Hotel Hotu Matua Easter Island

... statues. the statues differed in size and whether they had a top knot (the hat looking thing which is actually meant to represent a hair style) but they did all have eyes and they all (except for 7 of them) faced inwards and looked skywards. these statues were placed on platforms around the island. the eyes were the last things to be placed in the statues and the islanders believed that the statues had karma or power which would ...

... prepared myself to a few days of solitude, donning running trainers i took my first run in far too long down the black beach... arriving back the hostel was packed! everyone had been out surfing that there was a really friendly international lot, all very chilled and wicked company... the next few days we all enjoyed chilling and watching the massive waves, not actually minding the stormy weather... cooking for each ...

<br><br><br>For the first time in my travelling career (evidently now my only career), I'm squinting at an inflight 'moving map' that does not display any place names. Not one. Nada. Even on the macro view, there's just a solid square of blue, bisected by the straight red line of our flight's path. Since I last checked on our progress, the land mass of South America has been sent packing off the right edge, whilst nothing worth labelling has bothered to turn up on the left. For ...

... built by the original Polynesian settlers to Rapa nui. We had nice ice cream on the harbour wall and went for a swim in the warm sea. Sunsets were spectacular from the campsite as the sun dipped into the pacific about 6.30pm each evening. We spent the next day doing some research at the museum to get the low-down on the history of the island, then had a wander up to the volcanic crater of Rano Kao which was really impressive and has fresh water supply so really ...

... the road crossed over the Iko's Trench to the other side of the island, to Bahia de La Perouse which reminded me of the sad tale of this captain and his ill fated round the world expedition. The pavement ended shortly, the heat increased and I was really glad to arrive to Anakena Beach, finally, the only official swimming beach on the island. Swimming it was indeed, with all the visual attributes of the tropical paradise: white sand ...

We verlaten het merengebied en gaan verder met onze tocht naar het noorden, via de rio Bio Bio naar Concepcion, de tweede grootste stad van Chile waar we een afspraak hebben met Dania, een weerzien voor Constanza 18 jaar later. Een kort bezoek aan de stad, enorm druk. Daarna samen met Dania haar familie een gezellige avond met lekker (en veel) eten - BBQ met heel lekker vlees.

... as it is amazingly barren, given that it has to be fairly tropical it was surprising how little plant life and animal life there was. There is a thought that there used to be a lot of trees and they were all cut down to move the Moais from the quarry to where they were raised but there is no definitive explanation for it. I was also very surprised that there were no seals or sea lions on the shore, in fact the only animals that we saw a lot of were ...

... really hard work, particularly in the old days, when the shifts were long and conditions hard. The mine is called "El Chiflon del Diablo" ´which refers to the wind that ventilates the mine, in some places the temperatture is cold and other it is hot, dependng on whether there is wind or not! Now the mine has closed, unfortunately the town is quite poor due to high unemployment. The town itself is full of character though so it has good prospects for the future.

With just a little trepidation I looked out over the waiting crowd for Ricardo. Would he be very different after 20 years? No. Just the same. My short hair caused a moment of hesitation from the other side of the glass but no more than that. Where do you start after being out of contact with one of the most important people of your university years for so long. Well, 'You look just the same' is probably not original but it was what I said.

... in many places, seeing lite thru the window of majestic waterfalls (see below). Towering granite face mountains, a kick-ass river, distant peaks - this trail has it all! Below are 3 pictures from the trail. FOTOS BELOW: trail head and Boardman family. The Boardmans live in Paris and daughters Anne-Marie and Rachel are tri-lingual (french, english, spanish). Parents Juanita and ...