Christmas at Easter

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  Easter Island, Chile
Saturday, December 22, 2007

Iorana (or 'bout ye) in Rapa Nui lingo

Easter Island is like that city on the banks of the River Foyle, it has 3 names.........depending on your..... er..... persuasion. Easter Island in English, Isla de Pascua in Spanish and Rapa Nui in Polynesian.

It is part of Chile and is located over 3000 Km off the coast of the continent. It is really famous for the amazing statues (Moai) that are located all over the island............I'm sure you've seen them:

stone features, grumpy bake, big chin........a bit like Big Ian..........Oh Yesssss,I mean NEVER!

In hindsight getting to see our first Moai was interesting but things were about to get VERY interesting indeed..........

Between a rock and a hard case

.

Our first night in the cabaņa was, shall we say a bit crowded. We had booked a room for two and ended up sharing it with a cast of thousands! On entry I killed about 10 cookroaches Yukkkkk. We then scoured the room looking for any more of the wee darlings. Thinking the coast was clear we went to sleep with sheets tucked into our ears.

Of course the inevitable happened and oul slackbadder Redus needed to go for a jimmy in the middle of the night.............well I got up and looked like someone of Crime Scene Investigates CSI.........creeping about with my torch, looking into all the corners before doing a tiny-tim-tip-toes into the bathroom.

All in all 15 of our Chernobyl sized friends got the Felipe-flip-flop treatment on the first night. Next morning I spoke to the hallion that run the place and he was apologetic and after a long debate agreed that he would spray the place and if we saw even one more he would give us our entire money back.

Well he must have sprayed the place with Blue Stratos.........because the place was CRAWLING with them.............hundreds everywhere

Deck the hills.....

. He actually had to swipe them off the door so we could even get into the room!!!!! Once in we did the CSI bit, killed a few and exhausted hit the hay.

The next morning he was nowhere to be seen unlike the 100's of tatty bread coockys. we had to go on our tour of the Moai,so after 2 hours of knocking his door and calling his name we headed off.

The tour of the Moai was fantastic and very interesting.It turned out we were the only 2 English speakers who had booked so we had a guide to ourselves, Sergio Rapu, he was knowledgeable but not in a professor type way.

On our way back Rapu took us to the tourist info place, where we relayed the story and everyone agreed he should refund us the money. We phoned yer man from the tourist office but he wasn't for budging, no refund, no nothing. So the 2 women from the tourist place came up with us mostly for moral support but also because they knew the number for the ambulance!!!!

After a long drawn out saga, accusations, denials, and counter claims........yer man's mates arrive "the heavies" I'm not joking it was like the extras from Crimewatch.....the Brothers Grimm and Grimmer

Don't lose the head

. So at the end of it, the bloke storms off and carries on swigging back bottles of the hard stuff with the brain surgeons (I mean the O levels were oozing out of these guys!). At this point the tourist woman says, listen they are bad dudes and heavy duty villians, get offside pronto! We mentioned the Police and she gave a "wooof" type noise and shook her head.

We explained that without the refund we couldn't afford to go anywhere............she then offered to LEND us the money as she feared for our safety!!! Enough said, we scarpered and stayed elsewhere, wildlife free. We then managed to change the flight to Santiago, no charge as the woman in LAN Chile felt sorry for us ;-(

So no Easter eggs for breakfast on Christmas day...........

Next stop: Santiago, capital of Chile (and safety hopefully)

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

Get ahead......get a hat	Give us a smile	Going head to head	I can't be more Pacific
Jingle bells, jingle bells	No, I can't believe it's more Moai	Ole blue eyes	Playing statues
The 1st 15	The Moai nursery	Ugly mug	Volcanic crater lake
When the music stops, stand still

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