The Second 16th of July

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Its not often that your presented with the true oddities of the world, but for us this 16th of July was lived twice - with lots of scrummy airplane food to help the time just fly by (dededumph tsh). It´s a strange mathematical fix that has you leaving at 5 in the evening, spending 12 hours on a plane and arriving at midday 5 hours before you left. Suffice to say we enjoyed the oddity and haven´t slept since - combined with the travelling Brazillian students ability to party longer and harder than man ever has before (just a shame they only know 2 songs).

It was all worth it, however, as after a short stop off in the Chillian capital and surprisingly vibrant city of Santiago de Chile we were headed to one of the remotest places on earth - Isla de Pascua or Easter Island for those who haven´t spent the wee small hour learning Spanish.

I say ´remotest places´well ....

at least they don´t have a McDonalds, yet. When we booked our flight some time last year when we had jobs, money, responsibilities and all that other bumph there were only 2 flights a week and around 60,000 visitors a year. This January though LAN (wonderful airline by the way - best so far) decided to fly daily and by the end of Febuary the island had seen 54,000 visitors in 2008. Thankfully for us it was off season a relatively chilly (dededumph tsh) 22 degrees - brrr. So we still had the feeling that the island was our own slice of tropical paradise with some funky statues thrown in.

We were also lucky enough to partake in many of the national pastimes while on the island riding horses too fast with absolutely no safety equipment , being followed by pack of friendly stray dogs and of course the number one eating Tuna. Now we like fish as much as the next person, but when it lives all around you and comes in a Cornish Pasty with cheese you can have too much of a good thing.

We did manage to drag ourselves away from the beach front cafes for long enough, however, to make a full circumnavigation of the island (it isn´t that big). The first half on horse back and the second on Quad Bike. I think a fair split for the boys and girls. The only problems being that the first didn´t really want to go that fast (well Nic´s at least, Duncan´s went like a bat out of hell) and the second had a tendency to well ... go on fire.

Going on fire is not a particularly good thing for a quad bike to do for a few reasons. Firstly fire, as you all know, can get quite toasty and isn´t the best when happening at your feet. Secondly these bike contain quite a bit of Gasolina, situated just below an even more vital place, and hence quite a big no no. Thankfully , however, the fire was extinguished (by the highly technical firefighting method of ´blowing on it´) and much laughter was had by Nic and our new found Irish friend Melanie. Much revenge was had though when Melanie´s horse just refused to go, even when caught in the middle of a stampede of angry cows caused by our wandering dog friends.

Just a point for any dogs that are reading, if you chase a baby cow you will probably anger its mother. If you do it in front of 50 cows and a few bulls you really need a horse to cower under (Melanie´s - ha ha).

Our time on the island was finished off in our true style and with a level of panache and verve rarely seen on the island - souvenir shopping. If there is one thing that our months of travel have taught us it´s that you should never accept the first price and as Nic went looking for that perfect Stone Moai there was no stopping her. We visited ever shop on the island (literally), weighed the candidates checking for plaster copies and discarded many because they looked sad or grumpy or just plain evil. Finally a winner was found a price bartered and I finally got my dinner - Tuna i think.

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