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!
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