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The hook had barely touched the water when a voracious mouth with teeth like sickles attached itself to the chicken on the end. Fish number three would do to satisfy my meat intake for the day. The date on my watch indicated it was Tuesday, I had been here over a week and a half. Was it really that long? The days had passed by so quickly...a sure sign that I was enjoying myself. I had better be, I had travelled over two thousand kilometres by bus and taken a five hour flight to reach the most isolated piece of land on the planet. Subject of an ill received Kevin Costner movie and setting for a cult so bizarre you would never believe that it existed if it weren't for a plethora of stone statues left behind, Rapa Nui fuels the imagination of visitors and they in turn the economy of the island.
In case their looks hadn't then an exchange of words between them caught my attention. Slovenke/Slovenians? But of course. Bringing my sightings of Slovenians to eight so far on this trip and getting a work out in my mother tongue, I received the low-down on the place
and talked my way into joining them to watch the sunrise the next morning. Six thirty and half asleep, I climbed into their jeep and we set off on deserted roads on a moon-less night. Dodging wild horses and debating which route to take, local music blasted through the speakers until we stopped some twenty minutes later. A couple of four-wheel-drives stood there, parked in the darkness and behind a low lying wall, illuminated by our vehicle's lights, a large stone statue, a moai, gazed inland. A couple of photographs later the sky began to change colour. Black turned into dark blue, into pink then red. Then we saw them.
Fifteen moai, toppled by a tsunami, now resurrected, Tongariki brought out the children in us. Gunning our shutters to oblivion and waving our cameras around like they were flags, we made the best of the light as we recorded the event to pixel memory. Saying goodbye to the girls, I headed off to nearby Raraku volcano, the birth place of the island's moais. Waiting in vain for the park officials to show up and mugged by the over-eager resident dogs, I made my way through the break in the
dormant giant. In a tree near the crater lake a kitten meowed as it vied for my attention and a saviour. Back at the ranger's office, still no sign of any employees but some visitors had shown up and I left Kit-Kat with a lady. What I hadn't counted on was how quickly the little critter would grow attached to me. Jumping out of the woman's arms and running into mine, it took a number of attempts before I could detach it from me to discover the quarry.
Visit complete, the rangers had finally shown up. It appears their tardiness was due not to oversleeping but rather an unfortunate incident involving their car and a stallion.
You eat horses, don't you? No! was the emphatic reply.
I guess Slovenia's Horse Burger chain won't be opening here any time soon.
Could you tell me which path to take to get to Anakena beach? I queried a ranger.
It's dangerous. There are cows and bulls, was the reply.
Mmm, what? You call that danger?!? I had to leave contact details in case of an accident (pejdnekam@email.si) before they would show me the way.
Cross
country, not a person in sight, only volcanoes and herds of wild horses. A lone tree had found shelter behind a rock, escaping the wind...only it wasn't a rock. Far from tourist's eyes in the middle of the island I had stumbled upon the first of many solitary moai that didn't come with a name. Chiseled over a millennium ago, subject of worship and now serving as a wind breaker for an equally lonely tree and a perch for a falcon. The moai of Tongariki and Anakena may appeal to the masses but these solitary, solemn giants found off the beaten path, came to represent quintessential Rapa Nui to me. A fortnight of treks, fishing, discovery and immersion. A vacation from a vacation. Sweet surrender.
P.S. In one for the trivia books, I notice that the local Mrs. Robinson, a cross between a Filipino tart and a Thai ladyboy has found herself a victim. As I pass her massage parlour, she has finished palm reading and is swooping in for a kiss. The things one encounters when travelling...
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