Promptly after sunrise, I fell asleep in the car only to be woken up by horses.
Turns out they were about as excited to see me as I was to have them wake me up by walking near the car.
Herds of wild horses are found minding their own business all throughout the island. ALL throughout the island.
Apparently every single hotel on the island alerted their tourist guests to the fact that Ahu Tongariki is the place to go for sunrise.
Because around 7:30am, all sorts of cars started arriving. In fact, this ended up being the busiest location of all (we came in low season with just about no one - the island gets 65000 visitors a year, almost all in the months between December and February).
Well I felt more comfortable to venture out of the car with all the other sunrise-seeking tourists, so we went and set up station.
Actually though everyone was wrong, the sky didn’t start getting bright till more like 8!
Well, this was almost worth getting up early for. Ahu Tongariki has the most number of Moai on an Ahu in the entire island, including an 86 tonne beast.
The problem with spending time near people who like to take photos is that sometimes, these people want to take photos at some absolutely ridiculous hours.
Take this morning.
I woke up in a car. Apparently we were at Ahu Tongariki waiting for the sunrise.
Problem is, due to the lack of internet and general consensus from the islanders on when sunrise was, Nicholas and Pokin decided to play it safe and get up at 5:30am.
Let’s go on record to say the sun does not get up in the winter on Easter Island at 5:30am.
Anyway, I woke up in a dark car in an empty parking lot.
Well it started empty. Next thing I know our car was surrounded by wild dogs.
They just sat outside the car and waited.
I’m going back to sleep. This isn’t happening.
That evening, Pokin decided she wanted to see a Rapa Nui dance and dinner show at Chez Erica.
Nicholas didn’t really want to go.
I didn’t care either way.
We ended up going.
Part of the show included face painting to make you look fierce.
I have come to the conclusion that no amount of face paint can make Nicholas look fierce.
Part of the show also included audience participation and dancing.
I quickly came to the conclusion I wanted no part of that participation. I stayed in the bag.
Nicholas won a necklace, which I took.
So that was great.
And another time this bear takes sunset photos.
While we were waiting for the sun to set at Anakena (of course we were waiting for the sunset, thanks to Pokin and her want of sunset taking pictures ways), we strolled along the coast to check out more sea caves.
I have previously gone on record to say the way Nicholas wants a man-gaming-cave, I want a bear-gaming cave.
Let me now go on record that my bear-cave shan’t look like this.
It better be warm, comfortable, plush, and fully stocked with chocolate.
Nicholas did you take note?
We had a moment.
It was great.
Well until he tried to make me go back into the bag.
Which we all know that wasn’t happening.
I worked on being persuasive -
I guess it worked.
Voice of reason, this bear is. Voice of reason.
Proud renters of a 4WD in paw and hand, we fetched Pokin and made our way towards Anakena, one of the only 2 white coral sand beaches on the entire island.
Not only were there beaches, there were also two Ahu (stone platforms on which the Moai rest.)
According to Wikipedia, the significance of Anakena is that it was the landing place of Hotu Matu’a, the Polynesian chief who led the original two-canoe settlement party to this island.
Makes sense to land here. I would not be a fan of landing on any other part of this rocky volcanic island!
Later in the afternoon, my best bear bud and I walked to town to rent a car.
For being a low-trust country, it’s certainly not a low-trust island. We paid cash, $60.000 CLP ($120 USD) for 2 days and walked out of Rapa Nui Oceanic with a 4WD. No deposit, no credit card, just my best bear bud’s name and some cold hard cash exchanged.
I guess it’s easy to be trusting when there aren’t a whole lot of ways to smuggle a car off this island.
Along with the 4WD, we also got a map that was nicely marked up for us.
Red roads = ok Blue roads = not ok. Blue roads with hand cross lines across it = definitely really not ok.
After extensive cross analysis between map and legend, we arrived to the conclusion that the only allowed roads for this car were the 2 paved highways of the island.
So why are we in a 4WD again?
I guess it didn’t matter because Nicholas let me copilot. I handled the stick shift.
And across from ‘Orongo is Rano Kau, an extinct volcano, crater lake and one of 3 fresh water drinking sources on the island.
There was a moai overlooking the crater here but the British folk took it, put it on a boat and put it on display in a British museum – in Britain. Ah those brits.
There’s also a growing large crack on the side of the crater that’s threatening to drop the entire village of ‘Orongo into the ocean.
That’s some kind of living on the edge.