Remember that time I tried to hitchhike in San Pedro de Atacama?
Well I didn’t even have to stick out a paw this time.
Pokin and Nick were walking back from sunset in the pouring rain while I huddled in the backpack and I guess a guy took pity on us all, pulled over, and offered us a ride.
Coincidentally, he turned out to be the owner of our hotel, and he’s lived on Easter Island his whole life, as did his grandfather and his grandfather’s grandfather.
Only the Rapa Nui are allowed to own land on the island.
So much for my plans for island buying domination for this place.
Well I guess my bear tin funds need some recovery time from being decimated by Nicholas anyway!
So all afternoon it would rain, and then it would look like it wasn’t going to rain anymore. Which was of course a lie because inevitably it rained again.
Which left us with the quandary. One of the main purposes of coming here is of course to see the crazy rock statues constructed by the Rapa Nui (the easter island natives). And of course a most spectacular way to see the Moai would be over a sunset.
I would say indecision got us more soaked than not.
Here we are in-between a rain drenching. (Note ominous rainclouds in the distance)
(Note also Nicholas’ expression of pure joy)
Well eventually we waited long enough that we did get to see it.
Nicholas even perked up a little.
Because it kept raining, we were really lucky to be almost the only people there.
By almost, I mean we were pretty much the only people at Tahai.
“You’re lucky” said our host at the time she picked us up from the airport. “It’s been raining the past few weeks but it looks really nice right now and I think you’ll have beautiful weather all week.”
Well she ought to eat those words. She almost caused me an unnecessary bath.
Cabanas Rapa Nui Orito wasn’t exactly located close to anything, so after I got tired of parading around in my new leis, we packed up and started the 30 minute walk to town.
In that time, the horizon went from light and bright to slightly grey to really grey to grey with definite appearances of impending rain.
I had just enough time to dive back into my plastic bag inside the backpack before a downpour hit everyone.
Fortunately I stayed dry. Can’t say the same for Nicholas or Pokin but at least it was warm. Well at least it was warm for me inside the bag.
They dried up sufficiently by the time we got close to town, and we got to have our first glimpse of the coast up close.
I’m still not sure why airlines ever fly before noon, but at around 6:00 in the morning on Canada Day (I think it was 6:00 because I wasn’t fully conscious), Nicholas rolled me into a bag and we boarded our 8:00am flight for Easter Island.
Despite the early flight time, I arrived in good spirits, though I was mildly bemused and then irritated by the other tourists blocked my path to paradise by posing on the ramp for photos. Of what? The plane? Why?
But my good spirits quickly returned when our hotel, Rapa Nui Orito greeted us at the airport with flower leis.
They made the mistake of putting them on Pokin and Nicholas, and I had to wait for the brief city tour to finish before I could rectify this oversight, but as soon as we got to our rooms I got my leis. :)
I got them right where they are supposed to be.
Around *my *neck.
I climbed a fake tree to show them off. :)
The rooms here seem nice. There’s a mini kitchen to make me hot chocolate and a mini fridge to keep my chocolate from melting.
It’s almost July, and Pokin’s birthday was coming up. My best bear bud and I got to thinking and I thoughtfully suggested that a trip for the 3 of us seemed like the perfect present.
This was really obvious since she likes to travel, I like to travel, and well, Nicholas likes me.
After some quick thinking, we settled on Easter Island. I mean, who doesn’t like sunny days, warm polynesian weather, and random giant rock statues littered across some remote island a 5-6 hour flight away from anything? I suppose also the fact that Pokin did mention more than once that she’d always wanted to go there influenced our decision a little more than a little.
It was settled. I found Nicholas’ credit card and we got booking. And I did a great job on keeping it a secret until the night before. That’s when Nicholas’ reluctant doing-of-the-laundry without prompting made it like a dead giveaway that something was up.
Someone (and let it be known, that someone was neither myself nor Nicholas) had the bright idea of seeing the sun rise over Geysers El Tatio this morning.
It meant getting up at 5:00am.
I was not the biggest fan of that idea.
We were heading to an altitude of 4200m, meaning that it was a balmy temperature of -14oC on arrival.
Nicholas was cold. I was smart, thought ahead, and wore my toque and my tunic.
Well that doesn’t help Nicholas, so I did what every thoughtful bear does and let him hold me to stay warm.
It still didn’t help, so I tried to coax him into warming up in the hot steam of the bubbling geysers.
He was still cold after that. I gave up.
It was maybe worth saying I visited the largest geysers in the southern hemisphere and one of the highest altitude ones in the world. Maybe.
Back in the car and outwards to Salar de Atacama to wrap up the day. This is also where we also got to see some pink birds. More precisely, we saw Andean Flamingos, Chilean Flamingos and James Flamingos.
See pink flamingos outside of the zoo. Check.
See another sunset in San Pedro de Atacama alongside other tourists. Also check.
