Easter Island & Santiago

Firstly, I must apologize for the quality of the photos in this blog as we have had difficulty finding an internet with the software to download the pics correctly - hence the photos lack the finished touch.

Flew from Lima to Santiago after less than a 12 hour stop over in Lima. Our night in Lima was a restless one, as the U12 World Cup was being played outside our window until the loud speaker sounded at 1:30am to end the game - taxi picked us up at 5:30am.

Flighting to Santiago provided some awesome views of the Andes until we reached the outskirts of Santiago where the thick layer of smog blocked any further views we would have of the Andes for the next couple of days. Supposedly, the smog is only an issue during the winter months. The locals voice the loudest complaints and concerns about the smog issue and are first to point out that you can never trust the reported air quality reports especially in the summer. Really enjoyed the city of Santiago which is a cross between a European city with wide streets, boulevards and a winding river, and the US with the abundance of fast food restaurants - note all Chilean, very few American. We stayed in the area of Bellavista which is an awesome place to be. Its full of bars, cafes and restaurants hopping all the time with students and young professionals.

Our first night in Chile we enjoyed a few local bevies, a good bottle of Chilean wine and two monstrous portions of food. The leg of pork I ordered was so big it came on a turkey platter but did not come with a carving knife and was a wee bit under cooked. This resulted in me peeing out of my arse and not eating a solid thing for (4) days - not the crash diet I had intended.

While in Santiago we took a local bus ride an hour and ½ out of Santiago to the beach towns of Valparaíso and Vina del Mar. The towns looked great on postcards, and that´s about all we can tell you about these two places as the fog had rolled in by the time we got there and our visibility was limited to 100 feet.

Took in a wine tour of Concha y Toro during our last day in Santiago - typical wine tour with a few free glasses of wine and a bit of history.

On to our main destination of Chile - Easter Island. Wow is it remote and in the middle of nowhere. The closest point of land is 4,000 kms - a 5hr plane ride (Tahiti or Santiago). Current population is 3,800 with (2) paved roads. Must admit, that it was a lot more rural than we had anticipated, given the amount of publicity and tourism that swirls around this place.

The Moai are awesome and the rugged coastline with the big surf of the Pacific Ocean is something you never get bored of watching. Another sight one never got bored of watching was the over 1,000 horses that are free to roam the land at will - although thought by many to be wild, they do have owners and can be bought for $100 US each. Certaintly cheaper than a couple of beers, a pizza and an hour on the internet.

Easter Island has a ton to offer if you have the time and the weather on your side. Mt biking and diving are certaintly big draws as are the pinky sandy beaches. Of the Moai statues, the 15 Moai that have been restored by the Japanese Government were by far the most impressive of the restorations that we saw. Unfortunately, due to ¨Hurricane-Like¨ weather, for our last day and ½ we were unable to take advantage of our scooter rental and explore the island on our own. Luckily, we had taken in two tours of the island to ensure we saw all the sights, which also happened to be during the first day and ½ of our stay. Having experienced several tropical storms and a hurricane in the past couple of years, we can confidently state that the horizontal rain that came down for 18hrs straight with the 100 plus gusts of wind (I´m guessing) made us take notice of the winter storms that visit the island ocassionally.

Surpised to be able to take off and return to Santiago, we are now on our way to the Chilean Lake district to cross into Argentina.

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