Arrived Rapa Nui!
Trip Start
Jan 27, 2008
1
84
112
Trip End
May 12, 2008
Easter Island,
Chile
Sunday, April 13, 2008
The 4.5 hour flight passed quickly, thanks to the onboard entertainment and excellent food. In fact my final game of Tetris was interrupted all too soon as we descended into Hanga Roa. Leaving the plane took longer than it should have as Easter Island is one of those destinations where every passenger and his dog feels compelled to take photographs from the steps and again on the tarmac
Rano Raraku Moai
. The airport is of course, very Polynesian, and every passenger (including hostel cheapskates like myself) is greeted by someone in a pickup of minivan. It´s not long before I spot Gonzalo sporting a board bearing an aproximation of my name. I´m also presented with tasteful shell and feather ley, not something I normally associate with a hostel transfer. In fact I wasn´t even expecting a transfer. I tell Colin I´ll meet him later (he´s staying in a posher joint with a pool just up the road) and head out to the car park along with with the Chilean family also booked at the Kona Tau hostel. It´s not long before I spot Colin shuffling out, with his driver, and sporting a very fetching pink floral ley. He is oblivious to the fact as I suspect he´s still a bit deafened by the landing, but he does look just a bit a bit gay.
Gonzalo extends the 2 minute drive to the hostel with a 15 minute guided tour of Hanga Roa, helpfully telling how many blocks we are from the hostel at any given point. I´m disorienated by this but I do get my first glimpse of a moai platform near the harbour, now I have really arrived at Easter Island.
After meeting some of my fellow guests at the hostel I wander off to meet Colin at his hotel
Moai and Me
. Whilst there he tells me there has been a mix up with his tour bookings which means we won´t have a free day to hire a jeep. He thought he had booked 1 full day tour and 2 half days on a morning and afternoon basis but these were in fact split over two days. I had elected not to take tours but would now have to change my plans.We walked into town in an effort to orientate ourselves and eventually found our way to the harbour where a soccer match was in progress on the town´s nearby lumpy pitch. The game had drawn quite a crowd so we decided to grab a burger and join them.
We were both beginning to feel the heat but pressed on with two cans of Cristal at a nearby restauarant. Colin was fading faster than me, exhausted by today´s flight and the preceding days hike from the Falklands. Was it only yesterday that I was shivering the doorway at Mount Pleasant airport? I guess it was.
I suggested we head back but after a coffee at Cafe Raa which I later learned from scanning the Rough Guide was about the only place on the islñand where one can get a decent filter coffee. A young American sitting at a nearby table finished his coffee and cake and was soon replaced by a bespectacled German and, I guess, his elderly mother
The Classic Moai Image
. They conversed with the waitress staff in the common tongue, broken English. Cakes and juice were ordered. The guy seemed slightly edgy, and his clothes and manner were both very unrelaxed. He appeared to be wearing his work shoes too. Maybe the trip was being made under duress or perhaps, I thought to amuse myself, he was on the run after committing a number of bizarre serial killings in the Ruhr Valley.I headed back to my hostel, and Colin nto his hotel. The hostel is set around a courtyard with a covered terrace on three sides. The property is set in lush gardens and shaded by banana plants and palms. I had a twin en suite dorm, not bad as I had paid for a 4 bed dorm. Until now it looked like I was having it to myself but I was later joined by room mate Kyll (pronounced Kill) from Belgium. Kyll had been out for the day with Emma from High Wycombe, Julie (not her real mane) from Vietnam and Barbara from Durham. After a bit of natter I headed out to see Colin at about 9pm. We sat by the pool drank a couple of Cristals and made friends with stray kittens. I headed back through the dusty half lit streeta at around 10.30pm accompanied by barking dogs and an unbelievably beautiful canopy of stars.
