Kaimana Inn Hotel Restaurant Easter Island

... cult replaced the following of the moai.



For unknown reasons, a coup by military leaders called matatoa had brought a new cult based around a previously unexceptional god Make-make. In the cult of the birdman (Rapanui: tangata manju) , a competition was established in which every year a representative of each clan, chosen by the leaders, would swim across shark ...

... space cos they enlarged the runway so that the space shuttle could land there if it needed. now that's part of the first pub quiz fact about the place-by enlarging the runway, it allowed concorde to land there and also until recently, made it the largest runway in that part of the world (no. 1 spot now goes to some place in brazil). interesting fact no.2 is that the island strangely looks just like scotland, but with some palm ...

Joe says: Arrived after a 5 and a half hour flight from santiago, the flight was actually quite compfortable as it had movies and stuff so it just flew. arrived at the airport and were greeted by a girl from our hostel. She gave us some flower necklaces (just like ud see in Hawaii) good start. We got to our hostel and were shown to our room which wasnt great to tell the truth but what the hell we were only spendin 3 days there ...

... and unremarkable, covered with groves of omnipresent eucalyptus trees. That dull appearance, however, yielded its place to a magnificent view of the caldera from the rim - a wide cauldron with precipitous walls and a shallow overgrown lake at the bottom. On the highest point of the rim was perched Orongo - ceremonial village of the late island dwellers, probably the last relic of bygone civilisation. It was still too early by Rapa Nui standards (10am or so), the village was ...

... seeing puffer fish and stone fish and lots of other things that I can't remember the names of. At the end of that dive I remembered why I was wanted to continue with this hobby. It definately helped to have a great buddy. I really enjoyed my time on Easter Island, it was worth breaking the journey there! Just a word of advice to anyone going there, don't believe the guide books which tell you that they only take US dollars - pesos are happily accepted ...

... vor sich hingestott**t; dass sie heute irgendwie das flugzeug nicht geho**t hatte, sie geht also imm** nach den G**auschen. Das fanden wir ja ziemlich amuesant; und dachten, na die Erika ist ja ne coole!! dann hat sie uns gleich wied** v**lassen und uns dem taxifahr** ueb**geben, sie hatte noch Sachen zu **ledigen....nun gut, wir waren uns sich** wir wu**den spaet** die Chance haben sie kennenzul**nen, das wurde uns ja als grosses plus angegeben, die pensionen sind ...

... town, stopping at Rano Raraku. This is the volcanic crater where all the moais were carved. There's plenty of statues to be seen here up closed, and because of my time constraint, I've decided to come back ...

... breathtaking site of Ahu Akivi. 'Ahu' are the great platforms on which the 'Moai' (statues) were erected. It still is very much a mystery why these statues were built and how the locals managed to erect such huge statues (the largest are more than 20 meters long) and haul them many miles from the quarry to the ahu. Various theories were introduced during the next few days but I like the one that says that aliens created them during their stay on Earth ...

... for a bit before going back to the hotel. Basically I didn't want the day to end.

DAY 3

Today we had the morning spare to look around the souvenir shops. There are not many shops in Hanga Roa to be fair but then shops are not what we went for. We picked up a couple of small keepsakes to take back and postcards. We did go round the newly built Artisans Market and there were plenty of things we could have bought but chose not to!

All too soon it ...