Advertisement
Spending three days by myself on the island was quite a bit of fun, but I was really looking forward to seeing my friends today as I haven't seen them for over a month. These are my friends Alejandro and Linnea whom I lived in the same building with in La Paz, Bolivia for the time I was living there as well. When they heard that I found such a cheap flight to Easter Island, they decided that they would take vacation and join me out there 😊 Alejandro, at least, had planned on visiting the island after his contract was finished but with the seat-sale on, it was the right time to go. Before the arrival of Linnea and Alejandro, I had my own room at the hostel but I gave it up for them and shared a room with an Italian guy for the remainder of my stay on Rapa Nui. Elvira, the owner of the hostel, and I went to the airport early to pick them up, first having a coffee in the airport café and then going to meet them as they came off the plane. On our first day together on the island, we went
to see the moai close to the village of Hanga Roa and went to a restaurant to try out their tuna and cheese empanadas... muy ricas!!
The second day on Rapa Nui, we decided to rent bicycles to visit the sites along the south of the island, visiting Rano Raraku (a volcano where the moai where carved out of) and finally finishing at the beach. Having the first part of the bike ride going uphill against the wind did not help us on our time at all. After visiting a few sites along the south coast, and taking a wrong road to Rano Raraku we finally made it there in mid-afternoon, visited the site, then we were off to visit the eleven standing moai close to the volcano. This is as far as we would get for today as we were all tired and the weather wasn't the best for the beach anyway.
The third day, we climbed to the crater of Rano Kau, just south of Hanga Roa. We were accompanied by two dogs the whole way there. Obviously it was not their first time following tourists, as we found the dogs resting at a marked "resting
Fallen Moai
The red rock is their hats. I don't think there is any current plan to stand these moai back up. point" as we came upon it. What a gorgeous view from the top of the crater! The crate is much, much larger than the one at Rano Raraku and this one has a great view of the ocean! After hiking back to town and enjoying another tuna and cheese empanada, we were off to the beach. Wasn't really beach weather, but Alejandro and I went in for a swim. While the sun was out it was nice and warm, when the sun hid behind the clouds, then it was another story! The taxi there and back cost us $CH 10000 ($20), quite cheap considering that the taxi drove us the 18km to the beach, drove back to town and came back to get us two hours later.
Our last full day on the island, we took a taxi as far as Ahu Akivi, where we would the see the last of the standing moai on the island... seven in all at this location. We hiked back to Hanga Roa stopping at various sites including the caves at Ahu Te Pehu... quite interesting caves that go on for quite a distance! At the next site, it started to rain so
we ducked behind some moai ruins and had lunch and hoped for the rain to stop. Finally on our way back to Hanga Roa, we stopped at Las Dos Ventanas (the two windows), two caves off of the road back to Hanga Roa. Quite interesting, but in my opinion, not as interesting as the ones at Ahu Te Pehu! Back in town that evening, we went to a local show at one of the restaurants and went for drinks at a local bar afterwards before calling it a night.
Hard to believe how quickly the week went by on Easter Island. I could have definitely spent more time there. Having a full moon twice in the month of May meant that I was on Easter Island during a blue moon.. what a coincidence!! Might be quite hard to back to the mainland and dealing with things like traffic and pollution. But I guess on the mainland that the grocery stores will be carrying fresh fruits and vegetables all the time instead of only a few hours after each plane arrives on the island.
Would I go back to Easter Island? I wouldn't have to think twice about that.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.179s; Tpl: 0.027s; cc: 19; qc: 103; dbt: 0.1129s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb