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Published: December 23rd 2004
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I must confess that the favourite part of planning this big trip has been these 2 weeks..
Crossing the South Pacific really has been a bit of a dream to me on many a rainy afternoon sat at my desk at work back in London, and here I was, finally about to do it... Easter Island, Tahiti, Fiji - a slightly more exotic Xmas and New Year than back at home!!
Now, this is an expensive part of the world, so we were looking to save money what ever way we could, and the ultimate in budget accomodation is, obviously, to stay free of charge.. and we are finding that international airports are very accomodating for this... so after a stressful and hectic day in Santiago where we bought Xmas pressies for each other, and watched the dreadfully disappointing Oceans 12 at the cinema, we found a cosy, quiet, and dark corner of Santiago Airport, and threw down our sleep mats and bags, and with a quick appeal to the friendly security guard not to disturb us, we spent our last night on South American soil before our morning flight out across the shimmering Paciific to the mysterious statues of
Easter Island.
Easter Island, or Rapa Nui in the local dialect technically was still a part of South America, it being a Chilean dependent, but this was Polynesia through and through... It is also the worlds most remote habited place. it is nearly 4000Km to the mainland, another 4000 to Tahiti in the West, and the nearest neighbours are the decendents of Fletcher Christian and his mutiny on the Bounty crew, a short hop of only 2000Km away. If you further consider that humans did not reach this place until 500AD, and then following civil war, all the trees on the island were cut down, and therefore no boats could be built for hundreds of years, and the people were completely cut off until the Europeans arrived, you get the idea that this place is really out there... Indeed, even today, there is nowhere were any ship bigger than a small fishing vessel can dock and the airport only received passenger jets 20 years ago, when the runway was lengthened as an emergency landing place for the Space Shuttle.
The island itself is tiny.. with 3 extinct volcanoes in each corner of a roughly triangular island. There is
one town, Hang Roa, which is a lazy ramshackle collection of shacks and huts that cater primarily to the tourist trade.. but it is by no means overrun - there are far far more statues and sites than tourists, and after a 5 minute walk across town, you are on your own, apart from the wild horses, and the breeze coming in off the mighty Pacific. Because everything needs to be flown in, food and drink are expensive on the island, with the exception of the locally caught fish and fruit. The restaurants were generally good, though, but we struggled to find any nightlife of any desciption.. a busy bar would be defined as one that had more than 3 people in it... and we declined to pay $15 for a rather touristy Polynesian dance show, so it was a quiet evening each night for us... we found a clean and relatively inexpensive (this is still Chile, so prices were generally high) place to stay, and just took it easy..
Of course, everyone knows Easter Island for its stone statues, known as Moai - there are hundreds of these across the island, mostly fallen and broken, but there are
a number of standing ones still remaining.. all guarding the meeting point of ruined villages... these Moai were built mostly around a 1000 years ago, and were all carved from the slopes of Rano Raraku, where hundreds of half finished figures remain buried in the earth, or still not removed from the volcanic rock.. through in the setting sun, and the spectacular volcanic lagoon, and the 15 Moai standing guard on the coast only a mile away, and you really get the idea of somewhere completely alien to the rest of the world..
As for our visit, we soon became accoustomed to the laid back Polynesian life, and our 5 days on the island passed slowly, as we spent evenings watching the sun set over the Moai, camped on night at a picture postcard beach guarded by huge Moai, and also drove all over the island in a 4wd jeep. We made friends with the small number of other travellers there, many of whom are also heading on to French Polynesia. And so, under a scorching sun, and not feeling Christmassy at all, we set out on another 6 hour flight (honestly, this Pacific Ocean is BIG) to Tahiti.
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samantha
non-member comment
wow
how did they come here