Blogs from Easter Island, Chile, South America - page 20

7:00 am came really early this morning, possibly because we haven't gone to bed. The hostel in Santiago has been a blast and we have met some great people. Last night we had drinks with Tom (from Ireland), Peter (Sweden), Kegan (Canada), Claire (England) and Barb (Germany). These guys are incredible and hopefully we'll run across them again. Well we'll see Kegan because he's on this flight with us this morning. Take off is around 8:00 and with a five hour flight hopefully we can get some sleep. Sleep didn't happen as we sat in the middle row of the plane at a bulk head that the eight screaming kids on the plane thought was a walkway. I even put my feet up on the wall in an attempt to block their path while I slept ... read more

Happy New Year from Easter Island - or Rapa Nui as it is actually called by the locals. Easter Island is so remote, if you can´t pick it out on the map you should have a try. It´s part of Chile now but still 3,700km from the mainland. One of the most remote populated places on earth. So is it worth the trip? Well if quitting your job and blowing all your savings was something you were thinking of doing, then this is one of the places that makes it all feel worthwhile. Isolation, stunning scenery and literally tonnes of history and mystery. Around 400AD it is believed that about 100 Polynesians arrived here and set up home. They set about planting crops, hunting and fishing and by around 1000AD they were capable of supporting a ... read more

Dodging some serious rain showers, we paid a last visit to downtown Hanga Roa before our flight back to the 'Conti'. For those who somehow miss the craft vendors whose pickup trucks precede the procession of mini-buses at the island's main sites, there's an artisans' market selling an array of moai fridge magnets, shell necklaces and sarongs near the church. Despite my earnest supplication, I failed to convince Raúl to buy me an authentic coconut-shell brassiere. Still eager to offload a few final pesos? Not to worry, Mataveri airport has numerous souvenir stalls, and with little to do in the departures area but compare tan-lines with fellow tourists, they were pulling in the punters on our morning there. Sitting in the departures lounge was like watching a rapid recap of the holiday as a number of ... read more

Back on a bike the next day, we headed off to Ovahe beach early in the morning and, apart from three horses, had it all to ourselves for a couple of hours. We couldn't resist a brief second visit to nearby Anakena before returning to Hanga Roa for some rather large empanadas (savoury stuffed pastries). We tagged along on another tour in the afternoon, this time clambering through some of the island's caves. While the sites were less obviously impressive than those of the previous day, our native Rapa Nui guide was interesting and informative... And being ruggedly good-looking never hurts. Tour-trauma was beginning to affect us, however, as we had to endure two Spanish couples banging on about the infinite merits of their homeland. Whilst attempting to outdo each other in a 'I've-been-to-the-most-countries-in-the-world' contest, they ... read more

We landed on 'the belly-button of the world' (or Te pito o te henua in the Rapa Nui tongue), Easter Island, around lunchtime, and our tacky tourist fantasy of being received with a floral lei was fulfilled! Pablo from Aku Aku Tourism drove us the very short distance from Mataveri airport to the Hotel Manutara, where we stopped briefly to admire the tempting pool before walking to the town of Hanga Roa. After six months of public transport use in Buenos Aires, Raúl was eager to flex his driving muscle and so we rented a scooter for the afternoon, taking in some of the island's sights such as the Rano Kau crater and the seven sea-facing moai (the huge stone statues) at Ahu Akivi before returning to Hanga Roa to eat at the popular Te Moana ... read more