Tag Archives: Chile

Onward to Anakena

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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.

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Not only were there beaches, there were also two Ahu (stone platforms on which the Moai rest.)

Nicholas and I with the Anakena Moai

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.

Landing spot

Makes sense to land here.  I would not be a fan of landing on any other part of this rocky volcanic island!

Improved mobility through some car rental action

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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?

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I guess it didn’t matter because Nicholas let me copilot.  I handled the stick shift.

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Drinking water and a crater lake

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And across from ‘Orongo is Rano Kau, an extinct volcano, crater lake and one of 3 fresh water drinking sources on the island.

Drinking water of 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.

Crater rim - not so stable!

That’s some kind of living on the edge.

The birdmen cult, crazy rituals and a village named ‘Orongo

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Caves and courting cannibalism

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

Hitchhiking in a the rain

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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!

Waiting for Godot – or at least a sunset

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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)

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(Note also Nicholas’ expression of pure joy)

Well eventually we waited long enough that we did get to see it.

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Nicholas even perked up a little.

Because it kept raining, we were really lucky to be almost the only people there.

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By almost, I mean we were pretty much the only people at Tahai.

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

Stormy clouds on the horizon

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“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.

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I like this place.

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Welcome to Polynesia aka Rapa Nui (Easter Island)

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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.

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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.