Easter Island

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So we flew from Rio de Janeiro to Santaigo through Sao Paulo (and a very big thunderstorm!) and checked into the backpacker's place we'd stayed at when we were here before, the miserable bloke behind the desk recognised us in a puzzed kind of way! We had 1 night there before catching the flight to Isla Pascua or Easter Island as it's more commonly know to gringos!
nearly 6 hours of nothing but the blue waters of the Pacific below us we finally caught our first glimpses of one of the most isolated (inhabited) places on earth.

We spend the next few days going around the (very) small island using various modes of transport, including feet, jeep, taxi and quad-bike (the quad-bike we nearly crashed a few times and Guy had great fun 'doughnuting'!!!)

Easter Island is a spectacular place, only 3000 inhabitants and hundreds of the mysterious 'moai' statues, all in various stages of disrepair. We climbed to the inactive volcano crater which was the main 'factory' where the moai were carved out of the ground and transported to various parts of the island. Saw lots of horses (both alive and dead) and ate some tasty empanadas that upset our tummies; EI is spectacularly expensive, understandably, given it's location so we were living off of pineapples, empanadas and fish & chips!

As everyting is imported from Santiago, the baggage conveyor belt at the arrivals terminal was an interesting (and sometimes hilarious) sight; bicycles, rucsacks, brown-paper parcels, a dog, a uni-cycle and a cage full of budgeriegars! It reminded us of an episode of the generation game! No sign of Larry Grayson (or Jim Davidson) anywhere!

Hope you enjoy the photos and sorry for the lack of/delay in updating this blog (we're in NZ now). Will try and keep more up to date in the future! (Pacific Islands coming next...) Thanks to everybody who has been in touch, hope this blog finds you all in fine fettle!
Pip Pip, Guy and Rachel.

PS - we bumped into someone from North Kilworth while on Easter Island (Fay & Tim, get in touch if you're reading this!)

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Photos

Flower Power
Rachel at arrivals, Easter Island

Sunrise
Our first morning on Easter Island

Tete a tete
Rachel gets up close and personal

Side by side
Rachel an a big stony friend

Beach
this was the best one on the island

Eye eye
this one's got someting in it's eye... look closely

Last South American sunset
with a tear in our eye, we say goodbye to this fantastic continent