| The Lost Day |
Wed 12/02/03 |
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Worked on my New Zealand diary in the morning and made my way to the airport at around 1pm which turned out to be just in time as the plane to Santiago de Chile had been reschduled to leave 30 minutes earlier. On the bus I met an Austrian lady from Linz who had only days before been to the Easter Islands and was able to recommend a nice hostal! All went well, but could hardly sleep on the flight to South America, arriving into Santiago on the same day at around 12pm.
Checked my luggage through to the Easter Islands and caught the Airport Bus into town, where I wandered around looking for a suitable place to stay on my return and looking wether I would recoginse any of the city, which I did. The centre seemed busier, cleaner and with more nicer looking buildings than during my last visit together with Jochen some 5 years ago. Picked the youth hostel, which lay conveniently near to the final stop of the airport bus and made my way back to the airport.
Caught the plane to the Easter Islands, another 5 hour flight - arriving at 8pm local time, by the end of which I felt better than I expected, being afternoon New Zealand time.
Walked to the hostal that I had found out about some 30 hours earlier and managed to get a single room for US$20 including breakfast. The host Ana Maria "Meke" Edmunds Paoa made me feel really at home and I would sleep better than I had in a very long time.
In the evening the Edmunds family and some of the guests went to the football field in town where there was a group of islanders performing a local dance, being part of the Island Festival which takes place in February. Got to know one of Meke's sons Peke and Daniel, another guest from Santiago. Meandered on to an area of open air restaurants and then on the way back to another new Bar, finally getting home at around 2am.
| Easter Island Magic |
Thu 13/02/03 |
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Slept till almost midday and after a really tasty and huge breakfast walked into Hanga Roa and around the moai on the far side of town. Hanga Roa is the only real town on the Isla de Pascua with about 2500 inhabitants, hence walking from one end to another takes only about 30 minutes. In the evening I walked past the airport to the cliffs towards the east of Hanga Roa leading up to the Rano Raraku crater.
In the evening I went back to the other side of town as today the new reigna, the queen of the island, would be named and crowned, again being part of the island festivities. The whole ceremony was quite emotional with more dancing and music after the whole crowning ceremony with many tears and thanks to everyone (in spanish and rapa nui). Everything get's going very late here, so by the time the dancing had drawn to a close and some food and drink had been consumed and I was walking back to the hostal it again was 1 o'clock.
| Mountain Biking with Daniel |
Fri 14/02/03 |
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Had arranged to go on a bike trip around the Island with Daniel the day before, so rented a bike in the morning (Daniel had brought his on the plane) and started our tour of the island at around 11am.
Our first stop would be the highest point on the Island a group of old volcanoes called terevaka, rising about 550m above the sea, nevertheless a quite tireing ascent, from there made our way down towards anapaia beach, the only sand beach on the island where we rested and swam for a while. (the water was a perfect temperature!)
Continued in the late afternoon towards Rano Raraku, the old volcano which was the birhtplace of all moai figures, stopping at a group of moai called "Ahou Hanga Hoonu". At Rano Raraku the whole hillside is littered with finished, half finished or fallen moai statues, which were transported, at the theory goes, on wooden logs to their final destinations. Walked up to the top of the crater and took some more pictures of the statues on the descent before we cycled back towards Hanga Roa, which we reached at around 7:30pm.
Were pretty tired after this day, but felt excellent to go cycling again, and went to a restaurant recommended by Meke to have a fresh tuna steak to round off the day.
| Hiking up Rano Kau and Orongo |
Sat 15/02/03 |
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After the cycling adventure, we had decided to go up to the historic village of Orongo at the top of volcano Rano Kau, near Hanga Roa. Started our journey again around 11am and walked uphill for more than an hour to the mirador, from where we started the steep descent into the crater which is filled with water and at the base provides fertile soil and protection from the wind to a small forrest including various fruit trees.
Once we had climbed back to the rim we walked on to the historic village of Orongo, where I got a good view of the Motu islands and of the many historic stone and grass buildings that had been erected there. A very interesting place with some quite amazing views down the steep slope towards the three islands.
Returned to our "home" for a short rest and in the early evening walked towards and past the far side of the village towards "la cueva de los dos ventanas", which Peke had said was about 500m past the village. In the end the cave, which was formed by a lave tube, turned out to be about 5km from the village and the sun was already setting when we arrived there. Quickly scrambled inside and took some pictures of the sun setting through on of the two openings of the cave facing the Pacific and then decided to jogg back to Hanga Roa as it was getting dark very quickly. The whole trip took us about 45 minutes and towards the end the torches and the full moon helped us along our long way back.
Refreshed after a shower took a taxi back to witness the festivities ending the Island celebrations, which involved the new queen being carried down towards the water past some of the moai near town.
Then had some food and waited in front of the only disco in town trying to decide wether to actually go inside or rather head back home - in the end we opted to not join the groups of 16 year olds which flocked to the place...
| Water Sports Day |
Sun 16/02/03 |
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In the morning Daniel and I joined forces with a couple from Santiago to rent a boat in order to visit the Motu islands and do some snorkeling there. Meke took us down to the harbour and negotiated the price of CLP 12500 per person, after which we were off towards the Islands and got there about 30 minutes later. We circled round the highest of the three called Kau Kau and then drove past the smallest one (iti), stopping on the sheltered side of the large island to go swimming and snorkelling.
The colour of the water, a deep clear blue, astonished all of us and once we had jumped in and I was able to actually see all the fish with a visibility of between 30-40 metres, I really regretted not having done any scuba diving here! Still just with snorkel and mask diving and swimming around the island was incredible, also quite astonishing how poor my deep diving skills had become, barely being able to hold my breath for a minute.
We returned to Hanga Roa and made our way from the commercial harbour towards the small harbour closer to town, where some sea turtles had been sighted on the previous days. The snorkelling there proved to be extraordinary as well, even close to shore, yet with a much lower visibility, and on the return towards the harbour I followed Daniel who had in the meantime found the turtles.
In the end it turned out to be a group of three one larger and two smaller ones whith whom we swam for almost an hour. Quite amazingly the turtles were not too timid and let us swim aside with them at a distance of less than 2 metres, needless to say that this was a truely amazing experience.
In the eveing we celebrated our last night on the Isla de Pascua with lots of Escudo and for lack of alternatives, soda crackers with cheese and mortadella. Went to bed relatively early but didn't sleep to well after having had all that crap food.
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Meke Edmunds - Atamu Te Kena
Isla De Pascua - Ph: 100 380 |
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