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Published: January 8th 2010
Well, after just about 2 hours of sleep, I went to the airport - at least I thought so, until they controlled my ticket in the bus and told me, that this is not the bus to the airport, but the bus to blablaba (forgot the name)! They did let me get off the bus about 30 - 45 minutes after we started at an tax-control of the highway and told me: Stop a bus, that is coming the other way, it will bring you back! ... Okay ... first I tried to cross the 8 lanes of the highway in the middle of the night, without being killed ... done, good ... then the buses ignored me (there have not been many and I was already almost late for getting in time to the airport) ... so I spoke to one of the staff of the tax-control and he stopped the next bus and argued about 2 minutes with the driver, if he would take me with them ... but finally he agreed and so I returned to the bus-station (30 minutes later) and finally took the correct bus to the airport. I was there just in time (thanks good),
being one of the last persons of the flight, that checked in - yes, I made it! :-)
The flight was very nice, with LAN and lot´s of films and a very good service. The first thing I encountered at the Easter Islands (after 5 hours of flight), was the humid heat there :-) I informed myself at the airport about accommodation - there are small info-stands of the accommodations at the airport and they all have photos of the rooms and provide transportation. So I choose one, where the accommodation did look nice and the owner was very friendly and also the price was good. I went there with a couple, that was having its honey-moon. The accommodation was really nice - a building made of wood and I had my room at the first floor - sharing the floor with an English-teacher of the nearby school. The atmosphere was very relaxed and I ended up chatting with the owner about Austria and she went to search a CD with music of Mozart and we ate Mango from the Mango-tree in the garden - really great!
As I "lost" my diary, I have to remember, what happend
and that will be of course shorter and not that detailed:
I decided to do the first day nothing - absolutely nothing :-) That was great! Just hanging around in the garden, or visiting the harbour, to see my first Moai - really impressing. So I decided to make my visit at the island like this: One day relaxing, other day visiting some sites :-) One day I had a walk at the coast and visited some caves and also went to "Orongo" the site of the "bird-man"-cult (this is also the place, where the famous film "Rapa Nui" was made). Really impressing! On the way to there, you pass the crater of an Vulcan, that now "hosts" an lake and one of the walls has crumbled and you have a beautiful view of the sea - very, very beautiful. Parts of the way I was accompanied by a dog, who refused to share lunch with me, but preferred walking on my side for a few hours - how nice! ;-) Well, in fact, I´m not moving too fast, because the heat here is tropical and you sweat a lot.
The next day was just relaxing again and
I watched a great sunset and made lots of pictures. There´s also a film-festival at the moment and so I went to see some South-American films - really nice. I saw an film from Chile (The Nanny), one from Mexico (The district) and one from Peru (about an radio-love-story) - really interesting, but sometimes also heavy ... and the small, closed room, with plenty of people, made it a sweating experience ;-)
The other day, I decided to make a tour to the east-side of the island. On the way to there I visited a museum and I waited below a tree about 15 minutes, because it started to rain heavily. Thanks god after this, the sun did shine and I had no more problems with the weather. From the museum 3 "guide-dogs" decided to join me on my journey, always running about 5-50 meters in front of me, showing the way (and fighting with the bulls ... :-). People also told me, that I will need a guide, to find the entrance to the caves, that should be difficult to find, but I decided to try it on my own. The landscape there is really gorgeous and I
kept walking at the shore, following the dogs, that seemed to know the way. All of a sudden, they disappeared and I was puzzled, because it was at an plain territory and I couldn´t explain, where they have gone to. But after a few seconds, one of them appeared again, about 100m in front of me, looked at me as if to say "What are you waiting for?" and disappeared again. Curiously, I went to the place where the dog has been and discovered an hidden entrance to an cave at the ground, hardly big enough to let me enter. I wasn´t sure, what to do, but after a few seconds the dog returned and looked at me again, turned around and entered again. So I decided to have a closer look and after about 10-20 meters of crawling in the dark, I entered into an cave below the ground and in front I could see two "windows" open to the sea - a spectacular view! The dog was lying in front of one of the windows, waiting ... Thanks, my friend - I definitely would not have found this entrance without your help!
I continued my journey and
2 dogs decided to stay there, but one continued to show me the way. I had lunch at the shadow of some trees (because again it was brutally hot), but the dog didn´t want to have anything to eat - amazing. We continued together to another site on the way and again he showed me the entrance to an cave, that (in my opinion) not is an official one, because you had to climb down a tree and it was really narrow and there where lots of spider-webs. But I already trusted my friend and he showed me some really nice places there - incredible. I guess the dogs are used to the tourists and just like to spend their time with them and also already know the way very good :-) After this I continued to the site, where there are several Moais looking onto the sea (which is a novelty, because all the other Moais are looking inland) and the dog decided that this is enough and left me alone :-) Finally I went to the Vulcan, where they made the big, rad hats of the Moais - also very impressing and then searched to find my way
Harbour 4
Early Siestaback home. All in all, it was a big journey (all the day) and I was walking a lot in the hot sun. So I was happy, that the next day I could only relax, nothing more ;-)
One day I decided that the sites on the very north-east-part of the island are too far away to be easily hiked in one day and rented a scooter. This was fun too! :-) More than once I had to stop and let pass the heavy-traffic pass by (mostly cows :-). On this day I visited several, astonishing sites, but the by far most impressing one, was the "Moai-factory". A Vulcan, where you can find hundreds of Moais at the hill-side of the Vulcan, in all the different stages of building (half-ready, ready to be transported, almost hardly begun, ...). It´s really astonishing - when I approached the site, it looked so artificial to me, that one could think, this is not a place on this earth, but somewhere else, out in the galaxy! Amazing, what this culture has done here. And also the pictures I´ve taken, can also transport part of the magic, that this place has - you really
have to see it on your own! At one site I also met an native, with traditional closing (one could say, he was almost wearing nothing - but he gently refused to have photos taken and I respected that), who was working to protect a part of the site with carvings, that the unwary tourists just step on to. I kept talking for a while with him and it was a really great experience.
Finally, finally there did come the day, when I had to say goodbye again ... snif ... sadly, but true ... I had also met lots of nice people at the accommodation, so that it was really hard, to say goodbye. At the airport there happened something annoying - I did forget to take my small cutlery (a combination of knife, fork and spoon in one tool) out of my small bag and at the control they confiscated it ... well, that means, I will have to search for a new one ... But this didn´t impact my very positive and great impression of the island and so I took the luxury flight back to Santiago with LAN, where already new adventures with the CS-community
Harbour 6
Main Siesta-time :-) where waiting for me ... But this ... ah, you already know :-)
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Leonardo
non-member comment
Hoa martin!!!
Hola martin que bueno todo esto por lo que veo seguis girando...cuanto me alegro amigo... Feliz año nuevo!! Yo por mi parte estoy en panama tratando de quedarme ya que por temas migratorias esta complicado pero muy lindo!!! Me alegra mucho saber de voste mando un abrazo enorme!