Blogs from Easter Island, Chile, South America - page 13

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South America » Chile » Easter Island January 2nd 2009

Well, it´s the 2nd January and I´m lazying around Punta Arenas so maybe I should update this, shouldn´t I? I finished with Mendoza, the most chilled out part of the trip. On we went over the Andes mountains into Chile. The journey was quite amazing, going in this very old, half broken bus at breakneck speeds accross winding roads and altitudes going up to 4000 meters. The bus driver was insane and kept poining out things along the way while holding the wheel with one hand and cutting corners above a cliff. I´ve been on some crazy bus rides before but this was one of the more interesting ones. The Argentinian side of the mountains is very dry, arid and desert-like. The minute we crossed into Chile, the countryside turned green as if to forecast a ... read more
Mount Aconcaqua
Snow in the Andes
Welcome to Chile, yay!

South America » Chile » Easter Island December 22nd 2008

I took a long flight across the Pacific Ocean from Auckland to Santiago, Chile´s capital city. After a day of relaxing at the hostel in Santiago, I boarded yet another flight to Easter Island for a five day journey. Easter Island (Rapa Nui in Polynesian) is one of the world's most isolated inhabited islands. The island is a special territory of Chile. Its name was given by the island's first recorded European visitor, the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen, who encountered Easter Island on Easter Sunday 1722 and is famous for its monumental statues, called Moai. Moai are monolithic human figures (the 'living faces' of deified ancestors) carved from rock between 1250 and 1500 AD. Nearly half are still at Rano Raraku, the main moai quarry, but hundreds were transported from there and set on stone platforms ... read more
Hanga Roa sunset
Tahai
Tahai

South America » Chile » Easter Island » Hanga Roa December 1st 2008

Easter Island (otherwise known as "Rapa Nui" or "Isla de Pascua") was a must do stop for us despite the expense of getting and staying here. Magnus has wanted to come here for years and San still remembers talking about it over their second date together. So off we embarked on our first flight in over 3 months. Easter Island is over 2,000 miles from the nearest population center, (Tahiti and Chile), making it one of the most isolated places on Earth. It is best known for the giant stone monoliths, known as Moai, that dot the coastline. The early settlers called the island "Te Pito O Te Henua" (Navel of The World). We arrived at this triangle of volcanic rock in the middle of the South Pacific and were immediately greeted with the sweltering heat ... read more
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South America » Chile » Easter Island November 5th 2008

Our round the world air ticket required that we fly all the way across the pacific to Santiago before flying half way back again to our first destination Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, or Isla de Pasqua depending on your pursausion. I think i´ll go with Rapa Nui, ok so mainly to be pretentious but also due to the fact that that is its proper name. Rapa Nui is the most remote inhabited place in the world, some 3,700km from Chile and 1,300km from Pitcairn Island - ok i may be slightly off with those distances as i don´t have the literature to hand and quite frankly can´t really be bothered to find it, but suffice to say it is a very long way from anywhere. It is quite frankly in the middle of nowhere, and ... read more
Moai at Hanga Roa, Rapa Nui
Something green just came out of this ones nose!
Reporting for duty at Ahu Tongariki

South America » Chile » Easter Island » Hanga Roa November 3rd 2008

Nun sind wir endlich an dem Ort angekommen, auf den wir uns am meisten gefreut hatten. Nach 5 Stunden Flug übers offene Meer sind wir gestern auf der Osterinsel gelandet. Nachdem wir herzlich mit einer Blumenkette begrüsst wurden, haben wir auch schon die ersten Moais gesehen. Das sind die tollen Statuen, die jeder kennt und weshalb man überhaupt hier her kommt, auf eine Insel, mitten im Pazifik, 3700km von jeder Zivilisation entfernt. Heute haben wir uns dann einen Jeep ausgeborgt und haben die Insel erkundet. Überall an der Küste findet man die Moais manchmal einzeln, manchmal mehr auf einmal, manchmal stehend, manchmal liegend und manchmal mit Hut. Hier lassen wir uns so richtig treiben, abseits von der restlichen Welt. Essen ist teuer, daher kochen wir nun wirklich selbst. Morgen schauen wir uns noch die übrigen Sehenswürdigkeiten ... read more

South America » Chile » Easter Island » Hanga Roa November 2nd 2008

Valparaiso, Santiago and Easter Island, a Bit of Everything - by George They're all part of the same country, they're all on roughly the same line of latitude, a rarity for Chile, and they're all hot at this time of year. These are about all the similarities I can find for the trio, a fun but diverse set of places to discover. Fresh from our stay in Mendoza we headed over the Andes to Chile, one of the World's most environmentally diverse countries and a true freak of nature. I challenge anyone to find a country with a greater North/South coverage of the World. Border formalities on entering Chile stand out on our travels. Their focus seems to be entirely on not letting rogue fruit, food and animal products in; something which could wreak havoc for ... read more
Valparaiso Street Scene
Shanty Colour
Funicular

South America » Chile » Easter Island October 26th 2008

Man hoert ja doch so Einiges ueber die Osterinsel. Aber ich muss sagen, es hat sich absolut gelohnt dahin zu fliegen und sich die Insel anzuschauen. Beindruckend und ueberwaeltigend. Mitten im Ozean, die naechste Insel ist knapp 3000km entfernt. Die Geschichten und Hintergruende ueber die Moais (Steinstatuen) und dass es auf der Insel keine Baeume mehr gab, weil sie wohl fuer den Transport der Moais benutzt wurden. Heute werden aber wieder ein paar angepflanzt um die Erossion zu stoppen. Der Flugplatz ist der Kleinste, den ich je gesehen habe. Es landen hier immerhin Boing 767 aber eben nur 2mal am Tag. Einmal von Santiago und einmal von Tahiti. Es gibt 3 Vulkane aus denen die Insel entstanden ist. Ein Krater dient heute als Frischwasser Reservoir und der andere wurde benutzt um die Moais zu fertigen. Doch ... read more
Osterinsel
Osterinsel
Osterinsel

South America » Chile » Easter Island » Hanga Roa October 16th 2008

Pues bueno, de nuevo en santiago, acabamos justo de volver de isla de pascua. Doce dias como doce soles, con pedazo luna llena incluida los dos ultimos dias, puestas de sol, arcoiris...Bueno, que estamos tan contentos y que nos lo hemos pasado requetebien. Han sido muchos dias, tantos que nos ha dado tiempo a volver una y otra vez a ver los sitios mas bonitos de la isla, el volcan rano raraku, con sus moais a medias, los que quedaron inacabados a saber por que, enterrados hasta el cuello en la tierra. Tambien hemos visto todos los que estan de pie, los que tiraron ellos mismos, los rapa nui, con sus guerras, y la fila de 15, impresionantes... Con bici, andando las mas de las veces, a jalon, hemos recorrido sin parar toda la isla de ... read more
moai de lao
petroglifos en aldea orongo
encaje de piedras

South America » Chile » Easter Island » Hanga Roa October 10th 2008

Day 98: Sunday 5th October - Arriving in Rapa Nui and climbing up to Rano Kau I need a guy in the bunk below to wake me as I end up sleeping through two alarms. Fortunately I make my flight but I feel rough on the taxi ride to the airport and also sat about the airport.....maybe it wasn't a good idea staying up drinking to the early hours?! The flight leaves at 8am and it is five and a half hours to Easter Island, which although a Chilean territory, is almost 4000km from the coast of South America. Easter Island happens to be the most isolated place on earth, being almost 2000km to the nearest inhabited island. The airline which is the Chilean national airline, LAN, is very good. One of the best airlines I've ... read more
1. The Easter Island parliament building!
3. Ranu Kao Volcano, Easter Island
4. Orongo Village, Easter Island

South America » Chile » Easter Island September 29th 2008

Easter Island The Legend of The Bird Man. The megaliths of Easter Island, other wise known as the Moai, are gigantic statues built by the Polynesians during 800/1600 AD. Cut from volcanic rock, these sacred ancestral faces haunt the Island even now. It's an eerie feeling to stand next to the 12m tall, black stone carvings. There are about 880 statues left on the island. Our venture out to Easter Island saw 900 people from the ship moved strategically, in tiny 8 passenger speedboats, to a small rocky walkway where we could hop ashore. The waves here are strong and slap the craggy beach edge with sass. The water is a deep blue, loaded with "delicious looking sea weed", that several Japanese passengers where tempted to catch. We climbed into a small van and were whisked ... read more
Sunrise
easter island
Our boat waits at sea




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