Hanga Roa

Our trip to Rapa Nui was absolutely amazing. It was a must needed break from school (we don't get a spring break, so the semester just seems to go on forever.) It was Iván's first time on a plane, and I personally think he got pretty spoiled. The flight was about 5 hours, all of them over the ocean (obviously). We had seat back TVs and they gave us a full on meal.

Here's our airplane. There are not "gates" at the airport, just one long strip of tarmac. That's because there's not a whole lot of air traffic: there is one flight from Peru, one flight from Santiago, and one flight from Tahiti. And not every flight goes every day. It is probably the most relaxed airport I have ever seen. You can practically walk up to where the planes taxi and take-off/land. And, of course, we had to do the old walk out on the tarmac and climb up the stairs to the plane in this airport.

 When we arrived, we were greeted by this dance show! Pretty cool, a typical dance to welcome us to the island. I think we just got lucky, because there was someone from the government on our plane so they wanted to show off a little. Rapa Nui is part of the Polynesian chain of islands, like Hawaii, but while the decorate with flowers in Hawaii (for example, their skirts and what not are made with tropical materials), in Rapa Nui they use a lot more feathers (not their outfits). The climate is also not tropical, like in Hawaii, but a lot more dry. However, it is possible to note some similarities (I think hypothetically they both stem from the same ancestors).

This is one of two fake moai that they had at the camping we stayed at. We were greeted at the airport with flower leis plus flowers for our hair (for the ladies), hence, the decoration. After wearing them ourselves, we attached them our tent to decorate for the rest of week.

Since we arrived in the afternoon, we decided to explore the town and the nearby coastline on the first day. Of course, I was pretty stoked when we came around the first bend in the road and I could spot the first set of real moai. (Extra points if you can spot them in the picture.) We put on swimsuits in hopes of having a quick dip into the water--even though the best beach is on the other side of the island, there are two swimming spots in town--and headed out on the road. Where we were staying was on the outskirts of town. It was about a 15 minute walk to the town center along the coast or a 10 minute walk if you walked through town on the main street. We usually opted for the coastline because it was really beautiful, and we were on vacation, so we weren't in any sort of hurry to get anywhere. 

Here's the main road that went along the coast. We got to know it fairly well, walking to and from town. And, of course, we brought a soccer ball :)

These were the first real moai we encountered (not the same ones pictured above). They are right in the middle of town (well, sort of, I mean, there on the coast in the middle of town). These two are a bit more worn down than a lot of the other ones, but it was extremely exciting to have our first encounter with a real moai after reading about them for months before our trip.

This is the main little bay where everyone parks there boats (hence, all the brightly colored boats). It's also one of the main swimming spots in town because it has a mini-beach and the water is nice and calm. I only went into the water for a few minutes before wimping out because it was fairly cool and the temperature outside was getting colder as well.

After hanging out at the beach for a little bit and seeing that part of town, we headed to other end of town where there are several ahu (moai platforms). There are 3 ahu--one with 6 moai and 2 with one moai each. The one that is pictured above is the only moai on the island that still has eyes. Apparently at one point, most of them had eyes. However, most of their eyes have fallen out by now because they are rather fragile (made out of coral). I think I like them better without eyes anyways, it's like they're always watching you when they have them...creepy. Oh, and most of them used to have the "hat" on their heads as well, but a lot of them have fallen off/were never replaced by the archaeologists when they were fixing up the moai. There is a debate about what the "hats" actually represent, but more on that later at the "hat" factory. 

Of course, we decided to stay for sunset since the sun sets right behind the 6 moai. It was a pretty amazing sight. I really liked this ahu. Just sitting in front of it and looking out at the moai and the ocean and thinking. It was pretty peaceful. I also like how on this ahu there are moai of all different states of repair/disrepair (however you want to look at it). And, how you can tell that each one is unique in how it looks.

Here's a picture of the whole complex. The nearest moai is the one with eyeballs, the farthest ones are the 6 together. And, you can kind of see the town in the distance.

Ever since our first day arriving on the island I fell in love with it. The people are very nice (although I've heard if you try and stay they can become not-so-nice), and the whole island is so calm and laid back, but at the same time everyone works really hard at what they do. It never seems like anyone's in a  hurry and they just take things as the come.

The end of an adventure: Bogotá

Bogotá was our last stop on our summer adventure. I have to say, it was probably my least favorite of the places we visited (besides some of the little towns in Peru, but those we didn't go to for the towns, we went to for the ruins, which were awesome). I think part of it was that it was overcast most of the time we were there, giving it sort of a depressing feel, part of it was I was little bit sick (stomach issues, the usual travel problems) and part of it was I was really ready to get back to Santiago, be home again and see the people who I had been missing all summer long. However, that is not to say that I didn't enjoy the time I had in Bogotá. We mostly stayed around the neighborhood where our hostel was, going to a few museums and just wandering the streets to take in the city.

During our trip, we got really into set lunch menus. They were always the best deal and gave you a lot of food which was usually pretty good. Our first day in the city, we had a little trouble finding some place to eat because we got in during the late afternoon--after the regular lunch time but still not dinner time (aka, a lot of restaurants are closed). And, Colombia is more expensive than everywhere else we had been, so a lot of the prices we saw just seemed ridiculous. However, we finally settled on a restaurant that seemed to have a decent menu a decent price. And, I was happy to see this sign:

Breath peacefully, this space is free of cigarette smoke :)

One of the cool things about South American cities in general is the cool street art (see, you can call it street art when it's graffiti with style, not just big, ugly, tags done my different gangs). In my opinion, it helps brighten up the city and discourages people from drawing other things on the walls that wouldn't be as aesthetically pleasing.

Another thing I love about Latin America are the brightly-colored buildings. This is not to say that everywhere is this way. For example, downtown Santiago is your more run-of-the-mill big city gray buildings. However, if you go outside of the city, or to some of the neighborhoods, there are lots of colors. (This is also not to say that there aren't some brightly colored buildings in the states either. take my house, for example, bright yellow with the bright blue front door :) Everything is just more fun with a little bit of color.) The neighborhood we were staying in had lots of brightly colored buildings. It helped cheer me up a little with the dull gray skies that seemed to be the weather in the city. Some o the buildings even had really cool patterns, in additions to their cool colors, like this one:

Now, I have to say, this building I did not understand. I saw it sticking out from a few blocks away and dragged Maya over to it so we could check it out. It was a candy-cane church! Or at least, that's my interpretation. So, random, in the middle of Bogotá, because everything else in that area was a gray/brown color. I liked the vibe it added to the neighborhood. 

This was our hostel. It was a really cute little place with lots of cool people staying at it. We actually even met another girl who was doing an exchange a La Catolica from Germany.

The main church on the square. It's just so...ominous looking.

One of the main government buildings. It even has scary gargoyle-bird things on top. The plaza is nick-named plaza of the pigeons...I'm sure you can see why. 

The city is built up into the mountain sides, so a lot of the streets are on hills. Our hostel was at the top of one of the hills, so we always got plenty of exercise walking hope after our adventures.

We never actually got the chance to go up on this hill because we were only in the city for a few days. But I thought it was kind of cool how it looked like the church was actually IN heaven.

Looking up the street from our hostel towards the mountains.

Our first stop in the city was the Gold Museum. Maya was really looking forward to it (she specializes in Latin American studies, so she knows all about the ancient cultures. This means that as I go meticulously through the museum reading all the signs carefully and getting as much information out of it as I can, she goes through appreciating every piece of artwork, already knowing what the sign says. Result? She ends up waiting like an hour for me at the end. Thanks for the patience Maya :) ) Anyways, mos the museums with indigenous artwork focus on pottery with a few gold and silver pieces. This place was packed full of gold pieces, with a few pottery pieces. Apparently it was a hot item for ancient Colombians. It's a really nice, modern museum with lots of interesting information and beautiful relics.

Here are a few of my favorite pieces from the museum.

A gold conch shell:

A gold necklace-type-jewelry. It's amazing how intricate they could make the pieces, even though they were fairly small.

Some sort of headpiece (I think). I still don't know how they managed to stay standing with huge chunks of gold on their head, in their ears, in their nose, around their neck...

I think I have a weird mummy obsession. The fascinate me and creep me out all at the same time. They always look so...pained in their afterlife. Maybe it's because they have to skin left on their face, so their teeth just look creepy.

Colombian sweets. Of course I had try one after seeing the little carts selling them on every street corner. You got two wafer-ish cookies, and then you got to pick what you put inside. Mine included sprinkles, condensed milk, and caramel. Yummy.

On our last day we had until the late evening to get to the airport, so we decided to head out to a local art museum that someone at the hostel had suggested to us. This is my interpretation of colonial religious at (they always have this expression in the paintings, I swear). Anyways, I'm not a huge art fan, but the museum itself was beautiful and it had all kinds of art, so I definitely enjoyed it all the same.

A famous Colombian artist, Fernando Botero. He reinterprets famous works of art, with an interesting twist. Maya didn't like it much, it just made me giggle a little. Interesting style. He actually also did a collection on Abu Gharib which is on loan in Santiago right now, and which is fairly interesting. Anyways, here's his interpretation of the Mona Lisa.

Our last day in Bogota, we decided to get Mexican food (very Colombian, right?) We had been trying to go the restaurant ever since we saw it after we arrived, but it was always closed. However, we finally went when it was open. And it was worth the wait. It was the best mexican food I have had all year :) (one thing, Chile's food, in general, is not the greatest. There's just a lack of variety).

After a few days in Bogota it was back to the airport and back to Santiago. I had somehow managed to find a direct flight, which I was really happy about. So, even though I left about 2 hours after Maya, I got in before her since I didn't have to change planes. The Bogota airport, past security, is one of the worst international airports I have ever been in. There was 1 restaurant. I'm not kidding. Like 3 teeny-tiny shops plus like two coffee stands. And the internet reception was intermittent. Needless to say, after Maya left, I was pretty bored.

However, once we boarded the plane, I was happy to be on my way (to my other) home.

Paradise Found: Parque Nacional Tayrona

One of our very last stops on our trip was Parque Nacional Tayrona in Colombia. I had been looking forward to this part of the trip since we started planning. Partly because it just looked gorgeous in the photos and sounded amazing in the travel book, and partly because everyone who we met told us it was just astounding. It definitely lived up to my expectations. It was the perfect, beach paradise I had been waiting for the entire trip (well, Ecuador did a pretty good job fulfilling that roll as well). Tranquil, no city, no cars, just pure, untouched, paradise. I have a thing for national parks, they just never seem to disappoint. Lots of outdoor activities and beautiful scenery, two of my favorite things.

Anyways, we first had a brief stopover in Taganga, a cute little beach town that is the launching point (along with the it's bigger next door neighbor, Santa Marta) for going to the park. There are a couple of options for getting there: bussing from town and then hiking (which takes a good amount of time), taxi to the park entrance then hiking, taxi to the park entrance then horses, or boating. We did a little bit of everything. On our way there, we decided to take the boat because it went straight from Tangaga to the part of the park where we wanted to stay (which, if you go by land is the farthest beach away, but if you go by boat, is the closest). 

Here is the bay at Tanganga. We went in one of those little boats. The water looks nice and calm, right? WRONG. I had NO IDEA the the Caribbean Sea could be SO choppy! In the bays, it's pretty calm, but as soon as you head to "open sea" (if that's possible in the Caribbean), there are some gigantic waves. Or so they seem when you're in a tiny little boat, they probably actually weren't that big. Luckily, only one person in our boat got sea sick and it wasn't Maya or me. And, she wasn't sitting next to me haha. I had wanted to have my camera out to take pictures along the way, but the driver really stressed that we should stow EVERYTHING except for ourselves in the covered part of the boat because things tended to get wet. He wasn't exaggerating. When we got off the boat it looked like we had been swimming in the sea with our clothes on, instead of just on a boat. It was kind of fun, but after about an hour of it, I was ready to just be there and stop thumping down from waves. However, it was all worth it because we saw these little guys:

Flying fish! I had never seen them before (at least that I can remember). When I first saw them jumping next to the boat I had no idea what they were. But then I started looking closer and I realized that they were fish, flying next to us. Usually they jumped out in groups, otherwise they would have been really hard to see because the blended almost perfectly with the color of the water. However, whenever we would crash off of another wave, I would lose site and have to keep a close look out to find another group. When we pulled up to our stopping point we saw something like this (we were actually one pay over, so it was a little more populated because it's where everyone camps):

This is the beach that was about a 5 minute walk away from the campground. It was awesome. Serene, beautiful, nice water. We spent a lot of time here, enjoying swimming in the water, reading, journaling and taking in the scenery. I think I could have stayed here forever, it's pretty much my definition of perfect.

Perfect blue water, perfect green trees, perfect off-white sand, and my dress awkwardly hanging off the tree...all untouched by urbanization. This is just a small snapshot of the natural beauty that we saw. And, as usual, the camera definitely doesn't do it enough justice. But, at least it can give you some sort of idea.

One thing everyone had warned us about was food. There's only one restaurant at the campground and it's really expensive, plus there's no place to cook. So, before we left Tanganga, Maya and I loaded up on foods we could make without cooking. We got pretty creative, I was impressed. With our planning ahead, we only had to eat one meal per day in the restaurant (we figured it would be nice to have one proper meal per day) and it also made it a lot easier to wander around during the day, because we never had to come back to the restaurant to eat, we could just take some food with us. However, we did occasionally splurge on these delicious fresh fruit juices. I fell in love with them. I'm convinced that they would go out into the jungle in the morning and pick the fruits to make juice later on that afternoon. My other favorite part of the restaurant was journaling at the tables when it was closed (the kitchen was only open during certain hours, but the tables were always out). Every evening when we got back from our daily adventure we would pick the one that was closest to the beach so we could have the best view of the sea and hear the soft crash of the waves. There was no internet or anything like that, so it was just us, whoever we decided to talk to that night, our journals and our books. Quite a relief, sometimes, to be cut off from the rest of the world. There is a lot less responsibility involved :)

Now, here's one of the interesting parts of Tayrona: the main sleeping accommodations are the hammocks pictured above. I had heard a lot of mixed reviews about them from other travelers. The main general consensus tended to be that they were fun for the first night, okay for two nights, and after that you really needed to find some other accommodations. Well, we spent two nights and three days in the park. Both of our nights were spent in the hammocks. We tried to get a tent, because they were supposedly a lot more comfortable, but they were all reserved. So, to the hammocks it was! They weren't too bad, I definitely prefer them for day-time lounging, but it did the trick for sleeping. We, luckily, had our sleeping bags. A lot of people didn't think to bring something warm to wrap up in at night because they assumed that because it was hot and humid during the day, it was going to be the same at night. Not the case, it definitely cooled off. However, Maya and I stayed nice and toasty in our sleeping bags. The other downside were the bugs. They liked to attack us while we were sleeping. So we took to putting bug spray on our faces right before we went to sleep and making sure the rest of our bodies were inside our sleeping bags; it ended up being a fairly effective strategy.

One of the days, I went on a walk along the beaches. What I hadn't realized was that each little bay had it's own little "development" (aka, tents and usually some sort of indoor accommodations as well as a little restaurant). Ours was the known cheap backpackers beach. And, in my opinion, it was the nicest. Not to say the rest of the coastline wasn't equally as stunning. Every time I came out into another bay I was awed by the landscape. And, during the inland parts, it was hiking through forests of palm trees. Above is a little slice of one of the beaches.

This is what the palm tree forest look like...so green!

One of the days, we decided to take a hike up to the village of Pueblito. Both of us thought that it was an indigenous village that was still populated, not so, it was an abandoned village. The ruins were somewhat unimpressive compared to everything we had seen in Peru. However, it was still fun to see them. And, the hike up to the village was awesome. It was pure jungle, with some great ocean views along the way. It was pretty tiring, because it was straight up hill the whole way. And, there were some parts we had to pretty creative about how we were going to continue because there would be a couple of giant boulders that we would have to climb over. Plus, it was hot and humid out, not exactly the most desirable climate for going for a long hike in. Along the way there were little trail markers that would tell us how much we had walked and how much we had left to walk, which was kind of nice. We had heard some stories about people getting robbed on the path, so we decided to leave our cameras and other valuables at camp. Except, of course, we both brought a little bit of money to hand over the robbers should we happen to be caught in the situation (we tried to come up on what was the right amount to bring. How much is too little, so they will get mad and hurt you anyways? But how much is too much, because obviously we don't want to give them more than necessary. I think we ended up settling at about $20 each). Luckily, we had no problems. Oh, and our water of course. However, we also had no pictures, so I stole these ones from google (thank you, world wide web). One of the most exciting parts of the trip (apart from the blue footed boobies...I have an animal thing) was seeing a little anteater! In the wild! I had only seen the giant anteater before in zoos. But, apparently they come in all shapes and sizes and colors. Another guy who was making the hike explained to us that it was the normal size for that species (we thought it might be a baby), and they lived in the park. I think we were pretty fortunate to be able to see it, I don't think too many people get that opportunity. We stood watching it for about 10 minutes (it was up on a tree branch, hanging out and eating), before it finally ran way in the trees. It was a nice little break from our hike and a nice gift from nature.

After not too terribly long, we ended up at Pueblito (we ended up passing quite a few people on the way up. It think it was all of our high altitude hiking training). It was mostly the ruins of some little round houses, some with thatched roofs, and little stone path running through the middle of it. We took advantage of arriving at the village to take a short break and drink some water and eat a little snack. Then, we decided to go back down the other way, to make a full circle loop instead of seeing the same thing on the way down (plus, I'm not really sure how we would have scaled some of the boulders the opposite way). The way down was equally as jungly and beautiful. However, we ended on the nudist beach (which, we had forewarning about because other tourists have kindly graffitied on the signs leading down to that beach, things to the effect of CAREFUL: WAY TO NUDIST BEACH). The beach was beautiful, and hung out for a while (fully clothed), but then decided to head back to camp and go to the non-nudist beach to enjoy a little bit more beach time. During the hike, we also saw a ton of different species of butterflies. They were all brightly colored and beautiful. I remembered we counted how many different kinds, but now I can't remember, I think it was something like 8, just in a half-day hike.

On the way back to Taganga, we decided to take the hiking route out. The majority of it is along the bays, passing through the different camp areas. It was absolutely beautiful. I'm glad we decided to do it that way, because we got to see a lot of the park and enjoy the last bit of beach. Luckily, the hostel where we were staying in Taganga had let us leave some of our stuff there, so we only had to bring the necessities and valuables, making it a much more pleasant backpacking trip. 

The Welcome to Parque Nacional Tyrona sign, complete with a little map of all the camps.

The first site that you pass by if entering by land (for us, the last sight before the trek out to the highway), is by far the most upscale. It has little cabins with electricity, bathrooms that supply toilet paper (in our camp you had to bring your own, thank goodness someone warned us of that. Although, by that point in the summer I was used to carrying a role with me wherever I went because a lot of bathrooms do not supply it) and two restaurants to pick form, as well as food stands. Pretty classy for the middle of nowhere (and I even think it was "eco-friendly"). After the beach part was a jungle trek out to the road. However, once we rounded the bend from the bays onto the last stretch, we saw that there were some horses available. We decided to take advantage of their services. It was quite interesting trying to ride the horses with our giant backpacks, but we made it work. It took us about an hour to get out on horseback, so I can't imagine how long it would have taken us hiking (although, the owner of the horses jogged along side us the whole time, pretty impressive). It was a nice green, shady ride, and we saw some cool critters along the way. 

Maya and me on our respective horses. Mine wanted to be the leader. From the back, it just look like our backpacks were riding the horses.

Once we arrived at the stopping point of the horses, we realized there was about another 30-45 minute walk to get out the main road and catch the bus. However, some other people had just arrived at the park in a taxi, so we decided to take that back to Tanganga rather than walking and then riding the bus. There was a bit of a misunderstanding about how much it would cost, but everything worked out okay and we made it safely back to the hostel. Of course, when we got back, the whole town was without power. We thought it would be a temporary few-hour thing, but it ended up lasting until about 11pm that night, by which time I was fast asleep, so I didn't even realize it until the next morning. However, we still had fun. During the day, we went down to the little beach in town (which was just so, inadequate, after being in the park) because it was really hot, but since there was no electricity, there were no fans. So, we took advantage of being close to the water and went swimming to escape the heat. At nighttime, we enjoyed the hostel by candlelight and most of the restaurants down by the beach had generators so we were able to eat. 

While we were down at the beach we saw a few of these guys swimming around: sea slugs. The ones we saw were brown-ish, though, not green like this one. They were kind of creepy and kind of cool all at the same time. The little kids, who ended becoming our best friends on the beach, or so they thought haha, were running through the water trying to catch them, sometimes actually being successful. 

After an amazing couple of days in Tanganga and Parque Nacional Tyrona, we were off to our last destination of the trip: Bogotá. We flew from Santa Marta to Bogotá, which I'm very glad about, I only heard horror stories about how long and miserable the bus ride was. So...that's up next!

First encounters on Rapa Nui

Well, I know I haven't quite finished blogging about my summer adventures yet. Well, I actually I have a lot left to blog about for my summer adventures seeing as it was three months worth of wonderful visits and trips. But, I want to share with everyone "real time" about Easter Island. So I'm jumping ahead to now...my big trip to Rapa Nui/Easter Island.

On Thursday morning at 5:45 in the morning the alarm went off to wake up in time to catch the metro and then the airport bus out to the airport. Ivan and I got up (luckily everything had been prepared the night before) grabbed our stuff, made sure everything was closed up, and headed for the metro. The walk from the apartment to the metro station seemed to take FOREVER, probably because I was carrying about 20 pounds of food and one of the tuna cans kept digging into my leg.

Oh yeah, we had three suitcases-one with clothes, and two with food. Everyone tells you to bring as much food as you come when coming to the island because it's really expensive here...and it's true, everything costs about double. Anyways, we made our way to the metro, then to the airport bus and finally to the airport. Our check in was a little weird, because even though it is technically a national flight, we checked in at Lan's international counter because there are some people who leave Chile on the flight, with only a short layover on Rapa Nui, and there is no customs counter on the island.

After check in, we proceeded to security. I walked Ivan through everything (it was his first time flying!), which was a little weird because I'm so used to everyone automatically knowing what to do. He set of the metal detector because he was wearing his boots that would make through just about anything, so he had to be wanded. But, after that, we made it through and I taught him how to find your gate on the TV monitor and then find your gate following the signs. We found our friend Pauline sleeping in the seats outside our gate. We dropped off some of our carry-on's with Pauline and then headed over to Starbucks and Cinnabun (I don't normally allow myself to spend money on Starbucks coffee because it is pretty expensive, but I'm on vacation...why not spring for a good coffee ;) ) We watched airplanes take off and land from the window and walked around the terminal (which is not very big) so Ivan could get to know it. Then, it was time to board so we headed back to the gate to get our seats.

It was a big plane 2-3-2, and we got our own seatback TVs. We also got a hot breakfast...I think Ivan was pretty spoiled on his first flight and now he's going to be disillusioned as to how nice flying is ;) (Although I have to say, flying in South America is defintiely nicer than flying in the states).

When we were arriving to the island, the pilot did a nice swing around the whole thing so that we could fully appreciate the aereal view. The airport is tiny. There is only space for one plane and there are no gates...they just put the stairs up to the plane and you walk down them and across the tarmac to the "airport" aka the one room where all the hotels are waiting to pick you up and the baggage is dropped. When we got off the plane, we were greeted by Rapa Nui traditional dancers with live music. It was pretty cool. Our hostel greeted us with fresh flower leis; after everyone was ready, we all loaded up for the 5 minute drive back to the hostel. Anyways, I don't have pictures of our stay, but here are some I found on the internet of things we've done thus far.

Here's where we are, that tiny little white dot. The most remote inhabited island in the world. We are 2,180 miles from the coast of Chile, 1,289 miles from the next closest island that is inhabited (which, according to wikipedia has all of 100 or so people living on it), and 2,630 miles from Tahiti, the next major civilization to the west. 

Here's Rapa Nui. It's triangular shaped (as evidenced by the picture) and only 15.3 miles by 7.6 miles--basically you can walk the whole island. That, and there are only two roads out of town. Hanga Roa is the only town on the island and about 5,100 people live here. The best thing: wherever you go, there are moai :)

This is one of the moai of Ahu Tahai, which is right outside of town. It's the only moai that still has eyes (apparently more of them used to have eyes). 

This was the first moai we saw. It's right by a little beach in town. Like I said, there are moai everywhere. But each one is unique and different.

A sea turtle like the ones I saw! The water is crystal clear around the island, so we could easily see the three sea turtles that were swimming in the bay. There were two "normal" size giant sea turtles and one that was huge! I had never seen a turtle so big in my life.

I also saw two unpuffed puffer fish...I don't think I've ever seen them before either. I wanted to reach out and touch it to make it puff up, but thought that might be a little mean.

On our first two days (Thursday, the day we arrived in the afternoon, and Friday) we wandered around town and the surrounding area. We got to see the sun set behind the moai at Ahu Tahai (there is one Ahu with 5 moai together, plus 2 free standing ones) which was a pretty spectacular sight. We took a little dip in the water (a bit chilly, but since it's pretty warm out, it feels nice), ate some delicious ice cream, and visited the town's museum to get a better idea of the history of the island. However, since the town is fairly small, and once you've been to the museum, beach, main street, and moai close by, it's time to head out, so that's what we did!