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.