Hola All,
Easter island or Rapa nui or Isla de Pascau
Am over the loss of my entry now. Here is a link with a map
http://www.portalrapanui.cl/rapanui/mapa_isladepascua.htm
Arrival - We were glad to get off the flight and get to bed. LAN chile was absolutely fantastic. The service was great and heaps of legroom. The hostesses and hosts were very good looking and I was waiting for them to break into a tango all through the flights. No luck. Vanessa and I played who wants to be a millionaire and finally cracked the 100 million peso question after about 6 hours.
Day1 - Dogs, Chickens and farmers don't mix. 25km loop walk to Ahu Akivi. There were a couple of camp dogs - pets - and they decided to walk with us and by the time we left town they had invited 3 other along - a pack. We were the pied pipers of rapa nui. They had a lovely time chasing everything in site along the way: horses, cows, hawks, mice, other dogs and chickens. Would have been fine however the chickens belonged to a farmer who was not at all impressed. So not at all impressed that he went and got his gun and shot one of the dogs! We were standing next to him when he fired. So much for the pleasant walk. The dog was shot in the ear and bled all the way back to town (along with chasing other things) old habits are hard to change.
We got a little lost along the way and ended up in paka pui which was the quarry where the red top hats of the maoi were quarried. Were over walking at that point so took a short cut back through the long grass to town.
Day2 - Washed out. Heavy rain and wind. Didn't go outdoors and sat in the room fiddling around with the portable hard drive. So much so that I deleted the first days images from my camera. Bugger. Learn't 0-10 in spanish and a little more.
Day3 - Still windy but no rain. Hired a small 4wd and headed out to explore the NE of the island. Up to Aneka beach which has white sands, turquoise water and an ahu (platform) and maoi. Then we travelled down the coast to Ahu Tonganki and to Rano (volcano) Raraka from which the maoi were carved. This for me was the most amazing part. There were lots of heads sticking out of the ground - and lots of other tourists. Along the coast there were a lot of ahu's and we had lunch at hanga tetenga. Drove up Rano Kau to Orongo. Beautiful volcano crater but didn't visit the orongo village.
Thought we had better confirm our flights when we got back. Found out that we hadn't left sydney and our future flights had been cancelled. Hm. Did not make sense considering we were in LAN chile office at Rapa nui! Flights fixed up so we don't have to live happily ever after on the island undetected.
Day 4 - Walked out to Cevernoa del las dos ventanas (the cave with two windows). Really hard to find and we met an american on the walk and asked her to show us the entrance. The cave was acutally a part of a lava tube that went out to the cliff. Nice view of the small islands just off the coast. There a heaps of lava tubes on the island with the largest we saw near ahu akivi on day one. The entraces were generally collapsed sections. Got sunburnt and looked like a tomato. Photosensitive with the malaria tablets.
Day 5 - Walked up to Orongo via the coast. Took a while to find the path through the high grass and lack of understanding of spanish signs. Nice walk and lunch about 3/4 the way up with vistas of hanga roa and the ocean. Orongo is an old stone village perched on the rim of the volcano and was associated with the birdman cult. There were heaps of petroglyphs. Walked back to Hanga roa and enjoyed just sitting and watching the waves and sun go down. Very relaxing.
Food? We lived on cupa soup, cheese, bread, plantanos(bananas) and sprite. Glad to get on the plane for a good meal :-) Food was expensive on the island being normal australian prices. We were just being tightarses.
Adios,
David & Vanessa
