celebrity, he would walk into town and folks just say Hey Axl, waving and leaving him alone.

Rano Raraku is the next stop, this is the statue quarry, half carved and some are buried, this is the factory for these moais, quite a sight to see,they spared no rock surface it seems every bit of space they carve a face to see whether it could be a strong rock and make a full statue, some they stop making due to defaults or just not enough funding perhaps, apparently there is a whole society of just artisans to carve this monoliths and in turn they get 2 year's supply of fod from the clan who ordered it. After seeing all angles of the quarry we made our way down to Tongariki where the famous, dazzling 15 moai statues stood restored after a tsunami hit the area around the 1960's, a japanes company restored it. i loved this site and took gazzilions of photos. The sun is not fully shining, hardly any blue skies so my photos did nit turn up as well as i was hoping, but then again this is the rainy season so should not really complain. Te Pito Kura is next where the largest statue was evr erected and i believe also the last to be toppled. thenwe also saw a round basalt stone which apparently has some powers. the highlight is the Anakena beach ruins, great area of whit sand beach the ruins look well preserved, this is where the king that settles this land landed from Marquesas i believe. this place is sacred and holy to the locals. there was a dude sky surfing at the time we were there,quite entertained to see him flip and glide. then back to the city and the end of the tour, exhausted I sat and chilled before dinner, kath and i cooked paella and some chinese noodles then off to bed.

My last day here went to the post office to get a commemorative stamp in my passport, you pay 500 pesos for it. then Kath rented a bike and dogs followed us again, i dont know how we eventually lost them. The sun is out, blue skies a few clouds but looks great, unfortunately I am leaving already, oh well...

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