Vacacion Parte II - Isla de Pascua

Welcome to the second installment of my month long vacation!

This week, I went to Easter Island, a Polynesian Island located 5 hours west of Chile. It is also known as Isla de Pascua in Spanish, and Rapa Nui the native language to the islanders. It's known for the mysterious statues located all around the island called moai. That's about all the education you are gonna get from me on the subject. Read more about it on wiki if you want to get more information. Below is the day by day breakdown of my Easter Island adventure.

Saturday.
I arrived in EI and met a 2 chilean girls from Vaparaiso and hung out with them for a bit. We headed over the moai closest to town to take a look around. I went back there to catch the same moai for a sunset view.

Sunday.
In the morning, I went to the museum on EI to get a better understanding of what I was seeing, the history, Rapa Nui culture, theories from archaeologists, etc...
In the afternoon, I set my sights on hiking up the largest volcano on the island, Rano Kau. However, the hikers path wasn't marked as clearly as I hoped. By the time I passed 4 or 5 forks in the path and realized I wasn't where I was supposed to be it started to rain. I decided to head back down and try again some other time. Of course, then it started to pour and I got a blister from wearing wet socks (this information becomes pertinent later, I promise)

Monday.
I rent a jeep with the 2 Valpo. girls, Paola and Gabi. They happen to have a friend, Andres, also from Valpo, who lives on the island. The 4 of us drive around the island to see all of the moai and caves. We go to the first cave (or cueva) Te Pahu. My left knee still hurts from my fall while skiing the weekend before, and my right foot has a blister. The ground in the cave was damp so I was constantly looking down because I can't handle any more feet or leg injuries. After all, I have 3 more weeks of traveling to get through! So, what do you think happens? You guessed it.... I look down and without realizing it, the ceiling in the cave got really low and I bashed my head and screamed "hay sangre! hay sangre!" (there's blood, there's blood!) but after the initial shock and realizing there is no permanent damage, we move on.... to the next cave. I have absolutely no interest in going into another cave, but I was told that Dos Ventanas (2 windows) is incredible and a bit hard to find. Since we had a resident with us, I shouldn't skip it. Dos Ventanas lived up to its expectations. It's a very small cave that opens up to the ocean with 2 separate openings. (pics in the link below)

Then we go to the rest of the standing moai and head to the beach at Anakena for sunset. Andres, not native to the island, lives in an apartment near the family of his boss who are native to EI, and another guy, Laser, also a Rapa Nui native. We have dinner at their house and drink some wine and have a great evening with some locals.

Tuesday.
Laser, Andres, the 2 Valpo girls and I decide to go fishing. Let me clarify, Andres and Laser do most of the fishing, the 2 other girls and myself go along for the scenery. We went around most of the island and they caught 14 fish! In the evening we went back to their house and had a big fish dinner! It was delicious and really fun. After cooking the fish on a giant try, the whole family and the 2 guys and 2 girls stood around the tray full of fish with forks in hand and just stood around picking at all the fish. There were no plates, no chairs, just fish and beer. Then we stood around the fire for a bit and chatted (I mostly listened as my spanish is still a work in progress).

Wednesday.
I finally went back up to the Rano Kau Volcano (in a car, not hiking). It rained most of the day and I was tired from the previous few days in the sun and staying up late with the people I met, so I just hung out. I met some people from New York and hung out with them. We had a delicious dinner at a japanese restaurant on the island with the funniest chef ever. He has this little restaurant and he is the only person that works there. He cooks, cleans... the whole thing. He even has the small tiny kitchen open so you can watch and chat with him as he cooks.

Thursday.
Another backpacker told me about this amazing French tour guide that lives on the island. I hadn't yet gone on a guided tour and felt that I still had more that I wanted to learn that I couldn't get from the museum. I also didn't want to go on a standard tour with a whole bunch of people to the places around the island I had already been to. I met Christophe, and with the other New Yorkers that I met the day before, we went on a 1/2 day hike up the Poike Volcano. None of us had gone there and we would have never found the cool places on the volcano without him. Poike is the place were the moai originated. What may be considered one of the first moai is there. It's much smaller than the others around the island, it's white instead of black, and it isn't propped up on the ahu (alter) as most others are. The crater of the volcano was filled with a eucalyptus forrest, and down the cliff on the side of the volcano is a cave with some petroglyphs. Christophe was an excellent guide for the day. He used to live in Tahiti and came to EI for the surfing. He visited a number of times, and decided that he loved the island so much that he wanted to move there. He has now lived there for a year and while he isn't native to the island, he was definitely knowledgeable and passionate about everything relating to Easter Island.

After the hike, we went back to Anakena for some lunch and relaxation. Then, back to the japanese restaurant for a terrific last meal before I left the island.

Friday.
Woke up ridiculously early to catch the sunrise back at Ahu Tongariki and then to the airport to return to Santiago.

For those not that technically savy, there are 3 albums and yes, you have to look at all of them:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2296759&l=59328&id=907196

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2296770&l=eaa93&id=907196

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2296776&l=10045&id=907196

Next up.... San Pedro de Atacama!