May 2013 – Jul 2013

Continuing on, we went up to the ceremonial village of ‘ORongo, located on the southwest tip of the island.

I say ceremonial, because nobody ever lived here.

Yes that’s right, the Rapa Nui built a giant village with 53 stone huts on the side of a cliff and they never ever inhabited it.

Then again their ancestors deforested their entire island down to the last tree in order to transport giant rock maoi across the entire place that they then later took upon themselves to topple and face plant, so why am I surprised in the slightest?

Once a year all the tribes of the island would gather at ‘Orongo for the annual manutara race.  The *manutara *(or Sooty Tern) is a small sea faring bird laying an even smaller egg.  These birds came by to Easter Island once a year to nest, squawking furiously in the process to announce their arrival.

These birds then hung out on Moto Iti, Moto Kao Kao and Moto Nui, a set of small islands off of Easter Island, and the people of Rapa Nui would hold a contest to find the first egg on these islands.

It was a messy kind of a race.  Each tribe and their king would appoint a representative, and over a several day contest, the representative would start from the village, climb down the cliff, swim across shark infested waters, climb up to the islands, scramble furiously to find a tiny egg, and somehow make it back across the channel with the egg intact without dying, tripping, falling or getting killed by the fellow contestants.  After all, everything was fair game up to the point the winner was declared.

Wow it is serious.

So about those rock huts?

They were built to protect the kings during the race so that rival tribes who of course hated each other wouldn’t try to assassinate one another at night.  The kings only used these huts to sleep in for the 3-4 days once a year.

Of course I wondered -

Why not just kill everyone by smoking them in the hut?

What about during the day when everyone is out watching the race?

Or on arrival or on departure?

And to think, this contest happened yearly.

I am confused.

Crazy rituals.

Today we did a morning tour.

I wasn’t really sure I wanted to go on a tour, but by the time I woke up I was already in a bag and voices in spanish and english could be heard.  I guess I was going on a tour.

Our first stop was Ana Kai Tangata, one of the hundreds of caves littered around the island.

This cave was extra special.

First it was a ceremonial cave.  The cave walls were lined with petroglyphs that were painted using shark oil and clay.  That’s hardcore.

Second during the dark period some tribe folk would hide in this cave and hunt down passing humans.

And eat them.

Nicholas tried to tell me that bears eat humans too.  One swift smack later, he remembered that spirit bears are a hot cocoa and chocolate consuming kind of bear. Cannibalism and human eating just sounds all too messy.

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!

I said we were the only humans + 1 bear there.

I didn’t say we didn’t have company.

As is standard fare with all of Chile there were many a perro to keep us company.

This one was amusing.

I even took a selfie with him.

Nicholas thinks he was trying to eat me.  Bad perro.

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.

Yeah I’d say we got pretty good front row seats.

“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 like this place.

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.

I think I’m going to enjoy this week.

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.

What’s that saying again?  – “You don’t snooze, you lose?”

You get up to get a drink?  My spot!  My bed!

Not a single person stopped to give me a ride.  Jerks!

Oh well I had a comfy premium cama seat all to myself on a Turbus back to Antofagasta anyway.

I got to watch Premium Rush and Star Wars Episode III on the bus.

Maybe that wasn’t better after all.